A site-specific intervention which, based on the relationship that the author establishes between the shapes drawn on the walls of the Pabelló Mies van der Rohe and the stains of the Rorschach test, opens up a new interpretation of this iconic building from a psychological perspective within the framework of Barcelona Gallery Weekend and the Swab festival.
LAB 36 and Galería Senda in collaboration with La Fundació Mies van der Rohe present "Psicoarquitectura", the new temporary artistic intervention in the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion (from 14.09.2023 to 8.10.2023). The artist and architect Oscar Abraham Pabón approaches the materiality of the Pavilion from its interpretative and psychological dimension.
The project "Psychoarchitecture" is developed in two acts; the first as an introduction and referential framework, and the second results in the artistic intervention that is incorporated into the framework of the Pavilion that inspired the initial reflection.
Introduction and frame of reference
The artist takes as a point of reference the symmetrical forms created on the surfaces of the Pavilion and draws a parallel with the forms of the plates that the psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922) created by folding a sheet with an ink stain on it as a projective method to evaluate and diagnose the person who looks at it according to what he sees. The responses generated in the attempt to make figurative sense of the ambiguity of forms reveal the aspects of mental life implicit in the act of knowing. In the same way, Oscar Abraham Pabón proposes a turn that takes us from the object to be interpreted to the interpreted subject.
Artistic intervention
As a second act, Oscar Abraham Pabón presents us with the materialisation of a wall over the large pond of the Pavilion made of baked earth blocks (Calibric ONE). On the surface of the wall there is the drawing of a new ink stain made from its interpretative possibilities and which interrelates with the Pavilion and with its own reflection that duplicates it in the water.
The clay block is offered as an object of interpretation, where the wall is approached as a surface or skin that, by showing itself in the different levels of the layers that make it up, makes tangible and brings to the surface an internal dimension; one that implies both the constructive history of the material and its role in 20th century architecture and urbanism.
"If the German pavilion of 1929 symbolises the future of the modern house, the proposal "Psychoarchitecture" could offer an interpretation of the future of that modernity, but now from a psychic and somatised dimension, I understand the clay brick as a skin that covers a good part of the architecture and the city inherited from the modern project." - Oscar Abraham Pabón
The artistic intervention "Psicoarquitectura" in the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion is part of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend and the Swab festival.
At the same time, the artist is exhibiting Materia Sincera at LAB 36 gallery, where some of the pieces also reflect on constructive materiality, based on bricks, their layers and fragments.
Dates of intervention: From 14 September to 8 October 2023
Opening: 16.09.2023 at 10:00h - Book an invitation here
Venue: Mies van der Rohe Pavilion (Av. Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, 7. Barcelona)