»Where there is nothing, everything is possible. Where there is architecture, nothing (else) is possible.«

Rem Koolhaas

Blog Review

Earthly Delights

El Ultimo Grito install themselves in Houston

  • El Ultimo Grito: “Garden Object”, 2014, commissioned by Rice University Art Gallery, Houston. (Photo: Nash Baker) 1 / 15  El Ultimo Grito: “Garden Object”, 2014, commissioned by Rice University Art Gallery, Houston. (Photo: Nash Baker)
  • The installation is inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s painting: “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, 1500-1505. (Photo: Nash Baker) 2 / 15  The installation is inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s painting: “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, 1500-1505. (Photo: Nash Baker)
  • El Ultimo Grito create fantastical, yet functional, structures from discarded packing materials such as bubble wrap and foam “packing peanuts”... (Photo: Nash Baker) 3 / 15  El Ultimo Grito create fantastical, yet functional, structures from discarded packing materials such as bubble wrap and foam “packing peanuts”... (Photo: Nash Baker)
  • ...binding them around wooden and cardboard frames using gaffer tape. (Photo: Nash Baker) 4 / 15  ...binding them around wooden and cardboard frames using gaffer tape. (Photo: Nash Baker)
  • Hurtado and Feo’s system is all about being hands-on.  (Photo: Nash Baker) 5 / 15  Hurtado and Feo’s system is all about being hands-on.  (Photo: Nash Baker)
  • And is unified by brightly coloured, plastic scaly skins made from thousands of circular stickers... (Photo: Nash Baker) 6 / 15  And is unified by brightly coloured, plastic scaly skins made from thousands of circular stickers... (Photo: Nash Baker)
  •  ...into what the designer’s describe as a “Total Object”. (Photo: Nash Baker) 7 / 15   ...into what the designer’s describe as a “Total Object”. (Photo: Nash Baker)
  • The structure has a strange pseudo-organic form. (Photo: Nash Baker) 8 / 15  The structure has a strange pseudo-organic form. (Photo: Nash Baker)
  • One section includes projections of flying birds. (Photo: Nash Baker) 9 / 15  One section includes projections of flying birds. (Photo: Nash Baker)
  • With its cheerful palette and wobbly forms, their work may seem simple and slightly childish at first sight... (Photo: Nash Baker) 10 / 15  With its cheerful palette and wobbly forms, their work may seem simple and slightly childish at first sight... (Photo: Nash Baker)
  • ...but it is design that is designed to serve – and delight... (Photo: EUG) 11 / 15  ...but it is design that is designed to serve – and delight... (Photo: EUG)
  • ...only complete when people are in it. (Photo: Nash Baker) 12 / 15  ...only complete when people are in it. (Photo: Nash Baker)
  • El Ultimo Grito, “Garden Object”, 2014... (Photo: Nash Baker) 13 / 15  El Ultimo Grito, “Garden Object”, 2014... (Photo: Nash Baker)
  • ...at the Rice University Art Gallery, Houston... (Photo: Nash Baker) 14 / 15  ...at the Rice University Art Gallery, Houston... (Photo: Nash Baker)
  • ...until March 16. (Photo: Nash Baker) 15 / 15  ...until March 16. (Photo: Nash Baker)

The Spanish designers Rosario Hurtado and Roberto Feo set up studio together in 1997, calling themselves “El Ultimo Grito” which translates roughly as “all the rage”. Ever since, the duo have ploughed a highly intelligent and critical path towards developing a design and manufacturing system free from “traditional methods of production”. Sophie Lovell investigates their latest installation in Houston, Texas.

Hurtado and Feo's system is all about being hands-on.  They create fantastical, yet functional, structures from discarded packing materials such as bubble wrap and foam “packing peanuts”, binding them around wooden and cardboard frames using gaffer tape. Their resulting works look weird and wonderful, unified by brightly coloured, plastic scaly skins made from thousands of circular stickers, specially printed for each project. “Applied over surfaces”, they explain, the stickers “function as a plastic ‘skin’ that keeps all the parts together, and as a graphic layer, unifying the forms into a ‘Total Object’.”

El Ultimo Grito’s works are not just a reaction to the straightjacket of manufacturing, they celebrate the public use of space and human interaction. They are made for people: to be sat upon, climbed over, played with, used and explored. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, Feo and Hurtado have as much experience creating installations in museums and galleries, such as the V&A and Design Museum in London, ARCO in Madrid and MARTa Herford in Germany, as in informal public spaces. The trick is in understanding the context and then adapting accordingly: “To design a public installation in the middle of a city is very different from designing one in a gallery context. In the city, the functionality of the object is justified by its context; people continuously confront it. In a gallery, functionality is deprived of real context. There is no need for a functional object in an art gallery, people do not go [there] to have a coffee or read the newspaper.”

One section includes projections of flying birds. (Photo: Nash Baker)

So for their latest installation Garden Object at the Rice Gallery in Houston, Texas, the strange pseudo-organic form of the giant piece invites visitors to sit and interact with the “wildlife” displayed on circular screens like giant flower heads. “We wanted to make sure that visitors would come in and spend time in the installation, exploring and using it rather than just consuming it as an image behind the glass wall”, they explain. The installation is inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights (1500-1505), which hangs in the Prado in Madrid, which both Feo and Hurtado know well. Following the format of the painting, the installation is divided into three spaces: “one light and airy, one dark with projections of ever-flying birds, and one in which a phosphorescent water feature lends a feeling of the surreal.”

Garden Object, like much of El Ultimo Grito’s installation work, is gratifyingly unpretentious. It is one of those rare things – like architect Hans Scharoun’s Philharmonie building in Berlin: only complete when people are in it. With its cheerful palette and wobbly forms, their work may seem simple and slightly childish at first sight, but here is spectacle with purpose and statement without ego, politics with proselytising. It’s design designed to serve – and delight – the user, but founded nevertheless upon rigorous strategy and intent.

– Sophie Lovell

El Ultimo Grito: Garden Object
until March 16
Rice University Art Gallery
6100 Main Street
Houston, Texas 77005

http://www.eugstudio.com

 

RECENT POSTS

more

Recent Magazines

25 Apr 2016

Magazine No. 43
Athens

  • essay

    From the Bottom and the Top

    Powering Athens through collectivity and informal initiatives by Cristina Ampatzidou

  • photo essay

    Nowhere Now Here

    A photo essay by Yiorgis Yerolymbos

  • Essay

    Back to the Garden

    Athens and opportunities for new urban strategies by Aristide Antonas

  • Interview

    Point Supreme

    An interview by Ellie Stathaki

>

03 Mar 2016

Magazine No. 42
Walk the Line

  • Essay

    The Line Connects

    An essay on drawing and architectural education by Wes Jones

  • Essay

    Drawing Attention

    Phineas Harper sketches out new narrative paths with pencil power

  • Essay

    Gotham

    Elvia Wilk on a city of shadows as architectural fiction

  • Interview

    The (Not So) Fine Line

    A conversation thread between Sophie Lovell and architecture cartoonist Klaus

>

28 Jan 2016

Magazine No. 41
Zvi Hecker

  • essay

    Space Packers

    Zvi Hecker’s career-defining partnership with Eldar Sharon and Alfred Neumann by Rafi Segal

  • Interview

    Essentially I am a Medieval Architect

    An interview with Zvi Hecker by Vladimir Belogolovsky

  • viewpoint

    The Technion Affair

    Breaking and entering in the name of architectural integrity by Zvi Hecker

  • Photo Essay

    Revisiting Yesterday’s Future

    A photo essay by Gili Merin

>

17 Dec 2015

Magazine No. 40
Iceland

  • Viewpoint

    Wish You Were Here

    Arna Mathiesen asks: Refinancing Iceland with tourism – but at what cost?

  • Photo Essay

    Spaces Create Bodies, Bodies Create Space

    An essay by Ólafur Elíasson

  • Focus

    Icelandic Domestic

    Focus on post-independence houses by George Kafka

  • Essay

    The Harp That Sang

    The saga of Reykjavík's Concert Hall by Sophie Lovell & Fiona Shipwright

>

more

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST Close

Uncube is brandnew and wants to look good.
For best performance please update your browser.
Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer 10 (or higher), Safari, Chrome, Opera

×