Join the MAK Center for Architecture for the opening reception of "Reading Room", an exhibition that reinhabits R.M. Schindler’s Kings Road House with practices of reading, featuring publications, artists’ books and printed matter from LA-based practitioners exploring the intersections of art and design. The exhibition features commissioned furniture for reading by Ryan Preciado, which continues the artist’s ongoing dialogue with Schindler’s furniture and surfaces the stories of skilled artisans who contributed to shaping the built environment, revealing hidden narratives within traditional architectural archives.
The work of Los Angeles artist and designer Ryan Preciado often operates through the collection and transformation of references—whether drawn from everyday life or design’s own archive. For "Reading Room", Preciado continues an engagement with the work of Schindler.
Preciado’s commissioned work, a "Table for Reading", will be the site of three sequential Table Residencies: with Inventory Press, Mimi Zeiger, and Deem Journal. The residencies will showcase a rotating collection of zines, books, and other published works and designs for reading. Shelves by Preciado will house a library of works by LA-based art and design publishers, while archival presentations will feature a selection of artists’ books from the collection of Johanna Drucker and Brad Freeman as well as reflections on the history of books and reading at the Schindler House.
More than an exhibition, Reading Room also lays the foundation for a future study center at the MAK Center’s Fitzpatrick-Leland House, which will serve as an ongoing public resource for research and dialogue at the intersections of architecture, art, and design.
Reading Room is curated by Beth Stryker and Robert J. Kett. The exhibition is supported in part by an arts grant from the City of West Hollywood. Printing support generously provided by Typecraft. Furniture for Reading courtesy of Karma.
