Zaha Hadid's first major U.S. commission goes under the microscope in Cincinnati

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of its opening, Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) is staging an exhibition that traces the artistic development and influence of its late designer, Dame Zaha Hadid. 

Hadid’s own paintings and early-career work will be placed in conversation with the work of artists who cite her as an inspiration in a “multi-layered” exhibition organized by Guggenheim Bilbao curator Maite Borjabad. 

Beginning with examples that Borjabad says “created a new aesthetic regime that prefigured digital renderings, [at] a time when those technologies did not even exist,” the exhibition then shifts to a selection of site-specific works especially commissioned by the museum which in turn respond to its “urban carpet” layout and the legacy of the architect, who was the first woman ever to design a major museum in the United States. 

Per the CAC: “This exhibition approaches Hadid’s legacy not as a conclusive overview but rather as a point of departure full of possibilities and reflections. A building, a drawing, or an idea, once emancipated from the author, opens up a range of questions, meanings, and concepts that, while in constant evolution, continue to generate an ecosystem of knowledge. As such, Hadid´s works are not presented as conclusion but as starting points for a selection of artists, performers, and architects to respond to, engaging and evolving towards their own domains and interests. These artists will activate areas throughout the building with site-specific interventions and newly commissioned sound and video works, which will reveal untold readings of the architect’s context and generate new narratives.”

A series of public talks and lectures will accompany the exhibition. The show kicks off on September 22nd and will remain open to the public through January 28th of next year.