Mark your calendars for the upcoming exhibition, No Glory, an exhibition created for 10 Years + Counting, a national, artist-led project marking the 10th anniversary of our nation at war.

Camille LeFevre investigates the so-called Department of Public Design and its cryptic “Interim Report on the Excavation of Zone 5.” As details emerge she finds elements of the mystery are both solved and deepened.

“The “excavation” and “reassembly” are playful, investigative and well documented: Running along the gallery walls is a ribbon of photographs showing the participants in discussion, at work and in play. As observers, we’re simply along for the ride — or rather, we’re invited on walkabout into art history. Architect Garth Rockcastle’s program note to the exhibition delves into architects’ perennial concerns with materials, waste, environmentalism and reuse, “detritus,” “collaboration,” “repurposing,” “ambiguity,” and the “monochromic” use of color — all of which have well-documented lineages in art history (which he traces, listing an artist for each code word above).”

See full article at MNartists.org!

Mary Abbe at the Star Tribune shares her investigation into the thoughts and processes of the architects behind The Excavation of Zone 5.  See full article here.

“”Zone 5” is a curious, offbeat and unexpectedly engaging show that defies most notions about what a gallery will offer. None of the stuff appears to be for sale, but plenty of objects look like furniture or surreal art: nests of roots on tall tripods, a canvas “tapestry” studded with shimmery nails, a “porcupine” glove also bristling with nails, a chair with an inner-tube seat. In the middle stands a strange, 15-foot-long sculptural table. A 3-D collage with a red underside, the table has a top made from strips of wood and pieces of steel, a window, some ceramic tile, even a paint can and a bird’s nest or two. It’s flat enough to work on but fragile and irregular enough to be troublesome.”

“Gallery log note; poignant reminder or a message regarding a pending genius?”

“Upon request of the Council of Architects, the Department asks anyone with information about the identity of this most talented “5 year old” referenced above to contact the Zone 5 gallery or this website by commenting below.  A reward would be expected, but is unlikely.  Gratitude will find other manifestations.”

-the director

Hello All!

Tomorrow is Thursday, which means Form + Content Gallery is open from 12pm-6pm, which also means that if you haven’t stopped by to check out the artifacts on display from The Excavation of Zone 5 that you should come by and take a gander. 

The Excavation of Zone 5 is on view until August 20th.  Gallery hours are Thursday - Saturday 12pm-6pm.

Our gallery sitters love visitors!  So drop in and peruse the artifacts!

If you didn’t make it to the opening of The Excavation of Zone 5 at Form+Content Gallery on Saturday, check out photos from the opening on the Form + Content Facebook page and make sure to stop by the gallery in your free time to peruse the artifacts. The show is on view until August 20th. Gallery hours: Thurs-Sat 12pm-6pm.

Response to Hacking/Unauthorized image

Two recent statements appearing on the project website, issued ostensibly from its director have been deemed by the Department to be the work of anonymous hackers with no group claiming responsibility. 

The statements in question were issued,  “…in response to the growing demand to explain what is happening in Zone 5”.   In response the Department labeled the statements, “mundane” and admitted that it’s website had been recently hacked but that it had regained control of its site.  The Department has issued no further statements, but has chosen to publish the two insertions in their entirety with no accompanied images at this time.

Statement #1:
“Several architects dressed in black joined together to do something that would positively impact their surroundings, but were unable to jointly determine what that might be until given the keys to a gallery.  The group met for weeks in a vacant studio space, quickly dubbed “Zone 5”, where they gathered while assembling the discarded and unused material and detritus of their profession. Talking loudly and simultaneously they began a furious process of “making” that became the focus for their creative energy and passion for connecting, discussing, arguing and laughing.”
-End of statement

An Exhibition of reAssembly

The Director of the Department of Public Design released preliminary images of the work undertaken by the Council of Architects in the reAssembly of Zone 5.

From the Department of Public Design
RE: Found objects, materials and arcane constructions

Council of Architects MEMO
From:  Member Roehr

This project has grown out of a conversation amongst a specific group of working architects interested in exploring new ways of working together that might leverage their particular (sometimes peculiar) skills and collective energy to new and unforeseen ends.  The project itself is an effort to tease out that ever mystifying and primal relationship between things and meaning - how meaning imbues a thing; how a thing embodies meaning.  This is a perennial question in our practice, and the question that holds the potential to open architecture well beyond itself.  As a group effort, the project has also become an exploration of the relationship between the realms of highly personal and collective meaning.  It has taken a group of people who are typically engaged in the controlled, detailed, orchestrated manipulation of the environment into a highly ambiguous situation in which the very ground rules for what we are doing together are in constant flux and negotiation, pushing everyone beyond their comfort zone.  The conversation is fundamentally unstable, and is constantly going meta; the danger is to tumble through an infinite regress of reflection about what we are trying to achieve.  But that is also the thrill, and cuts to the heart of the balance we are always seeking as architects and artists, and presumably as humans - a provisional equilibrium between order and chaos - an equilibrium that momentarily suspends negotiation and allows us to act.  The resulting artifact will be less an artwork or installation per se, and more the record of this process, manipulated to highlight and clarify itself.