LOS ANGELES, CA.- "LATER LAYER", a site-specific installation designed by architects Johnston Marklee and artist Walead Beshty, will be on view at the Italian Cultural Institute (IIC) in Los Angeles from January 16-February 28, 2010. The installation will feature architectural models of Johnston Marklee’s work in Italy and Beshty’s photograms in the DEPART Foundation Collection. Presented as two connected projects, Johnston Marklee’s architectural models and Beshty’s photograms will be displayed throughout the gallery in a field of modular nesting boxes designed collaboratively by the artist and the architects. Sponsored by DEVELOP RE and presented by the DEPART Foundation and the IIC, "LATER LAYER" reflects the DEPART Foundation’s mission of fostering critical discourse and innovation in art, architecture and design. There will be an opening reception on January 15 at 7:00 pm at the IIC, located at 1023 Hilgard Avenue.

"LATER LAYER", the title of the installation, refers to the serial aspect present in the strategies deployed by both architect and artist. The word ‘Later,’ which means ‘brick’ in Latin, alludes to Adolf Loos’ definition of an architect as ‘a bricklayer who had studied Latin;’ while also referring to the unit module and the serial repetition in Johnston Marklee’s and Walead Beshty’s work respectively.

Johnston Marklee’s contribution to the installation includes a series of elemental building blocks that form coherent groups of disparate masses designed to accommodate a variety of uses including art exhibition and production, creative businesses and residences.

Walead Beshty uses photography to as a tool to explore the social and political conditions of our material culture with a focus on the social and political dimension of transitional spaces. His work in the DEPART Foundation Collection includes abstract photograms which question the principals of photography and visual culture as well as geometric glass sculptures dimensioned to fit inside FedEx containers where the cracks and fissures accrued from their own transportation become intrinsic content of the work.