MEDIA CONTACTS

Pratt Manhattan Gallery

Mara McGinnis
Tel: 718.636.3471
Email: mara.mcginnis@pratt.edu
Van Alen Institute

Antoine Vigne, Blue Medium, Inc.
Tel: 212.675.1800
Email: antoine@bluemedium.com
Project Office Shrinking Cities

Astrid Herbold
Eisenacher Strasse 74
Berlin, D-10823
Tel: +49 (30) 81 82 19 06
Email: press@shrinkingcities.com

Shrinking Cities, International Research
December 8, 2006 – January 21, 2007
Opening Reception:
5:30 – 7:30 PM, Thursday, December 7
Van Alen Institute30 West 22nd Street, 6th floor
New York, NY 10010
212.924.7000
Shrinking Cities, Interventions
December 8, 2006 – February 17, 2007
Opening Reception:
6:30 – 8:30 PM, Thursday, December 7
Gallery: Monday – Friday, 10 AM – 6 PM
Pratt Manhattan Gallery
144 West 14th Street, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10011
212.647.7778
Gallery: Tuesday – Saturday, 11 AM – 6 PM

Pratt Manhattan Gallery
and Van Alen Institute topresent an exhibition thatexamines the worldwide
phenomenon of urban
decline and possibilities
of creative intervention
NEW YORK, N.Y., November 15, 2006 — Whileinternational urban discourse focuses exclusively on thegrowing megalopolises, zones of shrinkage have been
forming and are generally ignored. Shrinking Cities, afour year project of the German Federal CulturalFoundation, has investigated the worldwide phenomenonof urban shrinkage by focusing on four urban regions:
Detroit (USA), Halle/Leipzig (Germany), Manchester/Liverpool (U.K.), and Ivanovo (Russia).
The project included two phases, during which a network ofmore than 200 artists, architects, academics, and local initiatives
approached the question, “How can we grasp urban decline andwhat do we do with shrinking cities?” The results have beenpresented in two exhibitions, several books, digital publications,and numerous public events. Now, the Shrinking Cities exhibition
will be shown in New York as the start of an international tour.

A press preview will take place on December 7 from 1- 3 PM at Pratt
Manhattan Gallery with remarks by curator Philipp Oswalt, at 1:30 PM.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEWith a combined exhibition space of 4,000 square
feet, Pratt Manhattan Gallery and Van Alen Institutewill simultaneously host Shrinking Cities in NewYork. The exhibition includes 32 contributions byartists, architects, filmmakers, journalists, andresearchers including Nikolaus Brade, Sergei Bratkov,
Mitch Cope, John Davies, interboro/CUP, CedricPrice, Bas Princen, Isa Rosenberger, Christoph
Schäfer, O.M. Ungers, and Ingo Vetter.
Van Alen Institute will host part one of the exhibition,
Shrinking Cities, International Research, which
examines the phenomenon of urban decline. The
four focus cities are explored and represented
in diverse forms of documentation by artists,architects, filmmakers, journalists, and researchers.
Themes include a worldwide study of shrinking
cities, the change of urban landscapes, everyday
practices, and political conflicts under the conditionsof urban decline.
Pratt Manhattan Gallery will host part two of theexhibition, Shrinking Cities, Interventions, which
presents strategies for action. It is divided into fiveareas: Negotiating Inequality, Self-Governance,
Creating Images, Organizing Retreat, and Occupying
Space. Commissioned projects range from artistic
interventions and self-empowerment strategies
through architectural, landscape, media andperformance interventions, to new legal regulations
and utopian visions.
A joint reception on December 7 will launch theexhibition. The public is invited to attend bothopenings that are within walking distance of one
another. Van Alen Institute will be open from5:30 - 7:30 PM and Pratt Manhattan Gallery will
be open from 6:30-8:30 PM.

The following series of public talks/film
screenings will take place at multiple
venues in New York City in conjunction
with the exhibition:

Friday, December, 8, 6:30 PM, film
Occupying Space:
Experimental Projects in (East) Germany.
Center for Architecture
Saturday, December 9, 3:00 PM, conference
Shrinking Cities: Negotiating Inequality,speakers will include Phillip Oswalt, curator; Johannes
Fiedler, contributor; Damon Rich, RostenWoo, Center for
Urban Pedagogy, contributors; and Neil Smith, Center forPlace, Culture and Politics, CUNY.
Center for Architecture
Tuesday, December 12, 6:30-7:30 PM, in conversation
The Bronx: Shrinking?
Adolfo Carrion, Jr., Bronx Borough President; Michael
Sorkin, director, the Graduate Urban Design Program,City
College of New York and principal, Michael Sorkin Studio.
Van Alen Institute
Friday, January 5, 6:30 PM, film
Self Governance: Urban Agriculture.
Center for Architecture
Friday, January, 12, 6:30 PM, film
Creating Images: Music Cultures.
Center for Architecture
Tuesday, January 30, 6:00 PM, symposium
Is New Orleans a Shrinking City?
A Confrontation between Ecology and Politics.
Panelists will include: Phillip Oswalt, curator, Shrinking
Cities; James Dart, special lecturer, School of Architecture,
New Jersey Institute of Technology; Deborah Gans,professor, School of Architecture, Pratt Institute; andFrederic Schwartz, Frederic Schwartz Architects.
Pratt Manhattan, Room 213
Center for Architecture admission:$10 members, $15 non-members
All other venues are free and open to the public.

SHRINKING CITIES NEW YORK PUBLIC TALKS/FILM SCREENING VENUES:
Center for Architecture

536 LaGuardia Place, New York, New York 10012
Tel: 212.683.0023 www.aiany.org/centerforarchitecture

Pratt Manhattan

144 West 14th Street, room 213, New York, New York 10011
Tel: 212.647.7778 www.pratt.edu/exhibitions

Van Alen Institute

30 W. 22nd Street, 6th Floor, New York, New York 10010
Tel: 212.924.7000 www.vanalen.org

Shrinking Cities (www.shrinkingcities.com)
is a project of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes(German Federal Cultural Foundation)in cooperation with the Project Office;Philipp Oswalt, Gallery for Contemporary
Art Leipzig; the Bauhaus DessauFoundation; and the magazine archplus.
Chief curator:
Philipp Oswalt
Co-curators for the follow-up-show in New York City:
William Menking, Professor of Architecture, Pratt InstituteAdi Shamir, Executive Director, Van Alen Institute
Assistant Curator:
Anke Hagemannfunded by the German Federal
Cultural Foundation

About Pratt Institute:Founded in 1887, Pratt Institute is one of thelargest independent colleges of art and designin the United States, offering undergraduate
and graduate degree programs in the schools ofarchitecture, art and design, information andlibrary science, and liberal arts and sciences.
Pratt is located on 25 landscaped acres in theClinton Hill section of Brooklyn and has a
Manhattan campus in a large, newly renovatedbuilding on West 14th Street.
About Pratt Manhattan Gallery:
Pratt Manhattan Gallery is a public art gallery
affiliated with Pratt Institute. The goals of thegallery are to present significant innovative andintellectually challenging work in the fields ofart, architecture, fashion, and design from aroundthe world and to provide a range of educational
initiatives to help viewers relate contemporary
art to their lives in a meaningful way.

Following the New York exhibition, “Shrinking Cities”
will be jointly hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art
in Detroit and the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield
Hills, Michigan from February 3, 2007 - April 1, 2007
and will continue its international tour with exhibitions
in Tokyo, Japan; Liverpool, U.K.; Saarbrucken, Frankfurt
and Dortmund, Germany; St. Petersburg, Russia;
Eisernerz, Austria; and Rousse, Bulgaria. The international
tour is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
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