TALK OF THE TOWN
COMMENT/ RUSH IN REHAB/ Hendrik Hertzberg on pill-popper Rush Limbaugh’s hypocrisy.
S.I. DISPATCH/ THE WRECK/ Ben McGrath on the reaction to the Staten Island Ferry disaster.
DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY/ NOT LOST IN TRANSLATION/ Boris Fishman witnesses a major kissing of Mikhail Gorbachev at The Pierre.
DEPT. OF SIGNAGE/THE MAN AND THE HAND/ Nick Paumgarten talks about the walking man disappearing from the “don’t walk” signs.
DEPT. OF REMEMBERING/ TWO FROM BERLIN/ Jane Kramer talks September 11th memorials with Berlin conceptual artists Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock.
“We can easily believe that Bill Viola is worth ten Scorseses.”
Them’s fightin’ words. In his Cinema Militans Lecture, Greenaway thought he’d rile up his audience at the Netherlands Film Festival with his opening, “Cinema died on the 31st September 1983.” (Killed by Mr. Remote Control, in the den, if you must know.) But it’s his claim that Viola’d trump Scorsese that’s the real “they bought yellowcake in Niger” of this speech. He’s just got Britishvision, distracted like a fish by a shiny object passing in front of him [Viola‘s up at the National Gallery right now.] And the conveniently timely evidence he cites seems, well, let’s just say we know from conveniently timed evidence over here.
Sleeping with the enemy: Greenaway
texts up a set of bed linens. for sale at bonswit.com
Greenaway argues for a filmic revolution: throw off the “four tyrannies” of the text, the actor, the frame and the camera, banishing at last the “illustrated text” we’ve been suffering through for 108 years, and replacing it with true cinema.
The Guardian‘s Alex Cox sees video games and dvd’s rising up to answer Greenaway’s call, and he makes the fight local, pitting Greenaway against the British Film Establishment, as embodied by director Alan Parker. So the choice is either Prospero’s Books or The Life of David Gale?? This fight’s neither pretty nor fair.
Also in the Guardian: Sean Dodson’s report on a Nokia-sponsored campaign for the new future of cinema, a “festival” of 15-second movies to watch on your mobile phone. It’s part of London’s excellent-looking Raindance Film Festival, and it embodies perfectly the
More than rallying the troops, Greenaway and Nokia are actually tottering to catch up with the next generation. Paul Thomas Anderson’s inclusion of Jeremy Blake’s animated abstractions in Punch Drunk Love. The Matrix Reloaded‘s all-CG bullet time “camera.” The Matrix launching the DVD player, for that matter. Gus van Sant’s Gerry as film-as-video-game and the multiple POV reprises of scenes in Elephant. Multi-screen master Isaac Julien, Matthew Barney, spawn of Mario Brothers. And the unscripted cinematic narrative mutations of corporate-sponsored mediums like PowerPoint and AIM buddy icons.Greenaway’s righter than he knows, but the evolution’s already underway, with or without him. It always has been
I have a friend at the MPAA
The folks at artblog were going through their trash and found my article on the unsanctioned trading of video art screener tapes. They were upset about my outing Chris Hughes, the Pamela and the Richard Kramlich of screeners. “Who benefits [from exposing and shutting this nice guy down]? Not the public, certainly” they criticized.
They kindly posted my response. I don’t think screener tapes automatically harm video art or artists; net net, they help spread the art’s influence and impact. I still feel that writing about this practice was a good thing, and good things have come from it.
Then I see Jack Valenti, picking yet another misleading, irrational and disingenuous fight against the evil VCR by banning screener tapes, and I worry. I worry that maybe, just maybe, could the screener tape seed have been planted by my article? After all, I worry, I have a friend at the MPAA.
Whereas, Ten Hours of Polish Film is NOT an Ordeal…
I came to Kieslowski for the fateful mystery of La Double Vie de Veronique, but I stayed for the unassuming, naturalistic power of the Dekalog.
This seminal ten-part series of films is playing this weekend at Symphony Space in NYC. POV has an excellent write-up, with good links to get you in the mood.
The Decalogue was one of the greatest unwatchable works of film, ever. For years in North America, the series, which Kieslowski and writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz originally made for Polish TV, was kept off of video and DVD by weird rights disputes. But it’d turn up at film festivals and cinematheques, and you’d suddenly have to figure out how to shoehorn ten hours of moviegoing into two or three days. It was an experience prewired to disappoint, or, more precisely, leave you wanting.
By 2000, I’d only managed to see half of the installments, when an odd one-year distribution agreement brought a bare-bones 2-DVD set to the market. I snapped it up, and since then I’ve been steeping regularly in some of the most engrossing storytelling around.
This year, The Decalogue reappeared in a far superior 3-disc format, complete with several Kieslowski interviews and other real supplementary material. So get up to Symphony Space for at least a couple of episodes, then watch and rewatch them at home. Of course, GreenCine rents them one disc at a time; it may be better, emotionally, to pace yourself.
[related: the effects of watching Dekalog on an impressionable new filmmaker]
On Transit and Memory
Santiago Calatrava talks about his vision for the transit hub he’s designing for the World Trade Center site. I’m a fan, although there doesn’t seem to be a lot of design meat here.
And the New Yorker‘s Jane Kramer gets Berlin artists/memorial designers Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock to talk about a memorial for the World Trade Center. Their comments seem well suited to the discourse of a year or so ago, when entertaining the world of possibilities didn’t feel so escapist as it does now.
In fact, last year, I was very impressed by their proposed Holocaust memorial.
More Olafur Eliasson Pix
The Weather Project, 2003, Olafur Eliasson, at the Tate Modern
The top one’s shot in the mirrored ceiling.
I’m working on it, but right now, I got nothing that’ll top this.
American Ordealism
Is it a coincidence that The Cremaster Cycle, the filmic ordeal-in-a-black-box, is playing in London at the same time as David Blaine, the Brooklyn ordeal-in-a-clear-box?
Read Peter Bradshaw’s Guardian review as if you’re seeing the movies for the first time.
And read about David Blaine getting out of his box as if you thought you’d already heard the last of him.
Late Saturday night, after a party for Doug Aitken at the Wapping Project, an artspace, the gridlock surrounding David Blaine’s impending egress was blamed for the complete absence of cabs that left 20 of us (including Doug and Thomas Demand) stranded in B.F. East London. Result: a group of us walked back to our hotel in Westminster, along the Thames, for about two hours. Ordealism.
tate update: sun worshippers
the british public treats it as the real sun, laying out on their backs as if at the beach.
[10/21 update: like I said…]
london lunch rec (via mobile):
Chicken cutlet curry at Tokyo Diner off Leicester Square (just west, I think)
Olafur Eliasson: The Weather Project at Tate Modern
Just got back from the preview and party for The Weather Project, Olafur Eliasson’s absolutely breathtaking installation at the Tate Modern in London. The Turbine Hall is something like 500 feet long, the full length and height of the building.
I can tell you that Olafur created a giant sun out of yellow sodium streetlamps, but that doesn’t begin to describe the experience of seeing it and being in the space. It is this awareness of one’s own perception which is at the heart of his work. Not only does he use and transform this unwieldy cavern, he intensifies the viewer’s sight and sense of being in the space.
And as always, Olafur lays bare the mechanisms that create the unavoidably sublime experience, which in this case include, literally, smoke and mirrors. You can see exactly how you’re being
[update: the Guardian‘s Fiachra Gibbons likes it, too.]
Goin’ to London
Your Sun Machine, Olafur Eliasson, 1997
Marc Foxx Gallery. Image:Sao Paulo Bienal
I’m heading to London for a few days.
Going to one friend’s exhibition opening and another friend’s art fair. I’ll be doing a little reporting, even though I’m not sure where to find the “Internet” over there.
I have a great idea; at a moment to be appointed (but it has to be today, in time for my trip), everyone goes outside and marks up the outside of their building with their wi-fi network information. Then, a few minutes later, we all disperse into the crowd.
Forward this message to all your friends.
From the Dept. of WTF
“It’s Nike Ground! This revolutionary project is transforming and updating your urban space. Nike is introducing its legendary brand into squares, streets, parks and boulevards: Nikesquare, Nikestreet, Piazzanike, Plazanike or Nikestrasse will appear in major world capitals over the coming years…”
And where does this new and friendly revolution begin? Oh, where so many of western civ’s not-so-great-after-all ideas heil from: Austria. “Starting from 1 January 2004 Karlsplatz (in Vienna) is going to be called Nikeplatz.”
! indeed.
[via Archinect]
[update: this turns out to be art by 0100101110101101.org, which released it’s press release Oct. 10, four days after Nike denied its involvement, and a full three days before Archinect or I posted it. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good conclusion, I guess.]
[update 2: and to answer reader Chris’s question, no, all of Austria’s not all that bad after all. Schwarzenegger’s our problem now, anyway.]
Seeing Lost In Translation on the Upper East Side
Context isn’t everything, but it counts. We just got back from seeing Lost In Translation with a multi-generational crowd, in the movie theater around the corner from Holly Golightly’s brownstone. As they say, it’s the little differences:
Chia-Church
The artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey and their team of 15 people plastered the walls of a church in South London with clay and grass seed. Read their diary at the Guardian and watch it grow to Graeme Miller’s soundtrack.
Related: visiting information from the London International Festival of Theatre
More info on Ackroyd & Harvey and Miller on Artsadmin
I Report, You Decide: Speaking with a former WTC juror
Friday, I met an architecture professional who was on the LMDC jury last summer to select the architects for the World Trade Center site design study. We spoke about the Memorial Competition, details of which were familiar to this person.
The juror was deliberately cagey, but said the Memorial jury was down to ten proposals: “And when it gets down to ten, the lines start to sharpen.” Asked about the timeline, this person said, “very soon,” but when I bounced the rumored names of finalists, the response I got was, “you know more than I do, then.” (Which is so clearly not the case, it’s almost embarassing.)