Contributing Artists

Michael Rado, Frances Lightbound, and Louis Kishfy

Exhibition Statement as Preserved in the SUGS/SITE Archives:

Topographies of Defense is an exhibition of collaborative site-specific work by Michael Rado (MFA 2016), Frances Lightbound (MFA 2016) and Louis Kishfy (MDes 2016). THe exhibiton examines urban design that primarily functions to discourage, rather than facilitate, human usage. Through subtle interventions of dividing, interrupting, and demarcating architectural elements wihtin the LeRoy Neiman Center gallery, the white cube gallery space becomes a vehicle to examine spatial poitics wihtin th urban environment. Emerging from an EAGER Grant-funded research project of the same name, Topographies of Defense prompts discussion about the implications of body-resistant design, and of the embedding of power systems within objects in public space. The exhibtion enables an examination of typological correlations between particular aesthetic qualtites of defensive architecture and its covert nature: visual languages of minimalism, repetition, and sleek industrial finishes. THese characteristics are seen in skate stops, bench dividers, and in the anti0homeless spikes – that incited protest in London – but can nevertheless be found in an increasing number of cities. Whilst defensive architecture commonly employs materials such as marble, aluminum, patinated copper, pebbled concrete and enameled stainless steel to camouflage with the urban environment, the installations within Topographies of Defense utilize materials specific to the white cube. By forming a familiar visual vocabulary within the gallery, these elements subtly impose certain codes of behavious. Four freestanding planters divide the space of the front third of the gallery. They echo the function of planters in public plazas by providing an aesthetically pleasing focal point, whilst simultaneously inhibiting the gathering of large groups. A gallery bench is bisected by dividers that act as prohibitions to reclining bodies. Lines of anti-slip floor tape form implicit boundaries, whilst imporbably positioned stanchions around the space create physical barriers – both creating ambiguity as to whether it is the viewer or space that is being protected. These site-specific installations examine the formal strategies encountered in our research into defensive architecture, by interupting and making (in)visible the construct of the white cube gallery space so as to speak to the logic of spatial divisions in the broader urban environment. The interventions to the space oscillate between art and architecture, installation and construction, and inviting and inhibiting. Topographies of Defense stems from a broader examination of defensive architecture in the Chicago area. This research can be viewed in an online archive comprising GPS-mapped photographic documentation, short theoretical essays, and an expanding bibliography of texts, projects and other resources relevant to the study of defensive architecture.