Antique

The Barmecide Feast, by Simon Birch and KplusK associates (which was co-founded by Paul Kember), recreates the bedroom from the final scene of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

You really have to go out of your way to get to the 14th Factory, a new pop-up art space in the industrial area of Lincoln Heights, east of downtown Los Angeles. It's housed in an enormous building the size of a Costco warehouse and it sits across the street from an old, abandoned city jail.
The first of many gallery spaces you enter is almost pitch black. When your eyes adjust, you see giant metal shards that look like an asteroid has imploded. At the center, you step inside an almost blindingly bright white room and find yourself in the bedroom from the final scene of Stanley Kubrick's classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey.




"It's such a perfect symbol and metaphor for the entire project," says artist Simon Birch, the man responsible for the unusual, immersive experience that is the 14th Factory. Birch is a tall, lanky Brit and a big sci-fi fan. He says he always wanted to recreate that Kubrick set, but it took a stroke of luck to make it happen. All the models and props from 2001 had been destroyed under Kubrick's orders, so Birch asked his architect friend Paul Kember to rebuild the set for him.
"Paul got up from the table with a smile on his face," Birch recalls. "He says, 'I don't need to watch the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey to work out the dimensions of that room. I just need to call my uncle Tony.' He says, 'Well, my uncle Tony just happened to be Stanley Kubrick's chief draftsman/ set designer and built that original room.' "

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