Publication

  • Oblique Time with Claude Parent
    Mai Abu ElDahab, Claude Parent, and Benjamin Seror
    Authors
    Bom Dia Boa Tarde Boa Noite, 2019
  • GRANTEE
    Mai Abu ElDahab & Benjamin Seror
    GRANT YEAR
    2016

Claude Parent, view of his apartment, 1973, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Courtesy of Naad Parent.

French experimental architect Claude Parent (1923–2016) was born and lived his entire life in Neuilly-sur-Seine. A trained architect with some background in graphic design, engineering, and fashion, Parent spent most of his long career advocating the oblique function, a concept of designing buildings based on inclines that he originally developed with philosopher Paul Virilio in the 1960s. The interviewers met Parent in 2013, when Abu ElDahab commissioned Parent to design a space that rearticulated the ground floor of the Tate Liverpool in 2014, as part of the 8th Liverpool Biennial she was cocurating. Abu ElDahab and Seror met regularly with Parent at his residence for two- to three-hour conversations between 2013 and 2015, some of which were recorded for the purpose of this publication. A prolific producer of drawings and other graphic works, the publication includes images of some of the drawings and India ink paintings Parent was making during that period.

Both living in Brussels, Mai Abu ElDahab is a contemporary art curator from Cairo. Benjamin Seror is a visual artist and musician from Lyon.