Theater Objects: A Stage for Architecture and Art is the first in a series of exhibitions that aim to initiate a dialogue between architecture and contemporary art. Co-produced by LUMA Foundation and gta Exhibitions, based at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, the show invites the latter’s renowned Department of Architecture to enter into dialogue with the city’s exhibition venues.

The impossibility of exhibiting architecture opens up a question about the medium. In an exhibition space, the prevailing notion of “architecture” as represented by a building in an urban environment is hard to maintain, and the framework of architectural practice is challenged. The architectural exhibition suffers from the displacement of objects into an institutional space. It ends by functioning either as representation, by referring to something situated outside the museum, or imitation, by mimicking architecture through the creation of an atmospheric installation. Nevertheless, “exhibiting architecture” has become an established genre, currently en vogue attracting a growing public.

Theater Objects charts the in-between areas: the theatrical stage serves as an interface in which objects, sounds, projections and texts come together. The diverse contributions explore the relationship between representation and imitation, reality and fiction. Architects and artists have produced new works which reveal their different disciplines’ sources, references, influences, methods and collaborations.

Featuring works by:
Uri Aran, 6a architects, architecten de vylder vinck taillieu, Andrea Branzi, Pieter De Bruyne, Studio Tom Emerson, Dan Graham, GRUPPE, Trix & Robert Haussmann, Christian Kerez, William Leavitt, Made In, Peter Märkli, Helen Marten, Josep Lluís Mateo, Mélanie Matranga, Matthias Megyeri, Claude Parent, Magali Reus, Carissa Rodriguez, Cameron Rowland, Stephan Trüby, Günther Vogt, Peter Wächtler and Richard Wentworth