Design Matters	Frank Lloyd Wright's Tree by Albert Chao

"Nightgown" is one of the photographs in the exhibition "27 Sightings Past the Stele"

27 Sightings Past the Stele

At Kitchen Distribution, a warehouse near Niagara Street converted into an art venue, Buffalo native Tom Turturro presents photographs of New York City in an exhibit titled 27 Sightings Past the Stele. At the entrance, a photograph of Frank Lloyd Wright’s autobiography highlights a certain passage:

“I now propose an ideal for architecture of the machine age, for the ideal American building. Let it grow up in that image. The tree. But I do not mean to suggest the imitation of the tree.”

After a recent conversation with Turturro, I saw reflections of Wright’s writings, specifically his inspirations and poetic influences from Welsh culture, in Turturro’s photographs.

Turturro conjures two prominent initial poetic imageries: the stele and the tree. The stele, as he writes in his artist statement, is “generally carved stone slabs set upright upon hallowed ground (and sometimes fronting buildings) and usually carved with allegorical text or pictorial symbols.”

The stele is Frank Lloyd Wright’s writings, but is also an extension of Turturro’s studies in Buffalo, as he explains: “The work presented is a continuation of my graduate studies of architecture at UB, where I researched and perused through Wright’s autobiography and also his Welsh influences.” The title Twenty-Seven Sightings Past the Stele therefore references Turturro’s experiences after his studies of Wright and beyond Buffalo as an architect in New York City. He now returns as an artist rediscovering his original studies.

Wright’s ideal of the tree for architecture is in contrast to his French contemporary Le Corbusier’s celebration of mechanization. The tree was an essential part of the development of Welsh language. To add to this, Turturro recalls the story by Vitrivius, an architect of ancient Rome whose books are the only source of classical architecture today, about the development of the human: “In a thickly crowded forest, the winds began blowing so hard that the branches kindled a fire. People, at first terrified, came together around the fire created by the trees.”

Following the imagery of the stele and tree, Turturro’s photographs begin to weave into poetry. The titles, including specifically Meadowlark and Adolf, are allegorical themes within parts of Wright’s autobiography. Turturro revisits these themes, integrating them to what he calls a “historical grammar of poetic myth.”

The exhibition is the first of a series of three. Upcoming shows will feature works on paper and mixed media. Tom Turturro studied sculpture in the late 1980s under Jay Wholley in Birmingham. He earned a graduate degree in architecture at UB and has worked for firms including Kohn Pedersen Fox (the Buffalo Niagara International Airport) and Skidmore Ownings and Merrill (the Albright-Knox expansion). He currently resides in Brooklyn.

27 Sightings Past the Stele has been extended until Sunday, November 19. Gallery hours are noon-5pm, Saturday and Sunday, or call Victor Mirando, exhibit organizer, at 984-1894 for appointments.

Kitchen Distribution is located at 20 Auburn Avenue in Buffalo, off of Niagara Street. Once run by a collective of the same name, it has recently been vacated but is still assisted by its former tenants.

The Art of Pecha Kucha

Soundlab, this past Saturday, was packed to the brim for Buffalo’s first volume of Pecha Kucha, an international phenomenon that originated in Tokyo, Japan. Pecha Kucha, the Japanese word for chitchat, kicked off with a crowd of almost 200 standing tiptoe to view and listen to the presentations.

Originally conceived of in 2003 by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham architecture, Pecha Kucha is a way for young designers to meet, network and show their work. Each designer is only allowed 20 images, each shown for only 20 seconds, giving a total of six minutes and 40 seconds. This keeps presentations concise and audience and presenters on their toes.

The event was organized by three graduate students of architecture at the University at Buffalo—Nick Bruscia, Pete McCarthy and Heamchand Subryan—who, through a study abroad summer with professor Torben Berns, visited Klein Dytham architecture and experienced their first Pecha Kucha.

Buffalo’s Pecha Kucha presented a wide array of work, from Omar Khan’s “dancing with rubber” to Camille Garcia’s beautiful carved leather. Almost anything goes, as McCarthy explains: “As long as you can figure a coherent way to present your work in six minutes and 40 seconds, you can do whatever you want.”

There were a large number of video clips exhibited. Nicholas Stedman’s presentation was one of the highlights of the night. In addition to some images of his work, he also presented a Japanese video clip of a mechanical blanket that was programmed, when kicked off during the night, to rework its way back onto the sleeper. The video was a friendly ode to Pecha Kucha and in line with the rest of the easygoing night.

Cesar Cedano’s Brand Your Tectonics was entirely video with techno music that captured the audience’s attention. Artist Paul Vanouse, who followed Cedano, responded, “Nobody ever really wants to follow something with a beat, but here goes.” Vanouse successfully intrigued the audience with a current project in re-inventing DNA research.

And though 20 slides at 20 seconds each may seem like a rush, one designer joked, “Twenty seconds is too long.” In fact, the format was most conducive to getting to the heart of actual projects, as introductions were cast aside as quickly as possible. Most of the presenters concentrated on just one project, even slowing the pace down. Many of the projects, including Kahn’s “dancing rubber,” were works in progress.

The majority of presenters were architects, which perhaps was the evening’s only disappointment. Earlier in the year, when Mark Dytham lectured at UB, he emphasized the cross-collaborative possibilities of the different arts. Both Bruscia and McCarthy, however, are hoping to open Pecha Kucha to Buffalo’s entire art community: “We hope to get the word out to people,” McCarthy says. “Anyone and everyone is invited to present their work at Pecha Kucha. Our next Pecha Kucha will be scheduled around February. It is pretty much a first come, first serve basis. We hope to have more artists to balance with the architects.”

Those interested in Pecha Kucha should check out the Web site: www.pechakuchabuffalo.com.

Design Matters is presented in association with the UB School of Architecture and Planning and supported by a fellowship endowed by Polis Realty.