TOUR: PST ART: Crossing Over: Art & Science at Caltech, 1920-2020

by Tim Durfee Studio

The Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design is pleased to offer you this exclusive Pacific Standard Time tour lead by Tim Durfee on the Caltech campus. Please choose one of two tour times offered.

DATE: Saturday, December 14, 2024

Group One: 12:30 – 2:00 PM Group Two: 2:30 – 4:00 PM

Student tickets: $5.00 Member tickets: $10.00

Complimentary Ticket! Become a member today and receive a reduced membership of $65 (regular $85) and student membership of $15 (regular $25) in addition to a complimentary ticket to this event. Limited availability.

Tim Durfee, exhibition designer of Crossing Over, with graphic designer Jennifer Rider

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Crossing Over, Caltech’s sprawling contribution to the 2024 PST ART theme Art and Science Collide, is a network of installations across the Pasadena campus that puts the university’s historic archive in counterpoint with works by contemporary artists including Helen Pashgian, Shana Mabari, Lita Albuquerque, and Lia Halloran – all while guiding visitors through spaces usually inaccessible to the public.

Installing a complex exhibition within the functioning spaces of a university, and not in a flexible gallery, introduced significant challenges: existing walls could not be touched, existing lighting could not be used, and daily teaching and research activities could not be interrupted.

The response to these constraints was to view the staging as a temporary, alien occupation of the campus. Each structure is autonomous, self-supporting, and self-illuminated. Interior elements barely touch the ground, and skirt past existing walls. Form corresponds to highly specific delivery of curatorial narratives, rather than architectural context. Materials follow internal, pragmatic logics, with the same material shifting from structure to substrate to finish in the same object. Crossing Over’s foregrounding of the exhibitionary apparatus is part of an ongoing experiment in new ways of conceiving a future for architecture in the information and AI age, where content and the flow of “users” determines form. It is a consideration of the interface as a public and cultural phenomenon.

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Independent curator: Claudia Bohn-Spector

University Archivist: Peter Sachs Collopy

Coordinator: Bailey Westerhoff

Exhibition Design: Tim Durfee Studio

Graphic Design: Jennifer Rider

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Photography: Joshua White

Video: Jeremy Eichenbaum

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pst.caltech.edu

archives.caltech.edu

TimDurfee.com

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Exhibition catalog available from Caltech Store and Getty Publications

Please note: by attending this event, you agree to the liability waiver and release below. Liability Waiver and Release: * I hereby declare that I accept and understand the following conditional requirements of my participation in LA Forum's event. I declare that I fully intend to be bound by the condition stated herein. I further declare that I have read and fully understand all of the conditions outlined below. In consideration of acceptance of my participation in LA Forum's event, I, for myself, my heirs and assigns, hereby release the sponsors, program participants, coordinators, and officials of this event from any and all liability arising from illness and/or damages I may suffer as a result of participation in such an event. I attest that I will wear any protective gear required by the event organizers. I agree that if I violate this agreement and attempt to bring suit against any part of parties named herein, that I will be held responsible for attorney’s fees and any costs incurred by that person in defending such action. I further understand that this waiver applies to all or any events in which I may participate from the time I convene with the event forward and that this waiver and release of rights contains no expiration date.

TOUR: PST ART: Crossing Over: Art & Science at Caltech, 1920-2020

With Tim Durfee