Rita McBride — wunderkammer

Presented by Del Vaz Projects, OKEY DOKEY KONRAD FISCHER, and Blue Heights Arts & Culture, “wunderkammer” was an installation by artist Rita McBride at the Galka Scheyer House during FRIEZE Art Fair 2026. “wunderkammer” began with McBride clearing space in her studio to create a singular, novel artwork. The circumstance of this rearrangement results in an amalgamation of past and in-process works hung and placed randomly. Situated similarly in this domestic setting (without chronology, rhythm, or reason), McBride’s works—often engaging civic space, urban infrastructure, and industrial fabrication—mold into compartmental, eclectic fixtures. While every element originates from a specific point in the evolution of her practice, here, each piece functions as a neighbor—relevant in its immediate relation to the artwork that it surrounds and the architecture that surrounds it. Moving from one object to the next is kinetic rather than choreographed; there is potential for perpetual reordering.

“wunderkammer” marked the final artistic intervention at 1880 Blue Heights Drive before the restoration of Neutra’s original design commences. While this home reflects the twentieth-century ideals of biorealism—a functional place to live in nature—it is not emblematic of Neutra’s Case Study houses. This space was designed to address the particular needs/desires—some documented, some discovered—of an individual’s profession and lifestyle. “wunderkammer”’s contents contend with a palimpsest of contemporary renovations and reside amongst the house’s faded trace of Modernism. During the structure’s transitional phase, the artist’s freedoms are measured against the architect’s concerns: the future preservation of the past. McBride’s variable arrangements inspired a dance between artmaking and engineering—a negotiation of room for invention. Each work invoked the assessment of a bearing wall, the depth of a floorboard, and whether a stairwell is up to code. The installation (outdoors, indoors, and across various rooms) catalyzes a sequence of inquiries, limitations, and parameters—and their resulting possibilities.

A caliper was erected at a colossal scale that transforms tool into spectacle; a mobile was constructed with Cosanti-wrought links and balanced with Murano-glass leaves; a promotional real-estate poster reimagined the Vienna Secession building as a luxury high-rise; a print was composed of a gestural, fax-warped reproduction of Le Corbusier’s designs for Algiers; highway ramps are coated with horizon-line hues and faded in the sun; silhouettes of gigantic keys and locks from around the world are cut out of brass sheets and patinaed; found newspaper dispensers were spray-painted into monochrome totems that house and disseminate free literature (such as this). Aspiring to precision, function, and idealism, Modernist architecture intrigues McBride with its inescapable complexities, failures, and humor. Her works test the extent to which the artist can approach democratic structures democratically, inviting both play and plan through actions of unlocking, tinkering, and reconfiguring. Like a body moving through space, these works orient rather than explain: implicit, visceral, and absurd.