Marjetica Potrč Permanently unfinished house with cell phone tree

costruzione: cm 230 x 400 x 250; albero h cm 350; dimensione ambiente

Marjetica Potrč initially trained as an architect – in order to make architecture and themes that revolve around it the material of her artistic research. Drawings, design objects, models of buildings made with building materials, thus become real sculptures and installations that could be displayed in museums and galleries. Potrč starts with an analysis called case studies of critical urban settings – and then proposes unusual and alternative solutions that examine the unresolved stumbling blocks in Postmodern architecture: ecological self-sustainability, infrastructure, visual pollution, urban development in social crisis situations. "Permanently unfinished house with cell phone tree" is part of the series of works entitled "Contemporary Building Strategies", with which the artist creates imaginary constructions inspired by real urban contexts. The structure is made with recycled materials and includes a synthetic steel and plastic tree that hides and camouflages the antenna for the reception of mobile phones. The three columns of the house are painted to simulate tree trunks, referring to the theory that considers archetypal architecture to originate in nature and therefore the columns as equivalent to trees. The iron rods protruding from the top of the house suggest the possibility of a further vertical growth of the building, in this way alluding again to nature and the organic growth of plants. The work triggers a reflection on some problems that we have become accustomed to facing on a daily basis in our cities: the lack of aesthetic value in the city’s infrastructures, the disharmony between nature and manmade structures, and the condition of some incomplete and unfinished permanent buildings.

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Z. Badovinac (ed), Marjetica Potrč. Next stop, Kiosk, exhibition catalogue (Ljubljana, Moderna Galerija), Ljubljana 2003. Marjetica Potrč: Urban Negotiation, exhibition catalogue (Valencia, IVAM-Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno), Valencia 2003. Revisiting Home, exhibition catalogue (Berlin, NGBK-neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst), Berlin 2006, pp. 94-96.

Foto Patrizia Tocci

Purchased from Galleria Nordenhake, Berlin

Installation