The small, architecturally-awkward exhibition space at the Getty Research Institute has a singular legacy of putting on shows at once whimsical and genuinely edifying, obtuse and seemingly inevitable. Often its contents unfold with the unceremonious, time-demanding spatial logic of a study room, rather than the easeful legibility of a traditional gallery: Vitrines are packed with ephemera and conceptual studies; descriptive plaques are heavy on didactic-speak. The result is a viewing experience concerned more with factual comprehension than aesthetic pageantry, and a welcome respite from all the velvety period rooms and sweeping views and bountiful sunlight just across the plaza.

Taking as its subject the complete oeuvre of the Austrian-American architect, artist, curator, fashion designer, and critic, "Lessons from Bernard Rudofsky" remains loyal to the GRI gallery's dual traditions of idiosyncrasy and enlightenment. Rudofsky's influential work as the organizer of the exhibition Architecture Without Architects at MoMA in 1964 and the designer of the Bernardo sandal (1946-1964) might be unfamiliar to some, but its unpacking here makes a convincing argument for the utopianism, determination, and quirkiness of one man's vision. It is a vision seemingly without limits, and yet one bound to the historical context of postwar America, to a unique politics of hope and formal innovation. Charged with encompassing so many big ideas compactly, the GRI has responded with characteristically endearing rigor.

- Nico Machida

(Images top-bottom:  Bernard Rudofsky, Greece 1966, Color slide; Bernard Rudofsky, Bernardo Sandals with Background View of Eiffel Tower, ca. 1950s, Gelatin silver print; Bernard Rudofsky, View of Oia, Santorini Island, Greece, 1929, Watercolor, pencil and gouache on paper.  All images courtesy of Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California.)