Very little pun intended.
The LMDC and its architects released details of the latest incarnation of the World Trade Center Memorial. Salient changes/evolutions: the giant waterfall voids seem reduced in size and scale. The space for the names of those killed, which is where visitors encounter the waterfalls, is rather low, almost intimate-looking. Conversely, the lower chamber, where footings of the (North) tower columns, at least, will be visible, seems much loftier. The skylit bathtub wall–resurfaced several times since it was exposed in the debris removal process–will loom over the space.
It’s an interesting (and a major) shift for Arad, who acknowledged as recently as September that “Bedrock is something that wasn’t too important to me at the beginning of design.”
What else: there’s a wall along West Street where the road slopes down and the plaza/park elevation stays level. Remember how the West St entrances of the North Tower and the hotel were a big story below the plaza level? Same thing.
Also, with the interpretive center/artifact space on the south side, it’s not clear where “memorial” begins and “center” ends. A mixed program reminds me of the Kennedy Center lobby, which happens to house a JFK Memorial, but who knew? I think/fear “memorial” in this case will be a highly programmed experience.
Renderings of the park/plaza level read as very unassuming, even conventional, while those of the memorial spaces–or the approaches to the memorial, actually, are almost exaggeratedly austere. The slate is still blank.
Memorial will preserve Twin Towers’ remnants [NYT, David Dunlap]
LMDC Press Release [renewnyc.com]
Curbed totally rocks on the WTC site posts, btw [curbed.com]
No Lack of Rhetoric at WTC Designers’ Panel [metropolismag]
Author: greg
Bush: There’s No ‘I’ In Social Security
Or ‘U’, for that matter. Or Anybody.
And after Scott McClellan gets through explaining, America will think we’re the ones who’ve been misspelling ‘Challanges’ all these years. [thanks, Tyler]
Bush’s Social Security Phase Out Summit [Yahoo News]
Related: I thought Chas Bowie’s Scott Sforza piece for The Portland Mercury was hilarious and brilliant, and then I realized it was an interview with me.
Im Memoriam: Agnes Martin
Untitled, 1962
exhibited in “Agnes Martin: Five Decades,” April 2003 at Zwirner and Wirth, New York.
Related:
“Agnes Martin: Five Decades,” Zwirner and Wirth
On the artist in Taos: Lillian Ross meets with Agnes Martin
Art worth crossing the street for
Agnes Martin: Homage to Life, what turned out to be her final show at Pace Wildenstein, where she broke with her traditional grid and painted geometric shapes that recalled her earliest work.
Normally, I’d say, “Thanks, Tyler,” but it doesn’t seem appropriate here. [Modernartnotes]
IP Documentary Contest Finalists
In a bit of tail-eating snake-ism, The Arts Project at The Center for The Study of The Public Domain at Duke sponsored a contest as part of this year’s Full Frame Documentary Festival [got all that?] for the best 2-minute or shorter film about intellectual property’s impact on art, specifically music or documentary film.
Well, the finalists are in, and you can view and vote for them online.
The Arts Project Moving Image Contest [Duke Law]
Ada Louise Huxtable on MoMA, Plus Contemporary Art
But we yearn for more than a cloakroom and gift shop in the cavernous entrance; the atrium cries for the really big gesture — even Barnett Newman’s “Broken Obelisk” becomes a decorous gesture that ceases to alarm. This requires a powerful, perception-altering work, a site-specific creation that deals fearlessly with the scale — something new, provocative and outrageous — a naughty newcomer that must wait to be judged worthy enough to be invited in. MoMA has never looked so uptight as in this stupendous new space. Something needs to turn that void into a connection between past and future, something that takes a chance on the transformational experience only art can provide. MegaMoMA is fail-safe and risk-free.
– Ada Louise Huxtable.
It’s odd, considering there are works by Eve Sussman, Chris Ofili, Elizabeth Peyton, Josiah McIlheny, Peter Doig and Jeff Wall literally within spitting distance of each other, not to mention a dozen other living artists a generation or two older, but I feel an absence of contemporary energy, of connection to the immediate practice of art, at the new Modern. I think Huxtable’s phrase, risk-free, is all too apt. Is it still too early to start taking some risks?
… In MoMA’s Big, New, Elegantly Understated Home [WSJ, via archinect]
Closing The Barnes Door After The Horses Already Left
Great art’s demands are more important than the wishes of the mere collector who bought it. The fabric of our culture has been rent in twain, and no one will donate to a museum ever again. I’ve heard it all already.
Frankly, I think they should have left the Barnes Collection where and as Barnes left it. It was the Barnes Foundation board that needed to be packed up and transplanted to the juvenile detention facility (conveniently, the future site of the Barnes Museum). Those inept, self-important idiots ran that place into the ground, creating unnecessary crises through decades of obstinate mismanagement. They have betrayed Barnes’ own legacy and wishes, and they keep on doing it.
Barnes was crazy, a crackpot, a rude, difficult parvenu, so what? He had a tremendous eye for art (yeah, sure, there are an awful lot of mediocre Renoirs, and even more portraits of fleshy nude women), yet he was snubbed royally and mocked by the Philadelphia establishment of his day. His Collection and the restrictions he placed on it were a reaction to this small-minded and snobbish mistreatment.
Decades later, the judge just handed Barnes’s legacy–which nobody in Philadelphia wanted during Barnes’s lifetime–over to the same names that once shunned him. If only Barnes had lived long enough to see Scarface–“First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women.”–he’d have realized what step he was skipping.
Does it matter where this painting hangs? [Um, Yes, Roberta. NYT]
Tyler has a Barnes Newsraising [Modernartnotes]
Where’s the When NBA Fans Attack DVD?
“Brilliant! Best PowerPoint of The Year!” -Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.
The Indianapolis Star has a play-by-play account of the investigation into the Pacers-fans brawl during the Detroit Pistons game Nov. 19. To announce charges against both fans and players, the prosecutor’s office in Pontiac, MI created an elaborate PowerPoint presentation full of witness quotes, video clips, and a breakdown of the incident.
My staff worked countless hours, and many nights past midnight,” Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca said. “I don’t know how much it cost, other than it being a helluva lot.”
Dude, you put all that on the DVD, along with the game footage of the shot itself, and even 0.001% of the Sportscenter commentary, and you’ll recoup your production costs in NO TIME.
Elaborate PowerPoint presentation culminated extensive brawl probe [IndyStar.com, via fimoculous]
The Junket Aquatic
Cinecultist Karen is at it again, this time working the crowd of above-the-line talent at the The Life Aquatic junket. No word on the buffet, which I would expect to contain smoked salmon, shrimp cocktail, or some other agua-themed items.
Gothamist on the [The] Life Aquatic Junket [gothamist]
Cinecultist: Crazy For Movies
[update: a-ha. the catering details are on Cinecultist. Fresh fruit and lukewarm coffee.]
DVD Box Set Short(er)list
What, no Amazon links? The little red critics over at the Voice have put together their list of the best DVD’s and DVD collections for 2004, and then they didn’t add shoppertainment links. Here’s my distilled list:
The Five Distractions: Best DVD Sets of 2004 [VV]
Another 10 [VV]
2004-12-20 and 27, These Weeks In The New Yorker
Issue of 2004-12-20 and 27
Posted 2004-12-13
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
COMMENT/ INVASION VS. PERSUASION/ George Packer on the making of democracy in Iraq and Ukraine.
THE DIPLOMATS/ JUST WHISTLE/ Ben McGrath on a scandalous peacekeeping memoir.
LAB NOTEBOOK/ MEET THE BEATLES, AGAIN/ Nancy Franklin tests the physiological effects of acute Beatlemania.
THE BENCH/ HIGH TEA/ Jeffrey Toobin on the legal plight of a religious beverage.
THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ PUSH AND PULL/ James Surowiecki on how the market is shaping drug research.
FICTION/ Ian McEwan/ “The Diagnosis”
LIFE AND LETTERS/ Robert Lowell/ Dear Elizabeth/ One poet writes to another.
FICTION/ Edward P. Jones/ “Adam Robinson”
THE CRITICS
BOOKS/ by Peter Schjeldahl/ The Painting Life/ Looking again at Willem de Kooning.
A CRITIC AT LARGE/ Dave Eggers/ Sixteen Tons of Fun/ Eric Idle brings the Holy Grail to Broadway.
THE THEATRE/ John Lahr/ Troubled Waters/ August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean.”
THE CURRENT CINEMA/ David Denby/ High Rollers/ “The Aviator,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “Hotel Rwanda.”
FROM THE ARCHIVE
ANNALS OF LITERATURE/ Elizabeth Bishop/ The Art of Losing/ A set of correspondence from the poet/ Issue of 1994-03-28
FICTION/ William Maxwell/ “Homecoming”/ Issue of 1938-01-01
PERSONAL HISTORY/ John Updike/ Christmas Cards, an essay/ Issue of 1997-12-22
FICTION/ James Thurber/ A Visit from Saint Nicholas (In the Ernest Hemingway Manner)/ Issue of 1927-12-24
Get Me Bret Easton Ellis On The Phone Moto
Over at TMN, “Rick Paulas has tips for turning your art-house script into big money.” The future? In one word: product placement.
Of course, unlike, say, American Pyscho, which placed so many products it could’ve been a Bond film, [wait, didn’t American Psycho come first, so the era of Total Bond Sellout could’ve been a Bret Easton Ellis novel? But I digress.] Anyway, Paulas’s “art house script” sample sounds suspiciously–and promisingly–like a spec script for CSI.
I think this boy’s got a hi-res future, Wednesdays at 9.
Using Product Placement In Your Serial Killer Script [TMN]
Your Homework For The Day
I’m a bit crazy with an offline deadline, so I’ll just give you your assignment:
Starting with the prospect that wax does not, in fact, melt when submerged in the fiery pits of hell for all eternity by a wrathful God, please plot rank the following in order of sheer implausibility:
Nativity scene from hell [via towleroad]
odd, that: Meltdown at Madame Tussaud’s [Times of London]
Canadian Flags AreThe Next Trucker Hat
That whole “Canadian Flags On Backpacks” craze is so 2003.
If you’re gonna be all embarassed by American folly and all weary of explaining the Bush administration to every foreigner you meet, at least try to look like you’ve been doing it for a couple of years already.
Uh-oh, Canada: unpacking the CFOB phenomenon [feb. 2003]
Tom Ford and Matthew Barney on CFOB
Don Knotts. IS. Dubya.
When I saw this link the other day, I didn’t click on it. Execution couldn’t be any funnier than the concept, I figured. Boy, was I wrong.
Dubyamovie.com [via Jason, Andy, ]
Living The Life Aquatic
The Gothamist Life Aquatic contest is over, and Congratulations! Everyone’s a winner. A few people won more than the rest, obviously. And G-mist and Cinecultist’s Karen–whose brainchild this publicity coup was–got the big prize, a phone interview with director Wes Anderson himself.
Eerily enough, it sounds like he’s right there with her at Lucky Strike.
Karen came to last night’s Reel Roundtable screening of After Life [thanks, Elizabeth!], by the way; and on Jan. 17, she’s starring in a Reel Roundtable screening of Kieron Walsh’s When Brendan Met Trudy, so clear your calendars.
Today is Wes Anderson Day! [cinecultist]
Wes Anderson: he knows where you are [Gothamist]
Reel Roundtable’s Film & Blogs Series [reelroundtable.com]