Gianni Pettena froze a typical Mineapolis suburbs’ house in a block of ice in 1971. The building was covered with a wooden form, to which water was poured down simultaneously with a fall in temperature. The building became one single ice cube – a form that emerged from the sequence of suburban houses lined up along the street. The urban landscape reflected in the solid surface of the ice. Due to limited access to archival materials, it is not clear what happened to the frozen house during the thaw, or if it ever existed. Did the roof begin to leak in the Spring? To what extent did the construction withstand the architect’s destructive intentions?

The “Roztopy / Thaw” exhibition begins when the original shape of the house should slowly emerge from the block of melting ice. “Roztopy / Thaw” presents three interweaving narratives forced upon households by nature and other seemingly external forces (e.g. artificial lighting, changes in currency markets). The transformative potential was used as a tool to understand the internal structure of the exhibited artworks.