Aaron Levy and Bill Menking in Conversation

We, the Unsigned: Dispatches from the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale Aaron Levy and Bill Menking in Conversation Thursday, March 26, 2009 Talk 6:00pm Reception to follow Doors open 5:30pm Admission is free Graham Foundation, Madlener House 4 West Burton Place, Chicago Due to space limitations, please RSVP to [email protected] or 312.787.4071, extension 226. Into the Open: Positioning Practice, the official U.S. pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, the 11th International Architecture Exhibition, will be on view through May 1, 2009 at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons in New York City. The exhibition focuses on the increasing interest in civic engagement in American architectural practice, and examines the means by which a new generation of architects is reclaiming a role in shaping community and the built environment. For more information, visit www.labiennale.us. The exhibition features 16 architectural groups who actively engage communities, responding to social and environmental issues, including shifting demographics, changing geo-political boundaries, uneven economic development, and the explosion of urban migration. These intellectually entrepreneurial actors are designing the conditions from which new architectures can emerge-becoming activists, developers, facilitators of inclusive urban policies, as well as innovative urban researchers. Reaching creatively across institutions, agencies, and jurisdictions, they're negotiating hidden resources in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. Participants include: The Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), Culver City, CA Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), New York, NY Design Corps, Raleigh, NC Detroit Collaborative Design Center, Detroit, MI The Edible Schoolyard/Yale Sustainable Food Project, Berkeley, CA/New Haven, CT Estudio Teddy Cruz, San Diego, CA Gans Studio, New York, NY The Heidelberg Project, Detroit, MI International Center for Urban Ecology, San Diego, CA Jonathan Kirschenfeld Associates, New York, NY Project Row Houses, Houston, TX Rebar, San Francisco, CA Rural Studio, Newbern, AL Spatial Information Design Lab/Laura Kurgan, New York, NY Studio 804, Lawrence, KS Smith and Others, San Diego, CA Into the Open: Positioning Practice, the U.S. pavilion at the 11th La Biennale di Venezia, received a major grant from the Graham Foundation in 2008. Aaron Levy is the Executive Director and Senior Curator of the Philadelphia-based Slought Foundation (www.slought.org), and teaches in the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. His international exhibitions and publications topically intervene in contemporary debates about art and architecture through an informal and collaborative approach. Projects include Cities Without Citizens at the Rosenbach Museum and Library (2003), Into the Open: Positioning Practice, the official U.S. representation at La Biennale di Venezia (2008), Theaters of Transparency at the Neue Galerie, Graz (2009), and Evasions of Power: On the Architecture of Adjustment (forthcoming, 2009). William Menking is the founder and editor of The Architect's Newspaper and is Professor, School of Architecture, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. He has organized, curated and created catalogues for exhibitions on architecture for venues in the U.S. and Europe including: Archigram: Experimental Architecture 1961-1974, Superstudio Life Without Objects, FRAC Orleans: Experimental Architecture 1964-2000, and Into the Open: Positioning Practice, the official U.S. representation at La Biennale di Venezia (2008). He has co-authored an essay Total Living Unit: Joe Colombo and Architecture for the exhibition catalogue on Colombo for the Milan Triennale and organized a symposium on the architecture and video of Ant Farm. He organized and directed the New Practices series of lectures and exhibition at the AIA's New York Center for Architecture. The Graham Foundation is located at the corner of Burton Place and State Street. Red line to Clark/Division. Busses 22, 36, 72, 151. Cecil Balmond: Solid Void has been extended through June 20, 2009. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11:00am-6:00pm.