Spontaneous Architecture

Phoebe Washburn rides into Rice Gallery on a cardboard wave

Comments (0) By John Devine Thursday, Feb 20 2003

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The other half of the Mixture Contemporary Art show is Danny Yahav-Brown, a young Israeli artist who is a first-year Core fellow at the Glassell School of Art. He too is drawn to architecture and cast-off material, but his methodology couldn't be more different. He constructs small models of habitations, suggesting tents, lean-tos and other forms of temporary architecture, and then photographs them on a light table and displays them in light boxes. In the series A Place Like Home (2002), a Band-Aid box becomes a shelter, with a processed lunchmeat slice serving as a flap; a piece of knitted cotton is "tented" by used chewing gum "poles"; and the lengthwise half of a blue plastic cup balanced on sugar cubes provides cover. Homelessness, consumption, habitation, exile, connection -- Yahav-Brown's quirky models speak to the concerns of an increasingly complex, globalized, postmodern world.

Susan Van Scoy

The bands of color coursing through the layers of cardboard create a sort of organic ebb and flow.

Susan Van Scoy

But you never forget that this is a construction site, propped up by all manner of silly structures.

Details

Through February 23 at Rice University Art Gallery, 6100 Main Street, 713-348-6069. The Mixture Contemporary Art exhibit (1709 Westheimer, 713-520-6809) continues through February 22.