MIAMI—Jorge Pardo has been skirting the fuzzy line between art and design for 20 years. His landmark 1998 exhibition, sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, took place in a fully furnished house above the Hollywood Hills that he designed, from the boomerang-shaped floor plan to the bedroom sets to the redwood siding. After the show ended, he moved in to the home and has lived there ever since. Now, a decade later, the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami is hosting Pardo’s first retrospective, “House,” on view from December 4 through March 2, 2008. What took so long? According to the museum’s director and chief curator, Bonnie Clearwater, Pardo has balked at lumping his work (whether his glass-domed chandeliers, dry-docked boats or candy-colored wall hangings) together by chronology or style. For “House,” Pardo has instead planted 60 pieces, in galleries that together compose a “residence,” complete with bedroom and kitchen. Hanging above each object from dizzying, angled walls is a mural-size photograph of it in its original setting. The point, says Clearwater, is that the meanings of Pardo’s creations change with their environments: “Some might buy Jorge’s lamps and use them as such, while others display them as art. The pieces have a life of their own.” 

"Home Depot" comes to ARTINFO from the December 2007 issue of Art & Auction magazine.