{"id":676942,"date":"2026-11-06T17:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T17:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/676942\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T17:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T17:32:14","slug":"what-else-could-it-mean-a-book-surveys-the-playful-iconoclastic-works-of-james-wines-colossal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/676942\/","title":{"rendered":"What Else Could It Mean? A Book Surveys the Playful, Iconoclastic Works of James Wines \u2014 Colossal"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not uncommon for artists and architects to espouse a desire for breaking conventions and pushing boundaries, but so few have embodied such a mandate as James Wines. An unparalleled devotee of wit and play, Wines is behind SITE<\/a> (Sculpture in the Environment), a New York-based studio founded in 1970 with a portfolio that spans commercial construction, urban infrastructure, public art, and more. No matter the project, SITE\u2019s approach is rooted in questioning the division between art and architecture and defying expectations.<\/p>\n

In the preface to the new book, What Else Could It Mean?, Wines describes how he spent months in Rome after college soaking in the religious designs and civically unified architecture, which inspired what became his signature mode of working. When he returned to the U.S. to continue teaching at New York University, he asked his students to create with the opposite approach, one that tapped into a fractured and diverse contemporary landscape. \u201cWhat else could it mean?\u201d became a driving ethos that centered around \u201carchitecture as a critique of itself, as an inversion of design expectations, as humorous insights and the absorption of context as a motivating source of ideas,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>Grand opening of the Best Notch Showroom<\/p>\n

Published by Skira, What Else Could It Mean? showcases dozens of projects from the SITE oeuvre. The most iconic of the studio\u2019s works are designs for BEST Products Company<\/a>, a big box store that operated for four decades. Owners Sydney and Frances Lewis tapped Wines to create unconventional structures for their showrooms, which included a building that appeared to sink into the ground at an angle and another that split open as the base fractured from the rest of the facade.<\/p>\n

The BEST designs are just a piece of SITE\u2019s broader commentary on commercialization. There\u2019s also \u201cGhost Parking Lot,\u201d an enormous, immovable public art project in Hamden, Connecticut, that buried twenty cars beneath asphalt. Forever halted outside the shopping mall, the immobile vehicles became ghostly signals of endless consumption and urban sprawl.<\/p>\n

What Else Could It Mean? collects Wines\u2019 drawings, renderings, and writings across five decades, presenting these rarely seen documents alongside archival photos of realized projects. SITE\u2019s ethos has particular relevancy today, especially as it challenges the inherent accessibility of art and architecture and advocates for a more democratic approach to collective life. Designer and curator Phillip Denny writes in the introduction: <\/p>\n

These are works that engage their context, invite participation, and reward curiosity regardless of one\u2019s background. It is art and architecture for the popular public that anyone can stop in front of, be surprised by, laugh at, and think about without a guidebook. Often ironic but never cynical, always generous and ecumenical, SITE created art where people least expected to find it, in the \u201cjunk-culture world of the commercial strip and suburban sprawl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get your copy of What Else Could It Mean? on Bookshop<\/a>, and explore more of SITE\u2019s works on its website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"people<\/a>BEST Tilt Showroom<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>Willi Smith WilliWear Office<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>World Ecology Pavilion<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>Liberty Landfill Plaza<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>Frito Lay<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>SITE<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>Four Corners Project<\/p>\n

\"an<\/a>James Wines<\/p>\n

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Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not uncommon for artists and architects to espouse a desire for breaking conventions and pushing boundaries, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1122,307,304,305,306,308,93,11916,61,3019,60,286759,4199],"class_list":["post-676942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-architecture","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-humor","tag-ie","tag-installation","tag-ireland","tag-james-wines","tag-public-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}