Gregory Ain: No Place Like Utopia

Last week’s story about the discovery of Gregory Ain’s long-lost house for the Museum of Modern Art mentions Christiane Robbins and Katherine Lambert, who are making a film about Ain called No Place Like Utopia. The article mentions that the filmmakers were “on the trail” of the existence of the MoMA house before George Smart found it and brought it to the attention of the New York Times. I can confirm this—Lambert and Robbins have been pursuing the story of the house’s afterlife for several years and they specifically sought this information from MoMA. Their exhibition “This Future has a Past…” for the 2016 Venice Biennale cleverly portrayed Ain’s museum house as a blur. Similarly, when I wrote Gregory Ain (as I said last week) I was uncertain about the house’s fate because MoMA’s archival material was not available.

I’ve known Chris and Katherine for several years and I know them to be excellent and rigorous researchers. You can find more about No Place Like Utopia here, and under the “Film” tab there is a clip including architect Wolf Prix discussing Ain’s importance. I have eagerly participated as a consultant to the film and I am very much looking forward to it.