Art of Assembly

by Evan Farley (MArch ’17) — Recipient of Faculty Design Award MArch I

The production of aura in modern and contemporary art has expanded. Today, installation artists are redefining the line between art and architecture through their mastery of experience and spectacle. Yet the market reveals art as an overly commodified, exploited monetary object resulting in the factory production of artwork. As a discipline with the authority to shape experience and perception, its value needs to be reestablished.

Simultaneously, there is a nostalgia for a time when we used to make things. As the factory thrives, cities like New York are witnessing the reemergence of manufacturing in urban life.

Art of Assembly generates an identity, calling on a new audience to reconcile production and consumption. By collapsing art and industry, this project examines the current condition of curation and presentation and extracts new social constructs. In doing so, the factory acts as a vessel for a new institution that weaves together two parallel flows of production—art and industry—to enhance creative culture.