Henry Urbach
I was shocked to learn that Henry Urbach had died. I knew him when he arrived here to become the architecture and design curator at SFMOMA. He had owned a gallery in New York City that looked at architecture through the lens of contemporary art. This was something that Max Protech had pioneered there in his own gallery, and Urbach brought that perspective to the museum. His first show - I think it was called "The Cut" - considered the section, comparing it to Matta-Clark's cut-down-the-middle houses. The shows grew in their ambition and complexity. He didn't like to provide much explanation, and I was often baffled. Some years after a show he did on Las Vegas came and went, the designer Martin Venesky, who collaborated with him on it, explained it to me. I was amazed how layered it was, a work of art in itself. But it took this conversation for me to understand it. Those who knew Urbach well seemed to get it in full. I got it in bits, but they were interesting. And
