Artist Frances Stark and curator Sohrab Mohebbi reflect on the former’s text The Architect and the Housewife in connection to Daniel Buren’s recent Minneapolis Sculpture Garden installation, Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile. Stark responded to Buren’s 1971 essay The Function of the Studio, disputing his claim through a series of drawings, collages, sculptures, and textual commentary. In doing so, she deconstructed the sanctity of the studio and instead revealed it as a site of contingency and doubt.
Mohebbi is currently the curator at the SculptureCenter in New York and was previously associate curator at REDCAT. In 2012, he received an Arts Writers grant from Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation for the blog Presence Documents. He is a contributing editor at Bidoun Magazine, and his writings have been published in Artforum, Art Agenda, and Modern Painters, among others.
Stark’s drawings, collages, videos, performances, and paintings have been extensively exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. In 2015, Stark’s sprawling mid-career survey, UH-OH: Frances Stark 1991–2015, opened at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Stark’s work has been included in prominent exhibitions such as the 2013 Carnegie International, the 2011 Venice Biennale, and the 2008 and 2017 Whitney Biennials.