Edra Soto is a Puerto Rico born, Chicago based, interdisciplinary artist, educator and curator whose architectural projects connect with communities. Soto's temporary modular SCREENHOUSE pavilions are evocative symbols of her cultural assimilation that we can enter and share. Each free-standing structure functions as both sculptural object and social gathering place. Couched in beauty, her ongoing OPEN 24 HOURS project offers a different visceral encounter — with evidence of displacement and want. The aesthetic display of cast-off liquor bottles culled from steadily accumulating detritus in the historically Black neighborhood she now calls home suggests that we consider the personal and communal impact of poverty and racism. During a studio visit with the artist in Northwest Chicago, we talk about recent iterations of these projects.
In concert with the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Millennium Park Foundation commissioned the artist to produce a temporary gathering place in one of the park’s outdoor galleries. Only steps from Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate, she worked with a team to construct SCREENHOUSE. The 10-foot high pavilion made of 400 charcoal-hued, 12-inch cast concrete blocks is part of an ongoing project, an architectural series inspired by iron grills and decorative concrete screen blocks found throughout the Caribbean and the American South.
New versions of OPEN 24 HOURS are on view in two 2020 exhibitions. One appears in Open House: Domestic Thresholds at the Albright-Knox Museum, in Buffalo, New York. Cognac bottles carefully arranged on shelves with decorative panels reveal the artist’s connection to two places she calls home. More liquor bottles command attention in the three-part installation she designed for State of the Art 2020. Featuring work by artists from across the United States, the exhibition celebrates the opening of The Momentary, a new contemporary art space at the Crystal Bridges Museum, in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio
Related Episodes and Photo Features
Architecture with a Sense of Place https://freshartinternational.com/2017/10/25/architecture-sense-place/
Views—Chicago Architecture Biennial 2019 https://freshartinternational.com/2019/11/15/chicago-architecture-biennial-views-2019/
Fresh VUE: Chicago Art and Architecture 2017 https://freshartinternational.com/2017/10/25/fresh-vue-chicago-art-and-architecture-2017/
Related Links:
Edra Soto https://edrasoto.com/section/484676-Screenhouse-MP.html
The Momentary https://themomentary.org/
State of the Art 2020 https://crystalbridges.org/exhibitions/state-of-the-art-2/
Crystal Bridges Museum of Art https://crystalbridges.org/art/
Albright-Knox Museum https://www.albrightknox.org/art/exhibitions/open-house-domestic-thresholds-heather-hart-edra-soto-and-rodney-taylor
Millennium Park https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/millennium_park.html
Chicago Architecture Biennial 2019 https://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/
