David Diao and Christian Bjone discuss their common interest in Philip Johnson, the Glass House, and Modernist architecture. Two paintings by Diao related to the Glass House were installed in the Painting Gallery for the occasion and remained on view until September 22, 2014. This program was organized in collaboration with the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum on the occasion of the exhibition David Diao: Front to Back (July 13 – September 21, 2014).

Christian Bjone is a licensed architect in New York City and was educated at the University of Illinois and Princeton University. Bjone is the author of First House: The Grid, the Figure and the Void (2002), Art and Architecture: Strategies in Collaboration (2009), and Philip Johnson and His Mischief: Appropriation in Art and Architecture (2014). He worked as a project architect for the firms Pei Partnership and Johnson/Burgee Architects. At the latter, he also coordinated the archival research and editing for four books on Philip Johnson.

David Diao is known for paintings and collages that examine the legacy of artists such as Kasimir Malevich, Barnett Newman and Gerhard Richter, as well as architects Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer and Philip Johnson. Born in Chengdu, China, and immigrated to the United States in 1955, Diao was elected to the National Academy in 2012. His work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Ontario Art Gallery, and the Vancouver Art Gallery, among others.

Glass House Presents was generously supported by an anonymous donor.

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