Author: greg

So September 10th

Hmm. I don’t really know what to make of this. In the months after September 11, when no one knew what shape the WTC site would take in the future, but when people were at least entertaining the possibility that architecture and contemporary art might be able to make some sense of what’d happened, John Powers’ ideas from a show about memorials earlier that year kept coming to my mind.
He proposed aggressively political minimalist gestures for sites in Manhattan (Penn Station, the now-defunct East River Guggenheim) and DC (the WWII Memorial) that upset prevailing notions of public space, spectacle, sentimentality, order and control, and history, among other things. [Although more successful and uncompromised by virtue of its sheer impossibility, Powers’ proposal for a WWII memorial eerily prefigures Michael Arad’s original fountain pit design, transposed to the end of the Reflecting Pool on the Mall.]
Powers never pursued any direct responses or proposals to the WTC site, either for Max Protech’s early display of (as it turned out) architectural impotence and hubris, or for the WTC Memorial ‘competition.’ Still, I thought of Powers when I saw Ellsworth Kelly’s collaged proposal for the WTC site–a NYT aerial photo with a trademark Kelly trapezoid superimposed on it.
Meanwhile, I followed along (or obsessed over, take your pick) the WTC rebuilding issues and saw the craven folly and political machinations unfold before my eyes–and anyone elses? I often wondered. Then I found Philip Nobel’s book Sixteen Acres, the first unsentimental look at what was actually transpiring behind the scenes and in front of our still-teared up eyes. It’s harsh in places, mostly as it should be, and I only wish it could’ve brought some things to light sooner. It’s the same kind of weary wishfulness that allows you to entertain fleeting thoughts of disaster averted, “what if we’d–” and “if only we’d–” before snapping back to the grim reality of our political failures.
Anyway, I only bring this up now because a friend showed me Powers’ early 2001 invite with details of his projects and then pulled out their own copy of Sixteen Acres. [They’re scanned side by side above.]
I am a solid fan of both peoples’ work, but there was clearly something going on in the design process for Nobel’s 2005 cover which needs some explaining. The frontispiece says “Design by Fritz Metsch, Map by David Cain,” with cover design by Raquel Jaramillo. But to me, it’s clearly John Powers’ work.
Buy Nobel’s excellent Sixteen Acres : Architecture and the Outrageous Struggle for the Future of Ground Zero at Amazon
Previously: Ellsworth Kelly on Ground Zero
UPDATE: I emailed Philip Nobel about this. Here is his reply:

Thanks for the heads up. I’ve been on both sides of this sort of
accusation before (this time, I guess, I’m a bystander). But I can
assure you there was no foul play. Re “explaining to do”: Before the
book was written, the Holt art department had cooked up something that
looked like a Bob Woodward book (still posted around online in spots).
My editor and I didn’t think it made sense with the feel of the
finished thing, so we cooked up the idea of a map (sitting in her
office on 18th Street; no graphic cues on hand). I said “black” and
that it had to go as far north as possible (in the spirit of that
Borges quote and the first lines of the prologue), and she said we
should just box out the shape of the site like a symbol. Raquel worked
from those directions. She’s good people, and i don’t think so mobbed
up in the art or architecture worlds that she would have seen your
friend’s work, which, of course, looks really interesting. I imagine
“map” led her to an aerial view, “black” led her to the one in
question, and “box out/symbol” led her to treat the site as she did.
You know from reading the book that I’m all about seeing the worst in
our fellow men. But this sort of convergence reminds me of the recent
forced frenzy (Lock was tracking it) over Freedom Tower cognates. Might
it not just be a case of two people with good taste seeing the graphic
possibilities of applying a color field (red, an obvious choice) to
what appears to be the same publicly available (via the Library of
Congress) image?

Also, timely but not quite directly related: With Covers, Publishers Take More Than Page From Rivals [nyt]

VV Talks With Hustle & Flow Director Craig Brewer

Memphis’s own Brett Ratner mouths off, which, after scoring $9mm for your film that’d been passed over by every studio dawg in town, is just fine.

“What is interesting is the ‘indie blockbuster’ idea; that Hollywood’s going to buy cheaper movies and put the kind of money behind them that they would a blockbuster. What’s wrong with that?” He cracks, “Look, we didn’t make The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. [Hustle] has a commercial, mythological, hero’s-journey structure to it. I have always wanted it to be reflective of The Commitments, Footloose, Flashdance, and Rocky.”

Yes, interesting. Slate’s Christopher Kelly thinks it’s train wreck interesting, at least: “Funny, though, that this ‘vision of what’s hip and what Hollywood isn’t doing,’ as Singleton has described it, should look exactly like what Hollywood’s been doing for years.”
Rhyme Scheme [vv]
The Pimp Who Saved Hollywood [slate]

What Coudal’s Doing On Their Summer Vacation

Making a “short feature film,” just for the heck of it, it turns out, and documenting the production online:

The very first thing that happened is that we dropped an expensive rented audio remote unit down three flights of stairs. Oops. I wonder if Kubrick had to take a conference call about an advertising project after finishing just three set-ups on the first day of shooting Barry Lyndon?

Check it out: Copy Goes Here [coudal.com]

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

A scene this past weekend at a wedding in the Hudson River Valley:
At dusk, a 6-year-old boy would charge up to the younger kids and, with his fists full of sparklers, he would roar and shake his hands until they would run away crying.
When the sparklers went out, he marched around proudly, shouting, “I am the dominant democracy! I am the dominant democracy! Did you see them? They bow down to me!”
Happy Fourth of July!

Who Has Final Cut At The Lincoln Memorial?

About that 8-minute short subject documentary showing at the Lincoln Memorial, the one about all the people who use “America’s Soapbox” to protest in support of their causes? Well, the Religious Right screened the first cut, and they loved it, they just had a few notes… Aww, who’re we kidding? They hated it, and they had a ton of notes, which they sent to the producers at the National Park Service. So consider that you’ve been watching the rough cut of history for the last ten years.
Of course, to even see the production notes required a FOIA request, and even then, major portions of the conservative suits’ demands and the NPS’s editing decisions that flowed out of them have been redacted. So until the Extra-Special Impeachment Edition DVD comes out sometime after Jan. 20, 2009, this is about all we know of their re-edits:

  • Lose that Clinton character.
  • Add more pro-gun marches.
  • Nixon protesters? They’re hippies. Take’em out.
  • What’s with The Gays? Cut’em. You want people to think Lincoln approved of man-on-man action? [Wait, don’t answer that.]
  • Add some Pro-Iraq War marches [note: maybe we can bluescreen some town hall rally footage onto the Memorial steps? tk]

    Lincoln Memorial Video May Be Revised     [guardian, via robotwisdom]
    View Lincoln Memorial’s 8-min short [ap.org]

    • Robert Melee? He Has A Huge Talent Show

    A couple of snaps from Robert Melee’s Talent Show at The Kitchen. With touches of Wigstock, Laugh-in, Blow-up, Moulin Rouge, Merce, Cher, Olivia Newton John fitness video, Puppetry of the–um–and Fischerspooner-meets-Spinal Tap, it’s a NSFW riot.
    And don’t forget Robert’s mother. As if you ever could. There’s one more performance, Thursday night at 8. If tickets are available, you should get them.
    Robert Melee’s Talent Show 6/30, 8p [thekitchen.org]

    Philip-Lorca diCourtroom

    p-l_dicorcia_head.jpg

    Philip-Lorca diCorcia is being sued by this guy for taking his photograph on the street in Times Square in 2001. More precisely, he’s being sued for exhibiting it, selling it, and publishing it in books, and his gallery, his publishers, and unnamed others who distribute the photo are included in the complaint.
    I got this image from the Guardian, which wrongly describes the image as taken in the subway. It was taken on the street, under a construction scaffolding. I ran into P-L several times while he was shooting this series. So sue me.

    Photographer sued for taking portrait     [gothamist]
    Buy Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s Heads for only $22 at Amazon. While you still can. [amazon]

    Gee, If Only ‘Policing Artwork’ Were Easier…

    George Pataki demanded “an absolute guarantee” that no one be offended by what goes on with the cultural organizations at the WTC site. That’s frankly offensive.
    I love that the problem here is couched in terms of politicians’ “difficulty of policing artwork,” not in terms of, say, “a blatantly anti-American demagoguery that mocks the very idea of ‘freedom.'”

    Pataki Warns Cultural Groups for Museum at Ground Zero     [nyt]

    On Francesco Vezzoli’s Mirror To The Art World

    It’s a relief to know that some folks in Venice did know they were being targetted by Francesco Vezzoli’s Biennale-stopping Caligula trailer–and are fans of his work because of it. Our Other Man In Venice was like, “but that’s the whole point–it’s an institutional critique from within the system. Vezzoli is a hustler, and he sees how the system works and is exposing it. And still, he’s best friends with Miuccia.”
    And after reading about Donatella’s costumes for the Caligula in W, and how Vezzoli describes the work as “mirroring the superficiality of the film industry,” in Vanity Fair, I’m confident that Vezzoli knows what he’s up to. He’d have to be on top of things to be able to shoot the trailer in March, and still able to plant these fashion magazine stories in time for the piece’s Venice debut. To paraphrase Choire Sicha, Francesco’s a master in the medium of publicity machinery.
    I’m totally cool with a smart artist exploring–and even taking advantage of and critiquing–systematic vapidity. But it still bugs when the art world looks into the mirror that artist holds up and doesn’t recognize itself.
    Related: Marc Spiegler’s look at the Biennale-hype Industrial Complex in Slate; actor Glenn Shadix’s report from the set of Caligula [‘deliciously over-the-top and outrageous and the food was excellent,’], plus photos and VF scans; ‘the best part of the film is the trailer’? on Jen Shiman’s 30-second Bunny Theater.

    Earth Art Via Satellite

    [via land+living]In the wake of Google Maps’ release, a few sites have started collecting coordinates and satellite images of various earth art works, including Spiral Jetty, Michael Heizer’s Double Negative, James Turrell’s Roden Crater, and Walter deMaria’s Lightning Field.
    Here’s my own contribution, a Google Map view of The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX. You can see Judd’s large concrete sculptures lined up in the field, the twin barrel vaulted warehouses with milled aluminum boxes inside, the arcing row of converted barracks-installations, and the Judd-altered gymnasium on the left.
    Looking for Earth Art With Google Maps [petermorse.com.au]
    Monumental Land Art [daringdesigns.com]
    Chinati Foundation [chinati.org]

    Don’t Ask Me How Many TV’s I Have

    smithson_swamp.jpgIn the NYT, Edward Lewine talks to some collectors of video- and projection-based art to find out what it’s like to actually live with work that demands both attention and extra hardware.
    I know collectors who have flatscreens propped all around the house and long shelvesful of viewing copies of their work; whatever they have playing when you visit, you still read and assess the spines of their VHS’s the way you would their book collection.
    And although we have some TV’s that we’ve archived because the artist considers them integral, sculptural elements of the piece, there are other multi-channel pieces where we’ve gotten rid of all but one or two flatscreens (which now double as our TV’s) until we need to exhibit it again as per the artist’s original schematics.
    But then there’s the projected piece, where I’ve duped 100 slides off of the dupe of the master that the artists provided [the slides burn out after a few weeks of constant projection]. And then I still have to scour ebay for good old slide projectors, because they sure don’t make’em like they used to.
    PS what’s up with the Kramlich’s built-for-video Herzog & deMeuron house in Napa? Haven’t heard much of that lately.
    Art That Has to Sleep In The Garage [nyt]
    Watch an excerpt of Robert Smithson & Nancy Holt’s 1969 film, Swamp, which gets mentioned in the piece. [robertsmithson.com]

    It Depends On What The Meaning Of ‘Freedom’ Is

    Upset that the Wall Street Journal is having all the fun, what with all the Bush Republican-campaigning sisters of dead Sept. 11th pilots demagoguing about whose “truth” is in and whose “propaganda” is out at the WTC site, the New York Daily News tried to gin up a controversy of its own about, of all things, The Drawing Center.
    At least the critics of the International Freedom Center’s are sophisticated (sophistry-cated?) enough to demand that no politically distorted manipulations of “history” or “freedom” be allowed to cloud the memories of the people who were killed on Sept. 11th. [Except, of course, the revealed truth of the Gospel according to the Bush Administration, but who’d ever doubt that? Terrorists and their friends, that’s who.]
    Left to pick up the crumbs of the new Political Correctness table, the Daily News got suddenly outraged at “anti-American” art–four pieces that have been critical of George Bush or the US–shown at The Drawing Center since 2001, and “demanded” that something be done about it. Doing his best combover and his steeliest resolve, George Pataki declared that he’ll never let any anti-American art be shown at the WTC site.
    Governor, I know Rudy Giuliani. Rudy Giuliani was a pandering, fascistic, constitutionally guaranteed freedom of artistic speech-trampling mayor of mine. And you sir, are no Rudy Giuliani. Not for lack of trying, though.
    Nutty 9/11 Art Nixed [nydn]
    Meanwhile, the NYDN, for one, welcomes our new government overlords [nydn]
    Get the Picture, Governor? [nydn]
    Previously (06/2004): WTC Site Cultural Anchor: The Drawing Center?? Ironically, the Daily News cites the vast, painstakingly investigated and researched [!] schematics of the late artist Marc Lombardi. The work they complain about maps out ties between the George W. Bush’s Harken Energy, the Saudi royal family, and the Bin Laden family. The title says, “fifth version, 1979-1990.” It was made in 1999. Lombardi took his own life in 2000.