Only in Los Angeles can you drive to an Assyrian palace to buy Blue Jeans and leather goods. www.citadeloutlets.com

The exhibition City of Commerce (2008) examines the appropriation of Assyrian culture in the architecture of the Citadel Outlet Center in City of Commerce, east of Los Angeles. The shopping center is located on the former estate of the Samson Tire & Rubber Company, a tire factory built in 1930 by the architecture firm Morgan, Walls & Clements. To illustrate the biblical reference in the company’s name, the facade was designed after the ancient Assyrian palace of King Sargon II. (8th Century BC). The original artifacts from this palace form the Cour de Khorsabad at the Louvre in Paris, the central gallery of the museum’s Assyrian collection.
The exhibition City of Commerce consists of two main parts: The installation Cour Khorsabad (2008) translates the architecture of the Louvre’s Assyrian gallery into a sculpture, that functions as a pedestal and display case for objects referring to the Citadel Outlet Centerin Los Angeles, 20th Century Iraq and ancient Mesopotamia. The second part of the exhibition shows a group of photographs that follow the development of the tire factory into the contemporary Assyrian shopping center.

City of Commerce, 2008, Nice and Fit Gallery, Berlin