Join artist Justin Beal at the Parrish Art Museum as he discusses Sandfuture (MIT Press September 2021), his forthcoming book about the life of World Trade Center architect Minoru Yamasaki (1912–1986), who remains on the margins of history despite the enormous influence of his work on American architecture and society.

Presented on the eve of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Sandfuture is also a book about an artist interrogating art and architecture’s role in culture as New York changes drastically after a decade bracketed by terrorism and natural disaster. From the central thread of Yamasaki’s life, Sandfuture spirals outward to include reflections on a wide range of subjects, from the figure of the architect in literature and film and transformations in the contemporary art market to the perils of sick buildings and the broader social and political implications of how, and for whom, cities are built.

Justin Beal is an artist with an extensive exhibition history in the United States and Europe. Beal graduated from Yale University with a degree in architecture and design and continued his studies at the Whitney Independent Study Program and the University of Southern California. His work has been reviewed in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Artforum, Frieze, Art in America, Interview and the Los Angeles Times and is included in the permanent collections of the Albright Knox Museum, the Hammer Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. Beal currently teaches at Hunter College.

The son of Japanese immigrants in Seattle, Minoru Yamasaki overcame endemic racism in both his country and his profession to rise to prominence with a humanistic approach to modern architecture—an unorthodox style exemplified by projects including the McGregor Memorial Conference Center, the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, and the Dhahran Airfield in Saudi Arabia. In 1963, Yamasaki appeared on the cover of Time magazine, but the critical rebuke of the World Trade Center and the spectacular demise of the Pruitt-Igoe apartments in St. Louis pushed him to the margins of the profession in the latter half of his career. Today, Yamasaki remains largely unknown despite his enormous influence on the history of American architecture and the astonishing coincidence that his two best-known projects were both destroyed on live television.

Friday September 10, 6:00–8:00pm
Parrish Art Museum
Water Mill, NY
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