Like some architecture critical version of Bobby Ewing. [Or is it Pamela? Whichever.] In this week’s New Yorker, Paul Goldberger writes about the horrible dream he just had: Pataki and the Port Authority were railroading their 10mm sf uber alles program through at the WTC site, resulting in pointless, tenantless, characterless office buildings with marginal cultural facilities wedged in around their base, and a memorial that was little more than a front yard for some jingoistic, politicized ego-booster called the Freedom Tower.
Not only that, but Goldberger’s own master plan–an “Eiffel Tower for the 21st Century”; acres of experimental, affordable, and much-in-demand housing by innovative young architects; built around a deep, solemn, Libeskind-esque void of a memorial–had inexplicably not moved any closer to realization.
How did this happen? [note to any SVA Parsons students, apologies for making you imagine your dean naked.]
A New Beginning/ Why We Should Build Apartments at Ground Zero [ny’er, via cut-n-pasting monkey at wiredny]
Previously: “The Eiffel Tower for the 21st Century” [PG on Studio360 01/13/2003]
Author: greg
Winnipeg General Strike: The Musical
It’s always a bracing relief to see someone launch a musical with a more implausible basis than my own.
To wit: Danny Schur’s upcoming staging of Strike!, which is about the Winnipeg General Strike, in which 30,000 workers shut down the city for six weeks in 1919.
Yeah, I’d never heard of it, either.
Winnipeg’s ‘Strike!’ musical set for debut [cbc.ca, via robotwisdom]
On PT Anderson’s Use of Color
The latest issue of Senses of Cinema includes Cubie King’s intriguing look at PT Anderson’s use of color in Punch-Drunk Love. In addition to the interstitial abstract animations by artist Jeremy Blake [which were originally meant to represent–is that too strong a word?–Adam Sandler’s character’s state of mind], King cites Anderson’s recurring, particular use of red, white, and blue, and his inclusion of in-camera effects like washout lighting and lens flares. That’s a lot.
King asserts that Anderson truly comes into his own in P-DL. But I recently rewatched Magnolia, and yeah, it’s Altman-esque in its structure, but damn, that is one uniquely intense film. Tom Cruise is actually good, unnervingly so, [although the schtick gets tired when he tries it for real on Oprah; suspension of disbelief, my butt] and Julianne Moore, wow, what a sustained performance. Macy, too, now that I think about it.
FYI, Blake’s latest trilogy of video work, Winchester moves to incorporate more representational and narrative elements than before. It’s showing at SFMOMA through October 10. P-DL screens June 12 at the Museum as the last of a damn-I-missed-it Blake-curated film series.
Punch-Drunk Love: The Budding of an Auteur [sensesofcinema.com]
Winchester, by Jeremy Blake [sfmoma.org]
Buy the Punch-Drunk Love 2-disc edition DVD or this sweet little Winchester exhibition catalogue [amazon.com]
On Randomness and Responsibility
I just got back from a visit to the new conservation department digs at MoMA [one word: AWESOME], and they’d just taken down the Richard Tuttle Letters sculpture today, to get it ready for the SFMOMA retrospective, and it was lying around on the table.
The conservator talked about interviewing Tuttle to see what his intentions were for the weak or broken solders, the accumulating fingerprints on the galvanized steel, even which side was the front and which was the back. Tuttle actually preferred the imperfections, the minor breaks, the accumulated history of wear and randomness, everything but the stickers some German museum stuck on what they thought was the back of the pieces. In another nod to non-prescriptiveness, Tuttle says there is no front or back.
This intentional abrogation seemed suitably interesting, admirable, even, and then I read Clay Risen’s review of Peter Eisenman’s Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin in The New Republic. Risen decries the inevitable but apparently unanticipated transformation of the grim, abstracted Holocaust memorial, now full of children, into “the world’s greatest playground.” He cites Eisenman’s casual embrace of picnickers, skateboarders, and even defacement. “Maybe it would add to it,” he said. For some reason I can’t quite pin down, Eisenman’s “maybe” bugs.
Can advocating chance ever be be cleanly differentiated from abrogating or denying responsibility for the life of a work? Risen also slams the open-ended whateverness of abstraction, especially for memorials. He calls Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial a rare exception, an abstract memorial that succeeds by not dictating a message; it’s telling that he can’t come up with any others.
There’s little downside, little impact on our culture, ultimately, if a Richard Tuttle sculpture is repaired or displayed “wrong.” But what is the impact of a Holocaust memorial in Germany being “misread”? Or turned into a skatepark? Are there situations when embracing randomness is wrong, or when it should be questioned?
Stone Cold [tnr.com, sub req]
What Cannes I Do
Fear and self-loathing in Cannes [guardian]
A step up from when they the Guardian crew would just complain about the shortage of open bars, Mark Lawson looks for the big themes in Cannes. The result: 1) guilt, 2) loser fathers. And the Palme d’Or goes to: Loser Fathers. The Dardennes’ doc-style filmmaking wins again.
I [heart] Manohla Dargis, whose Cannes Journal with Tony Scott was very funny. Plus, she namechecked daily.greencine.com. I’d say more, but I can’t; it’s off the record.
The film US TV networks dare not show [guardian]
BBC series-turned-feature at Cannes by the “anti-Michael Moore” examines US origins of fanatics: Strauss (and Strauss begat Wolfowitz) and Qutb (and Qutb begat Al Zawahiri and Al Zawahiri begat Bin Laden). Let’s see, BBC-produced, Moore-invoked, Cannes-premiered, Al Jazeera-aired, and yet no giant media conglomerate in the US wants to air it? Go figure.
That cranky Galloway testified before Congress and all he got was press coverage in the UK–and mysteriously, no officially published transcript. Your tax dollars at work. [senate.gov, via robotwisdom]
And here I thought he couldn’t have a stupider idea than using the WTC to promote his f-ing show
Trump Announces The Apprentice: The Musical
This Problem Was Baked In From The Beginning Of The Process
What is missing at ground zero is a sense of humility. This is something that cannot be remedied by reducing the scale of a building. We should refocus attention on what matters most: remembering the human beings who were lost at ground zero, while allowing life to return to the void there. The rest is a pointless distraction.
–Nicolai Ouroussoff, discussing the inherent problems with the current redevelopment and memorial plans for the WTC site, which he notes has been parcelled out to different political constituencies and filled with clutter.
On Land Marks
The late Cuban-American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres is well-known for appropriating minimalism–the Establishment for his generation–and for imbuing that movement’s self-consciously impersonalized, content-free, manufactured forms with deeply resonant emotional, biographical, and political metaphor.
So it is again with the next generation, I thought, when I saw Land Marks (foot prints), photographs by Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla.
Gonzalez-Torres made several works, including a billboard and a series of black & white photographs, of sand churned over with footprints. They’re legible but barely, approaching a very painterly monochromatic abstraction. They speak of human presence, multiple people, and activity, but they’re only sentimental in their impermanence.
Without knowing their intentions, I don’t want to draw any hard and fast parallels, but Allora and Calzadilla seem to be referencing these works in Land Marks. They stake a claim to the iconic forms of a looming, preceding giant, and ratchet up the work’s content, from the personal and identity themes of the 80’s and 90’s to larger, more explicity political activism.
In Land Marks, the artists put political messages on the soles of shoes, which were then worn by protestors infiltrating the beaches of Vieques while the US Navy was conducting weapons tests. When protestors tripped the Navy’s sensors, the tests would have to be halted; eventually the military agreed to abandon testing and its base on Vieques altogether. These photographs are documentation of repeated messages being directed specifically at the military security guards on the island; they’re a form of psychological counter-operations meant to disrupt or unsettle the larger, vastly more powerful opponent. And on top of that, they’re pretty badass.
Land Marks are on exhibit in a group show of the same name at Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris through 18 June. Allora & Calzadilla also have work in the Venice Biennale opening next month.
“Land Marks” [crousel.com]
Insurgent Inquiry: The art of Allora & Calzadilla [adbusters.org]
Paul Schmelzer also interviewed A&C on his weblog [eyeteeth.org]
Now let’s see, what rhymes with ‘glass hat’?
Miss Representation dumps a scalding hot cup of realism in the Port Authority’s lap by asking if their crown jewel–and the only thing the PA’s obduracy hasn’t botched so far–the Calatrava “transit hub”, isn’t just a crown roast instead.
The official line, of course, is that everything’s going smoothly, no hitches, what? but as MR points out, that’s demonstrably not possible, given the degree of flux and uncertainty surrounding all the other elements of the site redevelopment.
And then, on its face, he says, the design seems guaranteed to fail as anything other than a pompous, largely superfluous “glass hat.” And we know Calatrava’s not above building one of those, given budget enough and a seducibly ignoramic client.
I don’t see how ‘roof of bones’ won’t be the inevitable epithet. [miss representation]
previously: How is this Calatrava Moment different from all other Calatrava Moments?
Hiroshi Sugimoto: The Kultureflash Interview
Sherman Sam interviews the artist Hiroshi Sugimoto about his London show at Gagosian. Sugimoto’s latest works, originally shown at the Fondation Cartier, are photographs of early 20th-century mathematical and mechanical study models from the collection of Tokyo University.
Sugimoto provides some more background on the models, which were also photographed by Man Ray and studied–in their day, in the 1910’s and 20’s–by Duchamp, Brancusi, and others.
By happy coincidence, the same series are on view at Sonnabend until June 11.
Artworker of the Week: Hiroshi Sugimoto [kultureflash]
previously: On Math & Art in France
What Makes You So Special?
Just as there’s hardly an actor/waiter left in New York who hasn’t made rent by doing a couple day’s work on some Law & Order spin-off or other as an at-first tearful but increasingly suspecious relative or a neighbor who conveniently pins down the time of death by recounting what they were watching on TV, there’s hardly a blogger left in the city who hasn’t had to feign interest in Radar Magazine and cop to a fondness for the hard stuff while doing a “guest-editor” stint at some Gawker Media blog or other.
Forget S.I. Newhouse, Nick’s clearly on his way to becoming the Dick Wolf of the blogosphere, increasingly intdistinguishable spin-offs and all.
Come to think of it, Dickwolfer kinda sounds like a Gawker Media title already. Come to think of it. heh.
Memo to Diane Neal: Who are you again? [gawker.com]
GET YOUR 15 MINUTES! [radarmagazine.com]
Blogging, as in Slogging [nyt on guest-blogging, via gawker, please make me pure.]
[but not yet. 5/18 update with the best disclaimer ever: “(Disclaimer: Everybody involved in the Gawker-Radar spat works for or with everybody else involved, including The Observer.)”]
2005-05-23, This Week In The New Yorker
Issue of 2005-05-23
Posted 2005-05-16
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
COMMENT/ BLAIR’S BUSHY TAIL/ Hendrik Hertzberg on Tony Blair’s shrinking majority.
DEPT. OF YESTERYEAR/ U.N. ON ICE/ Nick Paumgarten on the U.N.’s potential move to the outer boroughs.
STREET LIFE/ TREE COUNT/ Andy Young on cataloguing Manhattan’s flora.
ICONS/ MR. G./ Adam Green on Robert Goulet, at seventy-one.
DEPT. OF INSPIRATION/ WRITERS AT WORK/ Ben McGrath on special work spaces for writers, in Queens.
A REPORTER AT LARGE/ Michael Specter/ Higher Risk/ Why H.I.V. rates are rising among gay men.
SHOUTS & MURMURS/ Paul Rudnick/ A Mother’s Story
THE SPORTING SCENE/ Ben McGrath/ Teen Spirit/ The trials of being an American soccer star.
ANNALS OF ESPIONAGE/ Thomas A. Bass/ The Spy Who Loved Us/ The double life of a Vietnamese patriot.
PROFILES/ Calvin Tomkins/ Everything in Sight/ Robert Rauschenberg’s big new work.
FICTION/ Jonathan Franzen/ “Two’s Company”
THE CRITICS
BOOKS/ Joshua Micah Marshall/ National Treasure/ In the year 1776, character was destiny.
IN FASHION/ Judith Thurman/ Scenes From a Marriage/ The House of Chanel at the Met.
ON TELEVISION/ Nancy Franklin/ Magical Mystery Tour/ Forty-eight castaways win the prime-time challenge.
THE CURRENT CINEMA/ Anthony Lane/ Space Case/ “Star Wars: Episode III.”
FROM THE ARCHIVE
THE CURRENT CINEMA/ Galaxy Crisis/ Penelope Gilliatt/ A consideration of the human fascination with extraterrestrial life, complete with an R2-D2 namecheck/ Issue of 1977-06-13
THE CURRENT CINEMA/ Contrasts/ Pauline Kael considers the first “Star Wars” [wait, almost four months later? slacker. -greg]/ Issue of 1977-09-26
Subscribe to the New Yorker via Amazon
Who Makes Movies? Well, Fluffers, For One.
Personally, every time I see those “Who Makes Movies?” spots where some lowly crew member is trotted out to say how Internet pirates are taking food out of his dyslexic kid’s mouth, I want to say, “Actually, it’s Canadians who are taking your job, pal, thanks to the studios moving over $10 billion worth of production-related economic activity out of the US in pursuit of lower wages, more pliable unions, and government-funded tax incentives. Oh, and they’re the same studios who are funding these MPAA commercials and claiming that “potential worldwide losses” from “piracy” “could” exceed $3 billion a year.
Needless to say, the folks behind these three spoof spots have a funnier time of it.
Check out “Zombies make movies,” “Script doctors make movies,” and “Fluffers make movies” at R4NT Magazine. [R4NT.com, via boingboing]
Yeah, but who makes points on gross? [lowculture.com, 11/03, yes, this whole MPAA thing is getting old.]
Film & Television Action Committee [ftacusa.com]
Serra Documentary At MIT 5/18
Director Alberta Chu’s 2003 documentary, Seeing The Landscape: Richard Serra: Tuhirangi Contour follows the artist’s production of a massive, 843-foot steel wall piece in New Zealand. Here’s a line from the synopsis: “A dramatic five years in the making, the Tuhirangi Contour finds Serra’s artistic vision at odds with his patron, his materials, his environment, and the harsh realities of physics.”
While I’m sure there’ll be a lot of conflict, I don’t think there’s much suspense about who prevails here. Serra’s whole artistic practice is built around pushing and expanding his understanding of his materials and the “harsh realities of physics,” and from what I understand of his commission agreements, a patron who stays at odds with the artist can very quickly find himself without an artist to be at odds with.
Still, this sounds like a great way to spend an evening: The film screens Wed. 5/18 at 7pm at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center. Chu will be present to discuss the work.
Buy Te Tuhirangi Contour, a book of photos documenting the finished work by Serra and Dirk Reinartz
On Bullshit and The Getty
[2018 UPDATE: In 2018 The New York Times reports that five women who worked with Meier, either at his firm or as a contractor, have come forward to say the architect made aggressive and unwanted sexual advances and propositions to them. The report also makes painfully clear that Meier’s behavior was widely known for a long time, and that his colleagues and partners did basically nothing to stop it beyond occasionally warning young employees to not find themselves alone with him. This update has been added to every post on greg.org pertaining to Meier or his work.]
Michael Bierut’s excellent post on design bullshit has gotten a lot of attention. He starts by quoting the artist/gardner Robert Irwin, who hilariously calls bullshit on the man who would be king Of the Getty hill, architect Richard Meier, in a Getty-produced documentary, Concert of Wills. It’s a startling moment in what’s otherwise a typically institution-stroking hagiography of the “The travertine selected was from Michelangelo’s quarry” variety.
If it’s bullshit Irwin, wanted, Meier apparently thought, it’s bullshit he got. To demarcate where the architect’s work stops and the flaky artist’s landscaping starts, Meier created what is essentially a travertine toilet bowl to empty the placid fountains of his pristine, self-conscious Acropolis. It literally sounds like a giant is taking a pee. Forever.
It’s an at-once hilarious and unbelievably petty gesture. [And as I type this, I’d be even happier to find out the fountain was actually Irwin’s backhanded joke. As if he turned Meier’s bullshit into the fertilizer for his garden.] As it is, Irwin’s baroque landscape can’t defuse the rest of the Getty’s overbearing sense of self-importance.
Don’t get me wrong, I like it fine, and there’s some hand-rubbed plaster on some of those gallery walls I’d love to have myself. But I’ve always felt the ratio of building to art–of building to life–seemed wildly out of whack there.
It doesn’t help, of course, that on my first visit, I watched someone collapse in the main rotunda. With lightning efficiency, security guards hustled the portly man out of sight. They laid him on the ground behind one of the large stone benches at the entryway and radioed around frantically, while the man’s companions tried reviving him. Transfixed, I watched the scene for nearly 20 minutes as a circle of guards shielded the man–who turned out to have a heart condition–from view until the ambulan–oh, wait, that’s not an ambulance, that’s a Getty security van they’re loading him into. They’re not letting the ambulance up the hill, they’re shuttling him down to it.
I made a note to myself then not to die in a mausoleum. Well. That’s a cheery way to start the day. Have a great weekend!