At MoMA, Clorindo Testa Is an Architect Who Doesn’t Mind Mess

THE DAILY PIC (#1691): This is a small chunk of a little-noticed new arrival in the atrium (and collection) of the Museum of Modern Art in New York: More than 100 spray painted panels, executed in 1974 by the Argentine architect Clorindo Testa. (See below for an image of the complete project.) Architects normally use the “plan view” of a building to present as tidy and rational an image as they can, imposing a modern and modernist grid onto the real mess of lived lives.

The wonderful thing about Testa’s cycle of paintings now on view at MoMA, called “Living, Moving, Working, Playing,” is that, despite their tightly controlled (and controlling?) bird’s-eye perspective, they insist on conveying the true texture of living. (Gift of Andres von Buch, Claudia Quentin, Andrea Woodner, and Committee on Architecture and Design Funds. © 2016 Clorindo Testa, courtesy the Estate of Clorindo Testa)

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