Pop culture is inextricably part of the art on display, here, with "pop" also acting as surrogate word for:
— populations, as when they separate within a single massive structure, connected only by their housing unit and a communal detachment (a feeling implied by Shizuka Yokomizo's photographs of "strangers" through ground-level apartment windows from the Dear Stranger project);
— pop, the verb meaning: to hit, as when rival gangs in a St. Petersburg suburb fight against the backdrop of dense "modernist" apartment complexes (kommunalkas). In Cyprien Gaillard's hypnotizing video, Desniansky Raion, the result is a kind of medieval warfare set in present context, fit into present structures, to the music of Koudlam's pulsating track, See You All;
— pop!, like the noise made by the blast of a building's colorfully lit demolition (again, Gaillard's Desniansky Raion video, which documents the flattening of a housing block in the suburbs of Paris) or the blast of an unforeseen tragedy.
![Top: Installation view of Ahmet Ölüt's <em>Exploding
City</em>, 2009 in <em>Skyscraper: Art and Architecture
Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan
Keay, © MCA Chicago. Above: gelitin, <em>B-Thing</em>, detail e, 2001. Courtesy of the
Artists and Greene Naftali, New York Top: Installation view of Ahmet Ölüt's <em>Exploding
City</em>, 2009 in <em>Skyscraper: Art and Architecture
Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan
Keay, © MCA Chicago. Above: gelitin, <em>B-Thing</em>, detail e, 2001. Courtesy of the
Artists and Greene Naftali, New York](/content/dam/domusweb/en/architecture/2012/09/04/skyscraper-art-and-architecture-against-gravity/big_392443_9039_02_web_b903agelitin_B-Thing_020_e1.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
![Eliza Myrie, <em>raze/raise-topple/top pull</em>, 2012.
Courtesy of the artist, Chicago Eliza Myrie, <em>raze/raise-topple/top pull</em>, 2012.
Courtesy of the artist, Chicago](/content/dam/domusweb/en/architecture/2012/09/04/skyscraper-art-and-architecture-against-gravity/big_392443_7253_03_web_60a9amyrie_raze1.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
On the whole, the show captures the rather emotive and certainly global subjects of displacement, dysfunction, and alienation. Surely, the best architecture addresses such subjects, as well — often in an effort to avoid or divert from their negative outcomes — but this show is not steeped in the theoretical
![Installation view of Yin Xiuzhen's <em>Portable City</em>
series in <em>Skyscraper: Art and Architecture
Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan
Keay, © MCA Chicago Installation view of Yin Xiuzhen's <em>Portable City</em>
series in <em>Skyscraper: Art and Architecture
Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan
Keay, © MCA Chicago](/content/dam/domusweb/en/architecture/2012/09/04/skyscraper-art-and-architecture-against-gravity/big_392443_3454_04_web_0d065Skyscraper_20120629_671.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
![Installation view, <em>Skyscraper: Art and
Architecture Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago Installation view, <em>Skyscraper: Art and
Architecture Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago](/content/dam/domusweb/en/architecture/2012/09/04/skyscraper-art-and-architecture-against-gravity/big_392443_7191_05_web_73bf2Skyscraper_20120629_041.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
![Installation view, <em>Skyscraper: Art and
Architecture Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan
Keay, © MCA Chicago Installation view, <em>Skyscraper: Art and
Architecture Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan
Keay, © MCA Chicago](/content/dam/domusweb/en/architecture/2012/09/04/skyscraper-art-and-architecture-against-gravity/big_392443_6675_06_web_716d9Skyscraper_20120629_151.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
![Installation view, <em>Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago Installation view, <em>Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago](/content/dam/domusweb/en/architecture/2012/09/04/skyscraper-art-and-architecture-against-gravity/big_392443_5742_07_web_9842fSkyscraper_20120629_141.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Chicago, USA
![Installation view, <em>Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago Installation view, <em>Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago](/content/dam/domusweb/en/architecture/2012/09/04/skyscraper-art-and-architecture-against-gravity/big_392443_1269_08_web_d05f4Skyscraper_20120629_361.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
![Installation view, <em>Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago Installation view, <em>Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity</em> at the MCA Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago](/content/dam/domusweb/en/architecture/2012/09/04/skyscraper-art-and-architecture-against-gravity/big_392443_7634_09_web_be643Skyscraper_20120629_111.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)