Informed Design at LongView Gallery DC

“Informed Design” strived to expound on the role of art objects within the context of interior design and architecture. This exhibition featured two architectural design vignettes by leading D.C. architects Ernesto Santalla and David Jameson.

In contrast to typical gallery shows in which pieces hang on blank white walls, “Informed Design” demonstrates how art can influence or interact with an interior.  The aim of “Informed Design” was to explore the relationship between art and architecture, and argued that exceptional works of art establish dialogues with their surroundings.

Local architects Ernesto M. Santalla of Studio Santalla and David Jameson of David Jameson Architect Inc. installed site-specific vignettes to accompany the gallery’s artwork selections. Santalla and Jameson both consider art as the hub of their respective design processes.

Educated in the Bauhaus style of architecture, Santalla’s vignette adopts the unique curatorial approach of selecting artworks according to which pieces best utilize the space. His vignette incorporated a site-specific installation by Barbara Josephs Liotta, as well as a series of paintings by Ralph Turturro that echo the texture of gallery’s stone pillars. Specifically created for “Informed Design,” Liotta unveiled a 20-foot tall installation composed of white marble stones and matching tie cord that float against a black wall. She describes her work as “stripping away the superfluous and the decorative. I strive for a sort of essence, a clarity that will allow the work grace but not prettiness, rhythm but not contrivance, balance but not inertness. I strive to animate, not merely inhabit a space.” The work should resonate both with the architecture of the space it occupies, and with the materials from which it is constructed.”

Photography by Geoffrey Hodgdon