Art in the Yard, the outdoor pop-up art exhibition space

Art in the Yard is an outdoor pop-up art exhibition space in the bucolic town of Larchmont, NY, designed to bring neighbors and friends together to enjoy art and celebrate early summer as Covid receded and social distancing guidelines were relaxed. The architecture of the space takes a morphological hammer to the traditional white box art gallery. Free-standing, modular walls disperse into the landscape and blur the boundary between art and yard, creating a dynamic space for the community to experience art and reconnect.

In response to the programmatic needs of the exhibit, the wall elements vary in height and length: Tall, simple surfaces are for hanging artwork; a long reception counter provides a place for greeting visitors and directing them to the art gallery; wall-like fragments dispersed across the yard provide seating. The pop-up employs a tented structure to protect the valuable artwork from the elements, with open sides allowing sunlight to fill the space during daytime. The walls, extending beyond the perimeter of the tented roof into the yard, lead visitors from grassy exterior to the exhibition interior. From the center of the tent, the walls radiate out into the landscape and frame views of the yard. The ends of the walls are illuminated with embedded light fixtures that project light on the tent ceiling.

Built on site in less than a week, the lightweight walls are actually hollow module structures constructed in two different sizes (2’x4’x8’ and 2’x8’x8’) that can be easily placed in a sloping suburban yard and adapted to topography. The wall elements are sustainable, adaptable, designed to be easily removed at the end of the exhibition, put into storage, and reused in future exhibitions in topographically diverse locations.