www.Archilovers.com by Valentina Ieva

18 / MARCH / 2013

'Grounds for Standing and Understanding': exhibition by Babak Golkar

Sculptural forms with modernist architectural styles

In a recent traveling solo exhibition titled Grounds for Standing and Understanding, Vancouver-based artist Babak Golkar has used the design elements of the intricate patterns of a Persian carpet as a foundation to literally “drawn up” and transform into three-dimensional scale models that resemble architectural mega-towers. These sculptural forms recall some early modernist architectural styles such as Brutalism, Russian Constructivism an Art Deco, as well as, referencing buildings recently constructed in parts of the Middle East.

The recognized pattern represents a blueprint for the imaginary urban composition, depicting a template for additional walls to the existing gallery space.

While the scaled architectural models are extruded from the tracings of the carpet’s pattern, the extended built walls in the gallery are sections of the architectural models magnified twenty-five times in scale.

The result is an installation that produces a critique of the ideologies underpinning architecture while questioning the effectual use of the space, probing spatial problems that encourage bodily engagement on the part of the viewer.