Frederick Fisher: Thinking by Hand

Edward Cella Art & Architecture is honored to announce the Gallery’s inaugural solo exhibition by renowned contemporary West-coast architect Frederick Fisher (principal, Frederick Fisher and Partners of Los Angeles). Entitled Frederick Fisher: Thinking by Hand, this exhibition of new and recent watercolors explores the form making process and composition strategies Fisher employs when envisioning and creating proposals for a wide variety of potential architectural commissions. Surprisingly, this is Fisher’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles and is the gallery’s first solo exhibition for an architect.

Fisher’s work, inspired by his 29 years of professional practice and his recent 2008 Fellowship at The American Academy in Rome, explores a variety of imagined public and private spaces through a series of elemental and geometric watercolors. Several important images in the series explore exciting and novel living and working spaces connecting art with nature.

Through other works in the series, Fisher reevaluates the traditional museum structure by conceptually investigating the recycling and transformation of abandoned office buildings and industrial facilities as potential museums; echoing the way palaces were repurposed in the 19th century and factories were re-inhabited in the 20th century. As Fisher notes, “The museum has historically thrived in reclaimed spaces. The ongoing process of urban growth and decay presents a new inventory of potential museum sites.”

The exhibition also evokes the architect’s studio, informally mounting Fisher’s small format watercolors with pushpins on the Gallery’s walls. The exhibition underscores the architect’s use of drawing and watercolor as a creative practice during the initial steps of understanding a new commission. Fisher states, “This work is the direct engagement of hand, eye, and thought with repeated and varied renditions of drawings and watercolors to find and refine my architectural ideas.” The importance of form-making in the architect’s practice was recently underscored by Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Hawthorne in connection with Fisher’s recent work, “It is not simply the precision of [his] forms … It is what those forms frame, acknowledge and make room for.”

Recognized for his prominent civic projects like the Annenberg Beach House in Santa Monica and PS1 in New York, Fisher's recent architectural investigations at the American Academy in Rome entitled Imaginary Museum will be presented in digital renderings to accompany the exhibition and further illustrate Fisher's process.

SPECIAL EXHIBITION PROGRAM:

In Conversation: Frances Anderton and Frederick Fisher
Saturday, May 1, 2010
From 1 to 3 pm

Edward Cella Art & Architecture announces In Conversation with Frances Anderton, host of DnA: Design and Architecture on KCRW, and Frederick Fisher, principal of Frederick Fisher and Partners of Los Angeles, on Saturday May 1, 2010 at 1:00 p.m. In conjunction with Fisher's exhibition Thinking by Hand, Anderton brings her sophisticated and worldly perspective on architecture to examine the ideas, inspiration and points of departure for Fisher's contemporary practice and his unique role in Los Angeles architectural history. This talk is part of an on going series of public programs that illuminate the gallery's diverse exhibitions and projects.

Frances Anderton is the full-time producer of KCRW's national and local current affairs shows, To The Point, and Which Way, LA?, hosted by Warren Olney. In addition Anderton is the L.A. Editor for Dwell Magazine and a regular contributor to the New York Times as well as many other publications on Los Angeles design and architecture. She is also a frequent speaker and moderator at cultural institutions, including REDCAT, the Hammer UCLA Museum, the Skirball Institute, the LA Forum, and the A+D Museum. The LA/AIA Chapter has awarded her for her work in highlighting the LA design and architecture scene; and DnA has been featured in the Los Angeles Times Magazine as well as Los Angeles, Angeleno and Metropolis magazines.

Restore, Refresh, Renew: New Desert Projects
Janice Lyle and Sidney Williams
Saturday, May 8, 2010
From 4 to 6 pm

Janice Lyle, Director of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands and Sidney Williams, Associate Curator of the Palm Springs Art Museum discuss the legacy of modernism in the greater Palm Springs region and current efforts to preserve, restore, and interpret this legacy within the dynamic community context.

Janice Lyle received her Ph.D. in art history from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1984 and worked for 23 years at the Palm Springs Art Museum where she was the executive director from 1994 to 2007. She is currently the General Manager and Center Director of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands where she is overseeing the rehabilitation of the historic Annenberg Estate in Rancho Mirage originally designed by A. Quincy Jones as an education center reconceived by Frederick Fisher.

Sidney Williams is Curator of the Architecture and Design Council at the Palm Springs Art Museum where she has been on staff since 1994, previously serving as Director of Education for nine years. A member of the City of Palm Springs Historic Site Preservation Board she has been active in preservation of modern architecture in the community and is currently working on an architecture and design center annex of the museum in a mid-century modern building.