OMA Cofounder Zoe Zenghelis Has First Solo Show in U.S. at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art
The name often associated with OMA is Rem Koolhaas. But the influential Dutch architecture firm was actually cofounded in 1975 with three other people: illustrator Madelon Vriesendorp (also Koolhaas’s wife from 1971–2012), architect Elia Zenghelis, and artist Zoe Zenghelis, the latter having her first solo exhibition in the U.S. this spring at Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. “Fields, Fragments, Fictions,” running March 26 to July 24, encompasses 70 Zenghelis paintings and drawings categorized into four areas of practice, including her work in OMA’s early urban projects, such as the firm’s 1975 proposal for the Hotel Sphinx in Times Square, and as co-creator and teacher of the Color Workshop at London’s Architectural Association School of Architecture. That’s where her former husband Elia also taught and had Koolhaas as a student (the four first collaborated together on a 1972 architectural competition submission held by Casabella magazine). Zenghelis employed what she called a “sun-drenched palette” on her OMA colleagues’ aerial perspectives; similar colors inform the independent art practice she launched in 1985 and continues today, at 84 years old. In fact, she created several of the paintings in the CMOA show within the last five years. “My paintings became influenced by my architectural experiences,” she says, “but they work differently as conceptual views of my own world of images. They poeticize the urban environment.” Her approach to artmaking—abstract geometries, assemblies of forms, eruptive hues—and her cultivation of play, discovery, and spatial imagination has played an integral role in the shaping of architectural representation.
read more
Projects
Jorge Pérez’s Private Collection on Display at One Park Grove in Miami by OMA and Meyer Davis
Works from developer Jorge Pérez’s private collection are showcased in the lobby and public areas at One Park Grove, a Miami residential tower by OMA and Meyer Davis.
DesignWire
Nandipha Mntambo’s Furniture Blurs Human and Animal Forms in a New Show at Capetown’s Southern Guild
Transcending Instinct, Eswatini-born and Johannesburg-based artist Nandipha Mntambo’s first solo show for Cape Town’s Southern Guild gallery, on view through April 8th, stretches her expertise into the realm of functi…
DesignWire
Pittsburgh’s Savannah Hayes Makes Vibrant Textiles With Global Influences
Shuttling between London, New York, and other global design centers while working for brands such as Martha Stewart and Kravet, Savannah Hayes perfected her point of view.
recent stories
DesignWire
10 Questions With… Painter Daniel Rich
North Carolina and Berlin-based painter Daniel Rich shares the details behind his geometric interiors and what he sees inside architectural forms.
DesignWire
Behind the Mic: Get to Know Jeremiah Brent
What does Jeremiah Brent, interior designer and host of the Ideas of Order podcast, have to say about home? It turns out, quite a lot.
DesignWire
Design Icon and Hall of Famer Gaetano Pesce Dies at 84
Gaetano Pesce, a visionary designer, artist and sculptor who enchanted the world with his unique sense of materiality, has passed at 84.