JOHAN ZETTERQUIST
Johan Zetterquist's show introduces his latest crop of proposals for absurdist, impossible public works. Make-Out Tower: Tower Solution For Flat Cities, 2003, is an architectural model of a skyscraper, each floor accessible by car, with a parking lot on top. As the title suggests, the building is a sort of vertical lover's lane. In another model, a tiny tropical island is almost entirely paved over by the intersection of two superhighways that rise directly from the sea—a malplacé notion if ever there was one, unless you happen to own an amphibious car. Zetterquist's two-dimensional proposals are as mischievous as his models: One drawing depicts three wind-powered turbines whose only function is to drive a fourth against the wind. The gallery has been painted dusty rose and gravy brown so that the sparingly installed exhibition seems concise yet somehow ample. These projects aren't likely to be realized in a city near you, but they do allow us to imagine our public spaces redesigned according to new, less utilitarian criteria (paging Mr. Libeskind!).