Schindler House, the home of famed Austrian architect Rudolph M Schindler, is one of the most iconic private residences in Los Angeles. Now, it’s also the subject of an intriguing art exhibition – Mona Kuhn Kings Road, A Rudolph Schindler House – which is open at Germany’s Kunsthaus-Göttingen gallery until 4 June.
Part photography, part multimedia experience and part sound installation, the exhibition extends across three floors of the gallery to submerge visitors into artist Mona Kuhn’s research on this historic property.
Completed in 1922, the house was conceived as a design and social experiment that quickly became an avant-garde hub for artists and intellectuals, such as Marlene Dietrich, Albert Einstein, Richard Neutra and Frank Lloyd Wright. Kuhn shares her research in Schindler’s archive and reveals rarely-shown sketches, photographs, and correspondence that offer a glimpse into the architect’s personal life. Among them is a handwritten letter the architect wrote to a mysterious woman, in which he rejects her romantic aspirations. The letter is a pivotal entryway into Kuhn’s visual fiction.
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Head to the second floor, and visitors can experience what it may have been like to be a guest at one of Schindler’s legendary soirees, thanks to a multidimensional video and sound installation in collaboration with sound artist and composer Boris Salchow. Through layers of still and moving images, the viewer enters a realm where the two protagonists, architect and lover, find each other again.
Mona Kuhn’s Kings Road: A Rudolph Schindler House, curated by Gerhard Steidl, is at Kunsthaus-Göttingen, Germany until 4 June 2023. www.kunsthaus-goettingen.de
