About this artwork
This installation aims to unravel the myth of Mies van der Rohe as a solitary genius. Fundació Mies commissioned Andrés Jaque in 2012 to create a site-specific intervention in Mies’s most famous building, the Barcelona Pavilion. The original Pavilion of 1929 was reconstructed in 1986 with the fundamental addition of a basement. Jaque’s installation focused on this lower level, which was an overlooked yet significant part of the building, introducing new questions for contemporary scholarship about Mies. The intervention exposes—like the phantom of the Pavilion’s past—the building’s hidden context: the networks of people, technologies, and institutions that made it possible. PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society consists of all the objects and materials found in the basement that have contributed to rebuilding and maintaining Mies’s iconic building and reputation. This installation includes architectural fragments such as the velvet curtains, travertine plates, a spare Barcelona chair now broken, as well as contemporary cleaning products and devices that support the Pavilion’s maintenance. Together these objects reveal the Barcelona Pavilion as a social construction resulting from specific technological moments and civic initiatives.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Architecture and Design
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Artist
- Andres Jaque
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Title
- PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society
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Date
- Made 2012–2017
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Medium
- Mixed media installation
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Dimensions
- Variable
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Credit Line
- Gift of Fundació Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona
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Reference Number
- 2019.899
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
