Coen +Partners is exhibiting in Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes, the first major museum exhibition to examine both the art and architecture of the contemporary American suburb and its catalytic role in the creation of new art, premiering at the Walker Art Center from February 16 to May 18, 2008. Organized by the Walker in association with the Heinz Architectural Center, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Worlds Away features more than 75 works ranging from paintings and photographs to architectural models, sculptures, and videos that explore a variety of suburban conditions. The exhibition co-curators are Andrew Blauvelt, Walker design director and curator, and Tracy Myers, curator of architecture at Carnegie’s Heinz Architectural Center.

The Exhibition
The exhibition contains works by more than 30 artists and architects and is arranged in three sections: the residential tract home; the retail zone, comprised of the strip mall and big box store; and the infrastructure for automobiles and the culture it has engendered. Several design firms are producing new works for the exhibition, including Estudio Teddy Cruz, which will explore the role of architecture in shaping community; Fashion.Architecture. Taste, which will present its work on a multiethnic suburban park in the Netherlands; Lateral Architecture’s exploration of the spaces between and around big box power centers, the successor to suburbia’s regional mall; Interboro’s examination of life at a so-called “dead mall” in New York; Coen+Partners revision of a traditional cul-de-sac development; and the Center for Land Use Interpretation’s (CLUI) documentation of the major automotive test tracks located in various urban peripheries of the United States.

Click here to see the Walker Art Center’s press release.