The eighth volume of the Critical Spatial Practice series focuses on Jill Magid’s “The Barragán Archives,” a multiyear project that examines the legacy of Pritzker Prize–winning architect LuisBarragán (1902–1988), and questions forms of power, public access, and copyright that constructartistic legacy. The archive of Barragán was split in two after his death - the personal archive iskept in his home in Mexico, which is now a museum and UNESCO World Heritage Site; while hisprofessional archive was purchased in 1995 by Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of the Swiss furniturecompany Vitra, from a New York gallerist. It is said that Fehlbaum bought it as a gift for his thenfiancée, Federica Zanco. She is the director of the Barragan Foundation, which also holds rightsto Barragán’s name. For the past twenty years the archive, housed below the Vitra headquarters,has been inaccessible to the public.
With The Proposal Magid attempts to bring together Barragán’s professional and personalarchives by probing the architect’s official and private selves, and the interests of variousindividuals and governmental and corporate entities who have become the archives’ guardians.Magid, with permission of the Barragán family, commissioned a small amount of Barragán’scremated remains to be transformed into a diamond. The stone, set in a gold ring, was offered toZanco in exchange for the return of the professional archive to Mexico. Magid’s artwork directlyengages the intersections of the psychological and the judicial, national identity and repatriation,international property rights and copyright law, authorship and ownership, the human body andthe body of work
Edited by Nikolaus Hirsch, Cari Kuoni Hesse McGraw, Markus MiessenContributions by Leonardo Díaz Borioli, Nikolaus Hirsch, David Kim, Cuauhtémoc Medina, DanielMcClean, Hesse McGraw, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Ines Weizman
The eighth volume of the Critical Spatial Practice series focuses on Jill Magid’s “The Barragán Archives,” a multiyear project that examines the legacy of Pritzker Prize–winning architect LuisBarragán (1902–1988), and questions forms of power, public access, and copyright that constructartistic legacy. The archive of Barragán was split in two after his death - the personal archive iskept in his home in Mexico, which is now a museum and UNESCO World Heritage Site; while hisprofessional archive was purchased in 1995 by Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of the Swiss furniturecompany Vitra, from a New York gallerist. It is said that Fehlbaum bought it as a gift for his thenfiancée, Federica Zanco. She is the director of the Barragan Foundation, which also holds rightsto Barragán’s name. For the past twenty years the archive, housed below the Vitra headquarters,has been inaccessible to the public.
With The Proposal Magid attempts to bring together Barragán’s professional and personalarchives by probing the architect’s official and private selves, and the interests of variousindividuals and governmental and corporate entities who have become the archives’ guardians.Magid, with permission of the Barragán family, commissioned a small amount of Barragán’scremated remains to be transformed into a diamond. The stone, set in a gold ring, was offered toZanco in exchange for the return of the professional archive to Mexico. Magid’s artwork directlyengages the intersections of the psychological and the judicial, national identity and repatriation,international property rights and copyright law, authorship and ownership, the human body andthe body of work
Edited by Nikolaus Hirsch, Cari Kuoni Hesse McGraw, Markus MiessenContributions by Leonardo Díaz Borioli, Nikolaus Hirsch, David Kim, Cuauhtémoc Medina, DanielMcClean, Hesse McGraw, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Ines Weizman
