Andres JaqueSpanish, 1971PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society” now? Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Chicago, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the sculpture
This installation aims to unravel the myth of Mies van der Rohe as a solitary genius. Fundació Mies commissioned Andrés Jaque in 2012 to create a site-specific intervention in Mies’s most famous building, the Barcelona Pavilion. The original Pavilion of 1929 was reconstructed in 1986 with the fundamental addition of a basement. Jaque’s installation focused on this lower level, which was an overlooked yet significant part of the building, introducing new questions for contemporary scholarship about Mies. The intervention exposes—like the phantom of the Pavilion’s past—the building’s hidden context: the networks of people, technologies, and institutions that made it possible. PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society consists of all the objects and materials found in the basement that have contributed to rebuilding and maintaining Mies’s iconic building and reputation.
Read on
This installation includes architectural fragments such as the velvet curtains, travertine plates, a spare Barcelona chair now broken, as well as contemporary cleaning products and devices that support the Pavilion’s maintenance. Together these objects reveal the Barcelona Pavilion as a social construction resulting from specific technological moments and civic initiatives.
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Details
- Accession number
- 2019.899
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Image: Art Institute of Chicago — © the artist or rights holder
