Why Does Adam Cvijanovic Paint Murals of Flying Houses?

Visitors view Adam Cvijanovic’s Suspension of Disbelief 2007, an 18-by-18-foot canvas being shown at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

A detail of the work.

Flying homes are a central motif in Suspension of Disbelief 2007.

When I first saw Suspension of Disbelief 2007, Adam Cvijanovic’s frescolike canvas currently on view at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMoCA), I was taken by its explosion of color and its content: a home, bedsheets, tires, flip flops, a container of Ajax, and other household objects whirling in a blue sky. I immediately thought of the coastal hurricanes and The Wizard of Oz.

The 18-foot-square work is part of the artist’s ongoing statement about the changing meaning of home in America. No longer are our homes safe havens, shielding us from harm and providing us with a sense of security. Rather, as Hurricane Katrina showed, they’re physically vulnerable structures, easily destroyed by an act of nature. But more insidious, our houses no longer root us to a specific place or community—at least not in these transient times, when everything is in flux, and it’s common practice to live somewhere for a few years and then move on, spurred by want or financial necessity. 

Ironically, Cvijanovic paints his murals on Tyvek, a flexible, protective wrapping used in home construction. But there are also practical reasons for his choice. “It’s cheap and transportable,” he says of the material. Since you can’t move a wall from place to place, making traditional frescoes isn’t an option; instead “the only plausible way to work is to have something you can put up and take down,” he says. As for materials, the artist uses a mixture of water-based and highly pigmented vinyl paints.

Suspension of Disbelief 2007 is on display at North Adams, Massachusetts–based MassMOCA through April 27. The piece is part of “Unhinged,” a two-person show that also features the work of photographer Peter Garfield. Cvijanovic has another exhibit, “Project Room: Studies for the Fall of Babylon,” on view through April 14 at New York City’s Bellwether Gallery. —Susan Weiman, assistant to the editor-in-chief