Ivorypress will be presenting the exhibition Zaha Hadid. Beyond Boundaries, Art and Design, as part of the annual architecture programme celebrated each autumn. The exhibition will open on September 4 th 2012. The show sets out a wide view of the artistic body of work of the architect Zaha Hadid (Baghdad, Iraq, 1950), which reflects her personal and unorthodox world-view.
Hadid’s tradition-busting aesthetics are in line with such visionary figures as Leonardo da Vinci and Frederick Kiesler. Her work encapsulates in addition to the obvious: drawing, painting, reliefs, sculpture and installations, not to mention furniture and product design. In 2004, she was the first woman to be recognised with the prestigious Pritzker Award. In the words of the exhibit’s curator, Kenny Schacter, Hadid’s world-view is one in which ‘art, design, and architecture collapse into one another to reflect an all-encompassing way of life characterised by pushing and pulling the boundaries of aesthetics in every conceivable manner and form’.

In the words of Schachter, ‘What is so inspiring and intriguing about the astounding output of Zaha Hadid, is the imaginative, inventive and unquenchable expression of curiosity and creativity’. From a naturalist and humanist sensibility, Hadid ‘defies pigeonholing in a world increasingly defined by uniformity’, underscores the curator. Some of Zaha Hadid’s recent work, such as the MAXXI: National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome or the London Aquatics Centre for the Olympic Games of 2012, are examples of how the Iraqi architect challenges the creation of a fluid and complex space. Hadid goes about architectural work in a way which transforms our vision towards the future with new concepts and visionary forms, as can be appreciated in buildings such as the Guanzhou Opera House in China or the Hoenheim Nord Terminus terminal in Strasbourg.

From her London-based studio, Zaha Hadid Architects, Hadid takes the same creative approach with regard to objects such as purses, cutlery, jewelry, decorative objects, or furniture, such as the Z-Chair or the Liquid Glacial table. These two pieces, along with a wide selection of works – installations, mock-ups, paintings, drawings, furniture, or even domestic objects–, will make up an exhibition which suggests ‘a very democratic conception, non-hierarchical in structure, where a building is seen in the same light and with the same import as a spoon’, points out the curator of the exhibition, which will be open at Ivorypress until November 3rd.

As published in ivorypress.com