Drawing from her long-term research on agricultural and industrial architecture, Aria Dean presents a new film surveying the interior of an American slaughterhouse. The work considers the importance of these structures in the development of modernist architecture and urban design, influencing the work of a generation of European architects such as Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. The omission of the slaughterhouse, or abattoir, from this narrative leads to questions about the relationship between modernism and death, as Dean engages with one such site and its entanglements with fundamental questions of humanity.

Aria Dean’s film commission has been co-produced by The Vega Foundation. Curated by Myriam Ben Salah, the work is on view at the The Renaissance Society, Chicago February 25 – April 16, 2023.

Aria Dean (b. 1993) lives and works in New York. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions and performances include REDCAT, Los Angeles (2021); Greene Naftali, New York (2021); Artists Space, New York (2020); Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva (2019); and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York (2018). Significant group shows include the Whitney Biennial: Quiet as It’s Kept (2022); the Hammer Museum’s biennial Made in L.A. 2020: a version (2021); the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2019); The MAC, Belfast, Northern Ireland (2019); Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2019); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2018); and Swiss Institute, New York (2018) among others.