MOCA Launches Craft & Computation Series with New Site-specific Installation

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles announced the launch of Craft & Computation, a new series of exhibitions exploring the convergence of digital technology and handcraft techniques in contemporary design practice. Boolean Valley, a unique collaboration between potter Adam Silverman and architect Nader Tehrani, is the first exhibition in the series and is on view from March 22 through July 5, 2009, at MOCA Pacific Design Center. A topographic sculptural landscape that utilizes the principle of Boolean logic in its design, Boolean Valley was originally commissioned by Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California, and curated by Julie Lazar. The project comes to MOCA as a site-specific installation organized by MOCA Curator of Architecture and Design Brooke Hodge.

"The Craft & Computation series exemplifies MOCA's continuing engagement with the most current issues and practices in art, architecture, and design," said MOCA Chief Executive Officer Charles E. Young. "This dynamic new series of exhibitions is the thoughtful result of our ongoing partnership with the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood-a recognized resource for the design community. The MOCA Pacific Design Center space is a wonderful opportunity to bring MOCA's innovative programming to a broad-based audience."

"I am especially pleased that Boolean Valley inaugurates the Craft & Computation series," added MOCA Curator of Architecture & Design Brooke Hodge. "The Silverman/Tehrani collaboration lends itself perfectly to the series, and both are artists that I am excited to have the opportunity to work with. I am grateful to Julie Lazar for bringing this project to our attention and for working so closely with MOCA and the artists to create something special for MOCA Pacific Design Center."

Boolean Valley is a sculptural landscape of nearly 400 cut clay objects glazed in cobalt and black with silicon carbide added. It is the result of an extensive collaboration between potter Adam Silverman and architect Nader Tehrani, who met as undergraduate architecture students at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Originally commissioned by Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California, as part of AGENCY: The Work of Artists, a 2009 arts initiative curated by Julie Lazar, Boolean Valley was exhibited at the San Jose Museum of Art and Montalvo Arts Center prior to coming to MOCA.

At each venue, the artists have used Boolean logic to develop a specific configuration or pattern for the ceramic objects that responds to the museum's architecture in a new and provocative way. Named after mathematician George Boole, Boolean logic calibrates the geometry of intersecting objects, with the Venn diagram being one of its most common applications. In Boolean Valley, dome-shaped ceramic units are cut and glazed horizontally-with actual and virtual intersections-to produce a striated undulating landscape. MOCA's presentation includes plans and perspectives showing the evolution of the work at each site, along with an exclusive new animation created by Office dA, Nader Tehrani's internationally renowned architecture studio.

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