Most publicity about the powerful Paul Thek retrospective at the Whitney has focused on the “meat” pieces, tabletop assemblages that incorporate exquisitely rendered wax models of chunks of human and animal flesh.

Thek moved on from those works to more performance-oriented pieces, for which he crafted special props that fall somewhere between costume, furniture and sculpture.  Made from simple, recognizable elements like chairs, lumber and glass, they’re irrationally deformed and decorated so that they have an unsettling totemic power.  And yet, like a lot of Thek’s work, they have a certain innocence too.

(Paul Thek, Untitled (Sedan Chair), 1968. Wood, wax, paint, metal, leather, glass, and plaster.)

There’s Zaha, and Denise, and Liz, and the lady from SANAA …

According to the AIA just over 13% of architects in America are women.

Now there’s a call for submissions for a group exhibit at Woodbury University in Los Angeles that will “consider the contributions and visibility of today’s practicing female architects."  Part of me can’t believe that there’s the need for this.  Another part of me wants to participate.

Last month at the Guggenheim Peter Eisenman, our most celebrated architectural theorist, said, “Architecture changes nothing.”

Then last night, at the Center for Architecture, Paul Goldberger, our most well-known architectural writer, said “Architecture makes life better.”

I believe both of them.