A curatorial crossing of contemporary art, literature, music, cultural detritus, the brilliant, the popular, the borderline, and the obscure. Brought to you by zingmagazine. Issue #24 out now.
We start with Wolfgang Staehle, who is the first artist to have created a website for art and artists in 1995 âtheThing.netâ. Here he presents more recent pieces that are generated by software from data from friendsâ Gmail and Facebook accounts that were "cracked." From software and data he draws the portrait of each according to the typology of their networks.
Miltos Manetas is the first painter who introduced computers or video games in painting on canvas, we had until now images of Epinal : ladies and gentlemen reading, lunches, bathing. He followed the course of things and continued to paint the world as it goes. Here, he presents drawings / theoretical slogans, such as "Outside of the Internet there is No Glory," or keyboards to which he connects the directions of the letters that make up the names of Marx, Marinetti and himself. Miltos Manetas is also founder of the NEEN group, the first 20th century artistic movement launched at Gagosian in NYC in 2003.
Rafael Rozendaal is one of the first artists to draw URLs. I exhibited him in Paris in 2003 in a project with Miltos Manetas while part of the NEEN group. Rafael Rozendaal is a visual artist and exhibits woven works reminiscent of screens. He also writes haikus, although he continues to draw URLs, these works exist on monitors of 60 inches at least, his work is today very varied and often appears in the form of installations. Â
Marie Maillard has been developing digital works for several years, she has made video wallpapers, and her work is a form of exploration, a way of virtually rethinking architecture or decoration. Here she presents a piece in augmented reality, UNIT 1801, it is a PVC carpet with a motif that reproduces for target image the floor of Palazzo Grimani in Venice. She modifies colors and designs a scenography of the geometric shapes of ornamental marble tiles. We can discover them by downloading her application on iPhone or Android, and order a woven carpet or an ornamental pavement that can be also seen in enhanced reality.
Laurent Saksikâs work is based on tradition and light in painting. He has created an algorithm named RRose. This algorithm revisits a drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci, a study for portrait of a woman. RRose absorbs this portrait and Saksik proposes an interactive piece with «Codex» and the collector: the collector draws some lines and chooses a color, from there is generated a unique art piece made with four hands: Da Vinci, Saksik, Rrose, and the collector.
The contribution for DMGP Observatory (acronym: David Magnin Geraldine Postel Observatory) can be found on the Internet by watching a video, downloading the application to travel in virtual time or with a 3D headset. It is a virtual space, which introduces gamification in presenting contemporary art. We work playfully, while exploring a new territory that we have imagined as an ideal gallery under an ideal sky. It is a gallery without walls, immersed in nature, standing by a lake and surrounded by mountains. We have a day / night rotation and added aurora borealis. It's a kind of a Jungian project, which connects cognitive and behavioral: first to escape the constraint of staying there, stuck in a gallery waiting for the collector or the journalist to come and see what is proposed. No more excuses not to come to the opening, not to be in the area the time of the exhibition, everything is in cyberspace, if you are curious, you can connect at any time . . . DMGP Observatory, is our command from David Magnin and myself, it is developed by Arnaud Pepin-Donat. David and I present our personal collections to continue to share and make the art works circulate, which once purchased, often remain in our closed interiors, and have no more public visibility you can visit at: www.DMGPobservatory.com
Prototypes and other projects are added to produce them for collectors, such as David Ancelin's "Acapulco", a hybrid piece between Le Corbusier's chaise lounge and Charlotte Perriand's Bauche chair. This space is also a communicating object because it gives the beginnings of a residence space that one would like to build in the mountains in a similar landscape, to invite artists and craftsmen to work there, to draw inspiration and to rest together. We are opening today with a first submission for the call for projects by artists and architects Dejode & Lacombe who proposed their ChĂąteau Entremont, a small castle built of recycled containers and wood, a sustainable, economic and ecological habitat that could to be the first shelter or turn of rendez-vous of our utopian space, which we are still looking for in the Alps. The multidisciplinary artist Arnaud Pepin-Donat also developed the AR image for the Dejode & Lacombe t-shirt that we sell to support our residency project. He also designed the AR image of the Japanese designer's dress by Nao Okawa. This dress comes from collaboration with the Le Coq Sportif Japan. It also presents one of these drawings of a precise and almost imperceptible vision of an interstellar space in AR . . .
Finally, others like Devon Dikeou and Nora Renaud present analog pieces:
Devon Dikeou develops a conceptual and often interactive work that involves the viewer and connects people to them. This work is revealed here through a signboard that is still found in the entrance halls of US buildings. This signboard lists the context of NET PLUS ULTRA, the date, the gallery, the curators, the invited artists, making this work the subject of the invitation, even if she is not a digital artist, her work connects each of the protagonists in time . . .
David Ancelin presents "Summer Wine" a play with strong Dada connotations, a wink that connects the past to the present and the temporal exploration: an amphora and a diver's palm that would have drunk all wine or nectar during its exploration. It is also a reminder to our consumer society that engulfs everything it touches and if it does not seize it, it destroys nature and history, and even the rarest things . . . Summer Wine is a piece being integrated into our online observatory that responds to "Acapulco" the lounge chair I mentioned earlier.
For Nora Renaud, she imagines a life without internet, or post internet, as an end of the World announced where we would find objects like this carcass of iPhone in Bronze, a similar computer in wood painted like a trace left by men who would like to write the story. Or a synthetic fur rug that is an imaginary aesthetic of possible future modern cavemen who remember the # as a powerful symbol.
Some works are more politically engaged than others, they are all in their own way, moreover it is what motivates us and makes us appreciate the work of these artists who do not only offer a decorative work. These works tell a story, our story. For us, to continue a reflection on the system, the world in evolution or degradation, is essential. We are all engaged artists in one way or another. As far as we are concerned, we have done humble curators work in a small Parisian gallery that gives a narrative meaning and connects these works that touch a field still unknown, even if new technologies, URL, AR and VR in art is not completely new since the history shows it to us here. This field of expression is not always perceived as a work because it presents itself in a different way but it is also a new way of existing over time. NET PLUS ULTRA: is a group exhibition of visual artists, designers, theoreticians and sorcererâs apprentices of a new era. It is also the portrait of a group of big turbulents. Â
Through a free access on Internet, lit by a sun path in a fast day and night rotation, the DMGP OBSERVATORY is permanently open to all publics to allow free visits at any moment.
In this constantly changing world, it gives the opportunity to move virtually in time and space. The newest 3D technologies used for this exhibition space hijacks the obstacles of the present economic world and creates an alternative to the existing institutions within a sense of an infinite utopian space.
The DMGP OBSERVATORY allows to prefigure exhibition projects or to show artworks that couldnât be exhibited elsewhere for practical reasons. The founders chose the term « observatory » rather than the terms foundation, gallery or virtual museum within a humble spirit, stressed by the flat roof of this virtual space, meant as an ideal temple, an abandoned site or a contemporary ruin under an ideal sky.
For the gamers and the explorers, the DMGP OBSERVATORY is accessible within a 3D access on PC and soon on Mac, and VR. In order to make it accessible for anyone, a stroll on video is immediately accessible on the homepage.
The DMGP Observatory is not only an emancipatory and unique virtual space, but it is also a communication tool to feature concrete projects and a physical appointment that will hold all its dimension in 2020. It is the keystone of a call for projects thought by David Magnin for the realization and the construction of an artistsâ residency in the French Alps in homage to Charlotte Perriand.
Conversations with artists, art collectors, curators and visitors will contribute to thinking the next step for the construction of this artists residency that will helm creative artistic projects and will nurture their production and their promotion. This residency will give rise to a publishing house to edit multiples and limited series with artists.
The DMGP OBSERVATORY is an experience that you would like to support simply sharing the web site link with your net to provide more visibility to it and contribute this way to our action.
To support this project based on the flow of the artistic creation, you can ask information about the online artworks and / click on the crowd funding link on the homepage.
DEJA ZING: Passenger Landscapes: Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Take a minute to think back on nostalgic memories from past road trips, listening to classic rock and driving down empty country roads under blue skiesâan American pastime. Agathe Snowâs project from issue 23, âPassenger Landscapes: Planes, Trains & Automobilesâ makes us reflect on those beloved occasions. Her series of landscape paintings are self-described as âimpressionsâ from the drives she took the summer she finally got her driving license. In this series, she defines a specific importance to the passenger and its role as an audience to the landscape at large. Passengers are spectators to the blurred colored landscapes seen from a window of a moving vehicle.
In her curatorâs note, Agathe Snow describes a transition between her younger self as a passive carefree passenger to one that is older, nervous and paranoid. What used to feel daring, like speeding down a hill or taking an impromptu turn now feels reckless. Her use of the dark black strokes in her paintings depict this ominous shift. The combination of the accountant paper with the severity of the black paint indicate that these are not the landscape paintings we all made in an elementary school art class. This project breaks the mold of the melodramatic idea of landscapes with beautiful rich warm colors. She strips it down to repurposed paper and a single-colored paint. She incorporates in her paintings more than just the feeling of the wind whipping her in the face. She adds an element of sadness and austerity.
This series of paintings differs greatly from the rest of Agathe Snowâs body of work. These dark single-toned paintings are a huge jump from her colorful and playful installations. During an interview a few years ago with zingmagazine, she talked about her terrifying fear of painting. She is thus combining her new identity of sitting in the driverâs seat with her use of a new unfamiliar medium.
Agathe Snowâs project feels incredibly personal and intimate. Itâs as if she is expressing her whole self at once in a stream of consciousness. She shares her personal memories, fears, sadness, regrets with her need for a creative output all in one series of paintings. Taking a step back, we realize that she has unknowingly (or perhaps knowingly) placed us in the passenger seat to her inner thoughts. We find ourselves no longer reminiscing about our own driving memories but rather nervously awaiting and following the turns in the road our driver, Agathe Snow, will decide to take.
On a recent visit to Mary Obering's home and studio, it felt like I was stepping into a movie set of another era, an era when artists occupied Sohoâs industrial loft spaces to ply their trade and exchange ideas.
Mary's loft is a sprawling space with large plants and plenty of natural light, picture perfect in its representation of what I imagined life to be in 1970s and 1980s Soho. And that is perfectly fitting, as Mary Obering was in the thick of the scene in the 1970s, rubbing elbows and offering critique at dinners and studio gatherings with the now famous minimalist and conceptual artists who she also counted as neighbors.
I was invited to visit the artist within her domain to discuss her career and the current show on view at Marisa Newman Projects in Koreatown, âMary Obering: Selected Works 1983-1987.â
The artist greeted me warmly in true southern style but with an openness that seemed to betray the behavior of a woman who was born in 1937 and bred into upper class southern society in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Mary found her way to Soho in the 1970s via Denver, Colorado where Carl Andre first saw her work in a group exhibition and suggested that with her talent she belonged in New York City. In this new environment, Obering embarked on a path of pure abstraction, influenced not only by painters such as Mark Rothko and Josef Albers, but also by what was happening around her - close friendships with Mary Hafif "she's a great painter," and Donald Judd âI really miss Don,â and other giants of this time.
In graduate school at Harvard, she studied Behavioral Psychology under B.F. Skinner. The scientific mindset and curiosity developed under Skinner later led to her interest in physics. While living an artist's life in Soho, she would also attend lectures on the subject and studied textbooks by Richard Feynman who created a widely adopted pictorial representation system for the mathematical expressions representing the behavior of subatomic particles, also known as Feynman diagrams.
Mary Obering, Analog, 1983
âInfluenced by the movements of geometry and abstractionâ these diagrams also caught Oberingâs artist eye: âI was interested in that field and did a good bit of reading about it. I didnât participate that actively in the area. But it interested me as an abstract and somewhat geometric art-maker, and those diagrams inspired me to do those works," "those works" being her âEventâ paintings - two of which are included in the exhibition at Marisa Newman Projects, âEvent, Octoberâ (1987) and âMuon Makerâ (1987).
It seems natural for an abstract painter to find an affinity with scientific diagrams - each are distilling complex information into simpler forms for the sake of communication. These paintings of Oberingâs, along with another series depicting abstract forms of the sun and moon, were part of a new development in the 1980s of engaging in the natural world. From the macrocosmic cycles of sun and moon, Obering goes beyond micro into the realms of the natural that are no longer observable without the assistance of highly sophisticated technology. To a realm where abstract schematics are necessary for human comprehension. This being right in her wheelhouse, Obering picks up on the formal nature of these abstract diagrams and with her painterly concerns elevates this mode of communication to high art, using her sense of color and training in gold-leafing to accentuate the action of molecular collision. The end results are honorific abstract paintings in homage to the fabric of life itself.
Mary Obering, Frasi Lunari I, 2004
Later on, after finishing in the studio, we traverse to the bedroom hallway where Obering shows me a series of paintings on paper from the early 2000s featuring the rising moon as observed from her kitchen window in Puglia, Italy (where she spends part of her year). It seems that her fascination with the natural world continues.
With a final farewell, and kind invitation from Obering to return again for a glass of wine, Iâm off back onto the cobblestones of Wooster Street, head full of cosmic wonder and imagined scenarios from Maryâs extraordinary life in that loft.
The text across the sides of the pages (on the colored panels) and the billboards tell this story of the urban experience. Roughly translated it reads as follows: I donât know if you feel the same but I am fragmented. Disconnected. My little pieces scattered around the city to accommodate, now between smiles, legs and hair. They give us back the image, disproportionate of our obedience.Â
This story cannot be read smoothly, as the text is broken up â some on billboards, some on the sides of the page. The word âfragmentandoâ is even split between two pages. The images that go along with these words are suggestive of the consumer capitalist culture of the United States, which is amplified by the intense pace of city life. High heels, lipstick, a watch, and a diamond ring, all contrast against the words that are displayed with them. The use of Spanish paired with the icons is also indicative of the influence of this culture around the world. The pink billboard with lipstick has the word âdesmesuradaâ (disproportionate) splayed across it. The billboard with the diamond ring has âobedienciaâ (obedience). This language is in stark contrast to the ideal of the city that is often portrayed in the media, but matches the scene around them. The billboards (and their consumerist sentiments) are the focal points of these drawings, dwarfing the other features of the city. The lipstick billboard itself is desmesurada, occupying half the amount of space as the building it rests on, monumentally larger than the trees and the cars at the bottom of the drawing.Â
At first glance, it is easy to miss these words and the message they are trying to convey â the chaos, in the form of parallel and intersecting lines as well as the bright images, makes it easy to overlook the alienation that is becoming pervasive. PartegĂĄsâ work acts as a critique of consumer capitalism, providing the viewer with a streamlined cityscape that is overtaken with colorful billboards at every turn. The simplified contour drawings act to dehumanize the city and its architecture, making it less recognizable, thus removing the history of the urban space and allowing the consumerism to be the focus of the viewerâs attention. This work begs the question of whether the obsession with consumption is a product of urban life, or if it exist everywhere, just enhanced by the fast-paced nature and overpopulated environment that the city holds.
A snapshot: Kevin is sitting under a Christmas tree in Munich holding a framed postcard. The Heinrich Hoffmann photo shows Adolf Hitler in profile looking into the light of candles enflamed on a Christmas tree. Intended as a contribution to gay and festive celebrations, the card is entitled "Deutsche Weihnacht". This man staring into open fire with relaxed features, just about to crack into a smile is an entirely cynical concept and in this sense the perfect ready made illustration for âEvil Camouflage.â
"Psychologists discover everything to be camouflage. It is then made clear how little these experts know of tanks."Â For the passage from France to England, Caesar invented the little green men, later in Scotland, at Birnam, the woods were taken for a walk, in short, human mimicry practiced in a terrain of military significance has had many literary and historical predecessors. Nevertheless, the technique of camouflage, as we know it, is a 20th century contribution to the history of warfare. It is the strategy of obscuring objects with the intention of deceiving the enemy. These objects can be subjected to the attempt to render them invisible within their given surrounding, or to make them appear as something, they are in fact not. Its invention is closely linked to Modernism. Seemingly, military camouflage, its patterns provided by Cubism, Vorticism, or Futurism applied, often in quite a dazzling way, is nothing but modern art put to use and practice.
As such, "Evil Camouflage" is yet another example of the abuse of warlike techniques for peacetime pastime activities. The artworks assembled for this project, as diverse in style and context as they may be, all employ some strategy of disguise, obscurity or deceit in their technique of communication. Against the background of the viewer's expectations, the appearance of an image or the nature of the presented topic might read as harmless or as pleasant. A closer look reveals that the story told has taken rather unexpected turns. In such a manner, "Evil Camouflage" gives room to trick and twist and make ironic. In its finest examples it offers a forum for the challenged states of mind or serves as a technique for insight and critique.
This project also takes into account the natural existence of camouflage. Even in nature, no one is safe. "There are predators everywhere. The possibility of discovery and of subsequent death provides the arena for the evolution of deceptive strategies." In the course of the following investigation into contemporary evolutionary practice, four arenas will be entered. "The Female" introduces mean kids, evil mothers and sexual desires. "The Body" is subject to mutations and mutilations. "Objects" will be introduced as the anticipation of casualties. And some "Suspicious Minds" reflect upon attitudes and politics.
Left David Ancelin "Acapulco" drawing and Charlotte Perriand "Bauche Chair" by Gaston Karquel , Bianca Argimon "Aliens on a beach" with camping display, Devon Dikeou childhood teddy bear and Pre-Columbian fetish collection, front "Emerald" floor piece and carpet by Emmanuel Bossuet.
Thierry Lagalla âDo you like it like That?â Â drawing in response to Alvaar Alto pile of two chairs, right : Odonchimeg Dovaardoaj âUntitledâ drawing with lamp display.
âFormes Subtiles (Modern Remix)â includes work by David Ancelin, Odonchimeg Davaadorj, Simon de La Porte, Devon Dikeou, Pierre Faucheux, Thierry Lagalla, Pierre de Loheac, Thomas Lelu, Antoine Marquis, Laurent Saksik, Bettina Sultan, Tomas Zoritchak, Ada Yu, and Vier5 and is on view until December 11th at Galerie Iconoclastes 20 rue Daniel Cassanova in Paris!
seminars/lectures (s/l) is an ongoing project of Rainer Ganahlâs â a series of photographs depicting education as a utopia, âa network of interconnecting tunnels with people gatheringâŠfor the sake of exchanging ideas.â In this series, Ganahl captures the side of education where classrooms are used to gather academic interest as a driving force for productivity in our society.
Without a doubt, education is essential for progress. This can be seen in political movements across history, where academic institutions are broken down for a tyrannical regime to gain control and undermine the power of individuals. Bessa gives the example of the military junta in Brazil in 1964, where their first deliberation was to close the Philosophy Department in all universities across the country. In Cambodia, during the genocide in the 20th century, educated people were the first to be killed, making it that much harder for the society to rebuild once the Khmer Rouge regime ended.
The images in seminars/lectures capture people in moments of preoccupation and intensity, focusing on whatever material is being presented to them. This content isnât clear to us as viewers, suggested only by the title of the photographs. In Homi Bhabha, Whose Modernity Is It Anyway?, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 11/18/1997, two students are seen grappling with the lecture, both faced the same direction, focusing on the same thing. In the foreground, there is a pen in someoneâs hand, another indication of a student actively listening. As viewers of these photographs, however, we arenât forced to think about the specific content being taught. What we are being prompted to reflect on is people engaging, thinking critically â ultimately to be productive members of society, which is what the purpose of education is supposed to be.
 In a different way than the students, the lecturers are highlighted in the title of these pieces. Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Middle East Politics, Miller Theater, Columbia University, New York, 4/9/1999 singles out Noam Chomsky and Edward Said. They are placed on a platform, marked as people of importance who have something of value to teach, and the photos in the series reflect the significance of this type of individual. As such, seminars/lectures portrays this structure (often created by institutions), of an individual with somehow supreme knowledge which they are spreading to the masses. The important response from the students, which we are seeing in this series, is engagement which then leads to critical thinking. This is what results in âtruly democraticâ spaces, where ideas are exchanged in a utopian way.
But is education still functioning in this democratic way? Are people still gathering in classrooms as Ganahl depicts and fighting for âthe ideals of humanismâ (1)? I wonder if this exchange of ideas for the sake of academic interest is still the point â for both academic institutions as well the students attending them. Are these institutions more concerned with class and reputation than developing curiosity in their students? And are the students attending actively choosing to learn, or has school just become a means to an end?
How do we, as a society, fuel this passion so that it will culminate in ways similar to these moments captured in seminars/lectures? Ganahl shows the crucial aspect of education â how interest and passion act as a driving force for us as a society, but we must make sure students and people in general are learning to question as they learn, to debate and think critically. This craving for knowledge still exists and can be seen in socially and politically engaged people around the world, so we must find a way to make sure itâs given the appropriate outlets.
We have found ourselves in a constant quest for the next unique and interesting way to mix together past and present. Yet, we seem to forget how to handle the weight of our history and instead find ourselves appropriating tradition and rewriting tales with racist movies such as Peter Pan or Dances with Wolves. The media has butchered Native American culture by simplifying it and creating caricatures of it. All weâve done is go along with it and probably dress up once or twice as Pocahontas for Halloween in our younger years.Â
Brad Kahlhamer corrects us. He shows us what we have done wrong. His piece âCommunity Boardâ featured in  Issue #23, melts together cultural identity, visual artistry and perhaps a touch of social critique. His curatorâs note found here, only emphasizes the overwhelming sensory tornado of this project.
 What appears at first as an incoherent scrapbook is a moving scope into the artistâs personal life. We are faced with unrelated photographs juxtaposed with unconventionally structured sentences. His piece and his note appear almost as a letter to society. We are lost. Or at least, he is lost. But, who could blame him? This year has only been a storm of unexpected changes and unwanted surprises. The political climate of the United States took a turn for the worst and the Native American communities are some of the first to feel it. After months of fighting against the Dakota Access Pipeline, what seemed to be a glimpse of victory turned out to be false hope. The newly elected president has no regards for the hundreds of thousands of people living in harmony with the earth and whose history precedes that of the White Colonials.
The term community board appears as rare and unseen as a unicorn or a four-leaf-clover in this divided society. Do community boards even still exist? Which community can we find ourselves all belonging to?Â
Brad Kahlhamer depicts communities merging together in creating a sort of intersectionality if you will. He calls it his Third Place. He was born from Native-American parents but adopted by a German-American couple. He compares the two identities as his âtwo placesâ. The first place being the life he would have had and the second the life he did have. You can read more about his âThird Placeâ here. With that said, the artist touches upon the popular view of a one-dimensional Native American identity and brings it to new levels by adding punk and pop flairs. His experience being in a hardcore band and creating music adds to his illustration of punk Native American.
 âCommunity Boardâ felt like what happens to the body during a panic attack. The intense mix of drawings make his narrative almost incomprehensible. His overlapping drawings are a gentle nod at the traditional Plains Indians ledger art. Once digested, and the first intense approach has passed, the different sections come together harmoniously. This feels like a very personal piece in which the artist invites us to take a glimpse at his difficulties defining his own private community board.Â
I would be more than curious to see what sort of community board Brad Kahlhamer would make in twenty years.
DEJA ZING: Preliminary Proposal for Kenny Schachter's Gallery, New York City
Think of a gallery not as a place for the exhibition of art (art-products, act-activity, art-processes, etc.) but as a condition for the exhibition of art. In other words: there doesnât have to be a floor connected to walls which in turn are connected to a ceiling, making a box that the art has to fit into. But there might always be the possibility of a wall (in case, for example, a wall, or a section of a wall, was needed to hang a painting)âthere might always be the possibility of a floor (in case, for example, a floor, or a section of a floor, was needed for a sculpture to stand on, or for a viewer to walk over). Think of a gallery, then, as a void, inside of which is the possibility/equipment/apparatus for showing art.
But this gallery will be an actual space, in a built building, in a real city; so the void has to be made palpable, tangibleâitâs a void with boundaries, a void thatâs separated from other spaces around it. This gallery, after all, will be inserted into a conventional New York building, into a rectilinear space on the ground floor that fronts the street. Make the void, then, out of the front wall.  Turn the front wall into something like fabric, like rubber, like skin. The façade breathes in now, the façade sucks itself in; it melts into a bulge, a blob, an ellipsoid that spills into the rectangle, and fills the rectangle.
Toward the street end of the gallery, the blob separates, the blob opens; it becomes a funnel that lets the city in. From the sidewalk, a strip of Toward the street end of the gallery, the blob separates, the blob opens; it becomes a funnel that lets the city in. From the sidewalk, a strip of concrete turns off and slips into the building; the sidewalk rises like a ramp, like a gangplank, to join with the bottom of the blob. As you walk down the street, you might follow the sidewalk inside, through the funnel, into the gallery.
The funnel opens into the exhibition space; thereâs no doorâan air-curtain separates inside from outside, and heats and cools the inside. You enter a space without corners; youâre in a curve that sweeps and swoops around you, youâre in the inside of a shell. The shell is translucent fiberglass, or molded plastic; itâs lit from behind, from the leftover space between the blob and the rectangular edges of the roomâthe exhibition space is a void of light. Itâs a concavity of light; there are no walls, no ceiling, no floor yet (pretend youâre in this gallery before an exhibition begins).
Assume that the rectangular space, into which this ellipsoid is inserted, has columns running down the length of it. The columns are the kernel of particular exhibitions; the columns function as storage for the galleryâs architecture. Â Stacks of panelsâ4 feet by 8 feet, sayâare packed onto and supported on each side of each column. The panels fold out, pivot out, to make segments of walls and floor and ceiling. Panels are folded out only where neededâto hang something on, or from, or to stand something on, or to make a walkway between things. A panel might end in mid-air, unconnected to any other, like a screen; or wall might be connected to floor and ceiling to make a little room within the gallery; or the void might be filled with ceilings above and floors below and walls all around, like a conventional gallery, if only for the time being. This gallery is built and unbuilt and rebuilt from show to show.
All the while, the ellipsoid itself might be used as a display surface; the concave translucent shell might be a screen for rear projections, replacing the light from behind. The ellipsoid might be used, too, as support-structure; the fiberglass shell might be reinforced with steel, that attaches at points to the structure of the building.
As the ellipsoid retrofits the rectangular space, it cuts in-between columns; some columns are enclosed within the blob, within the exhibition space of the gallery, and some are left outside, toward the front of the room and at the rear. Â Two or three columns might be left out in the funnel, on the ramping sidewalk; panels might be unfolded out from the columns here, to extend the exhibition space out to the streetâthe gallery begins, the show begins, outside the gallery. And one or two columns might fall outside the shell in the rear of the rectangle; panels here might be unfolded to make a desk, or a conference table. Â Itâs this left-over corner in the rear that houses the galleryâs office, behind the scenes of the exhibition space. The existent rectangular walls, behind the blob, might be used for bookshelves, and storage. Just as the blob, at the front of the gallery, opens to let the city and its people in, the blob parts at the rear: this is where the office might stretch into the gallery, or where the gallery might spread into the officeâthe gallery dealerâs space is open to the public, and vice versa, the gallery can always come out and play the crowd.
Warning: keep telling yourself: this is only a general idea, this is only a general idea . . . The idea has to be adjusted to an actual particular place; more likely, the idea will be affected by the actual place, and change, or die and be born again as a different ideaâa transaction will occur between this idea and the particular place. And, in the meantime, before a place is actualized, the idea has to be detailed:
Now that the gallery has been opened onto the sidewalk, now that the street has been let loose into the gallery, the funnel between gallery and city has to be closed at night, or else it will be (ab)used like the rest of the open city. But we canât hide the gallery, and pretend it isnât there; we canât pull down in front something like a garage door. The blob itself has to close the gallery: the blob has to bulge, or the blob has to unpeel in sheets, to make a closure. This extended blob, or these peels of the blob, will be the impure part of the void, the part that accepts graffiti.
The entry to the blob needs a reception desk. It can be in the funnel, on the ramping sidewalk, before the entry; panels can unhinge from a column to form a desk and a chair. But the receptionist would be out in the cold here. Â So, instead, the desk could be put around the corner, just inside the entry; there might be a convenient column here, from which a panel could be pulled down to make a desk, or a section of the blob itselfâfluid as it should beâcould be re-formed into a built-in desk-and-chair area.
The system for walls and floors and ceilings, as we have it so far, is too âclunkyâ; the blob is fluid, but the column-&-panels are have too much material, too many mechanics. The panels should act solid but look like air. The panels should âdisappearâ when they arenât used; and, when they need to be used, they should unfold like liquid.
Kenny Schachter wants his gallery to have seating; the gallery should be used like a living room. Since weâre imagining/designing a (simulation of a) void here, we donât see a place for a living room. Â But then again, once we design a void, anybody can come in and fill it with his/her own reality. Â All the while, weâve left plenty of opportunities for seating: a panel could be unfolded from a column to make a bench, for example, or the blob could bulge into a niche that makes a continuous âlive-inâ seat. Â But maybe the seating here should be more flexible, more movable and rearrangeable: within this blob, say, there might be miniature blobs that function on their own time and in their own spaceâyou sit inside a blob, you have a little blob for your very own, at least for the time being . . .
Lutwidge Finch: A Novel by Thomas Rayfiel, Part III Chapter 7
The soft yet powerful hands of Monsieur Robert were completely at Madame Schlierbeck's service. She lay naked on a marble slab, having dispensed with even the modest sheet she had been offered, and allowed his lightning-fast palms to chop up and down her back, felt them stray, daringly, teasingly, to that nether region so ill-defined in our anatomy where the body's upright nature shades indistinctly toward that of its quadruped ancestor.
"Mmmm," she said, finding the experience called for wordless, yet vocal, appreciation.
It would have done no good to talk. Monsieur Robert spoke not a word of English and Hepzibah Schlierbeck, despite the 'Madame' with which she continued to preface her name (it would do until Lady) had no French. But they understood each other perfectly, these two, the adorer and the adored, as he moved on to her shoulders, appraising, admiring, suggesting, all in the articulate language of the physical.
"Voila!" he finally said, less a word in this case than an exclamation, accompanied, as it was, by a friendly slap on the bottom, as if he had just delivered her, safe and sound, into this new sensual world.
No crying babe though, Madame Schlierbeck merely sat up lazily (all her bones seemed newly acquainted, making a jolly, good-natured effort to work together, no petty jealousies, gripes or nursed aches, having yet arisen) and smiled. She reached for the purse resting on top of her carefully folded clothes and tendered a large, chocolate-colored coin. Monsieur Robert bowed slightly and, with a twinkling, luck-wishing look in his eye, left the 'Madame Anglaise', as they had come to call her at the Bains Solitaire, alone, so that she might dress.
Paris was a revelation for Hepzibah. Never before had she realized what "abroad" meant, how one could flower here as nowhere else. It was not that she was going native, aping the locals, making a spectacle of herself. Rather, it was that her economical and practical exterior, hard as that of a small seed, had burst forth in the most unexpected manner. Stretching her arms, she felt exhilaration surge through her body. In twenty minutes lay the appointment. She thought she would be nervous, now she knew she would not. How fortunate it had been, yielding to Mr. Hardheart's repeated demand that, if she insisted on handing over the sum to be loaned his Lordship personally, it at least be done on the Continent. Her father, of all people, had offered the unlikely encouragement that finally convinced her. He had overheard her refusing, again, to make the journey to Paris, and, after the agent left, remonstrated with his daughter for "shutting herself up in this poky little store." It had hurt, to hear him denigrate their establishment so. Their home, she felt, for they did little more upstairs than eat and sleep. But Reza Schlierbeck was insistent. "You think I lived here all my life?" he asked. "I came here, after many adventures. I like it here fine now, for a man of my age. But you, knoedelichen, you have to see things, kick the dust from your heels, before you decide to settle down." In the end, he had forced her hand by threatening to invite to dinner the widow Klein, a woman clearly smitten with Reza's still lean and romantic profile. "Of course I couldn't if I was alone here," he went on, blithely ignoring Hepzibah's smoldering stare. "It wouldn't look right. But with you as chaperone..." So she gave up the picture of Jeffrey, Eighth Earl of Choir, stooping low to avoid the domino-like knocking of dried salami that formed a bead curtain above the entranceway to her office, and with little more than a guidebook, a letter of credit, and one indispensable item from the fragrant alcove, set off on her journey.
The view was replaced by the Earl of Choir, who sat opposite without asking permission or indeed uttering her name. He was immaculately tailored as always, with a monocle hanging loose on a purple ribbon, his jet-black mustache, and a sprig of lilac in his lapel. He wore scent, she noted, also of lilac. And carried a rapier-thin cane.
"Well," he said insolently, taking out a cigarette case, "gaze your fill."
"I beg your pardon?"
"My agent said you wanted to see me, personally, before completing our transaction. Seemed damned irregular to me but since I have no choice..."
"Our arrangement itself is irregular," Madame Schlierbeck pointed out, watching him wave away the waiter. This was not, she saw, a social call for the Earl. This was not even business. It was a disgusting task and he would make no effort to conceal the fact. His gallantry did not extend, did not descend, to dealings with her kind. It stopped abruptly, as at the edge of a swamp. "I simply wanted to make things clear, face to face."
"It is all spelled out in that paper I signed, isn't it?"
"I am lending you five thousand pounds," she said, patting the top of the strongbox.
--to which his eyes involuntarily swerved, as if a starving animal had been offered meat--
"You, in six month's time, will either pay back the sum, with interest, or agree to marry me."
"Yes, well anything for a good sandwich, I always say."
"I want you to understand the gravity of the agreement you are entering into. I will hold you to your word. There is no other reason for my loaning you this sum. The rate I am offering is far in reduction to what you would get elsewhere. And if the Choir name means anything, you will not suffer it to be soiled by my bringing a suit for Breach of Promise."
He laughed harshly, fit the monocle in his eye and glanced over her with a look of incredulity.
"Madame Schlierbeck," he said sarcastically, "please excuse me if the schoolgirl fantasies of a moneylenderess do not interfere with the day-to-day considerations of a peer. I will take your cash, and at the end of six months I will give it back to you with the blood money you people are so famous for extorting. The tall tale you are telling exists only in your overheated imagination. I am sorry," he gave a mock, seated bow, "to disappoint."
"You intend to marry for the repayment, then?"
"That is none of your concern."
"Your concerns are my concerns. And mine, yours," she added significantly, continuing to rest her hand on the top of the box.
His gaze rested there as well. He pursed his lips.
"What is it you want?" he asked, in a different tone of voice now. "I have come, haven't I? If you wished to see me brought low, if you wished to see me shamed, well, understand: this is humiliation for me, simply my being here, at your beck and call."
"I don't want to shame you," she frowned, not sure this was strictly true. What about that picture she had of him quite literally brought low, stooping to enter the humble precincts of her office? "It is your title that interests me, and your station."
"--both of which would mean nothing if I defiled them with an outrageous marriage. You face the classic climber's dilemma. Wherever you want to get, you will never get there, because by definition it does not include you."
"That is not how I see it," Madame Schlierbeck riposted. "The way I see it, you are the last in a line of old, tired, sterile dead wood. And I am exactly what you so desperately need. New blood. New capital. With my resources, you might actually begin to approximate what a true nobleman should be, one whose actions are backed by authority, one whose word is law. You think people bow to you now, but they snigger behind your back. 'There goes the penniless Earl,' they whisper. If you put me in charge of your lands, I guarantee in ten years you will be free and clear of all debts, in twenty years, the luster of the Choir arms will be restored to their former glory, and in thirty years, god willing, you will be the practically independent ruler of a small kingdom, with greater powers than, say, your great-great grandfather ever had."
"Are you applying to become my bailiff or my wife?"
"I am proposing to be your partner, in every sense of the word."
Choir, amused, raised his hand. A waiter appeared.
"Will you drink with me?" he asked. "No? Well I need something. Cognac." He returned his eyes to Hepzibah. "I cannot decide if you wish to save my soul, or claim it."
"I wish to be the Lady of Choir Castle," she shrugged.
"Understand," he said gravely. "I will marry before the six months is up. I already have my sights trained on the most eligible of heiresses."
"No doubt. But perhaps you will come to realize that the union I propose is in your own best interest. That is what I wished to tell you, personally, not to see you beg, but to make you think."
"Very well. Then this will be less a loan and more in the nature of a bet. Though it is not my habit to wager with ladies."
She smiled, acknowledging the compliment, and took off the small, heart-shaped locket that hung round her neck. Free of that possible entanglement, she slowly began to draw up the links of her gold chain. Like hauling a bucket from a deep well, Choir thought, trying not to appear eager. Finally, the key to the strongbox appeared.
"Five thousand pounds. Please count it and sign this receipt."
"Oh, I trust you," the Earl said, pocketing the thick wads of notes.
"As you like. Sign here."
He did, with surprising care, his tongue stuck partway out, as if he had just learned how to write.
"Where will you go now?" Madame Schlierbeck asked, taking advantage of his distracted attention to examine more fully his physique. He was actually somewhat small, but firm and well-knit. She felt a flicker go through her, the lingering aftereffects of Monsieur Robert's massage, no doubt, and resisted the temptation to reach out and touch the curly head bent over the document.
"My clothes are in shocking condition," he said, completing the signature with a flourish. "While here, I intend to order a new wardrobe, then return later and oversee the fittings."
It was easy to see why people underestimated the Earl, taking his rather insipid manner (which was genuine, he really was preoccupied, already, with the relative merits of the paisley versus the polka dot) for an expression of his true nature. But just as a cheetah can appear the epitome of laziness when at rest, then bound off to outrun an antelope, so Choir, despite a hunger for the ephemeral, the worthless and impractical, could act with swift decisiveness and cunning when it was in his interest to do so. Indeed, only then. It was this queer blend that attracted, or let us say, excited Hepzibah. His dual nature made the loan--yes, he was right--something in the nature of a gamble. It was exciting that he was not so boringly predictable as her other clients had all proved to be.
"Are there geese at Choir Castle?" she asked.
"Geese? Yes. And chickens, and ducks, and goats. They wander through the dining hall, which resembles nothing so much as a station platform nowadays, with no furniture and the roof in tatters."
She signalled for the hotel servant, who came and took away the strongbox.
"I must go," she said, holding out her hand.
He kissed it, enjoying the slight blush he thought he detected.
"In six month's time, then?" Hepzibah smiled.
"You shall receive an invitation long before then," he promised. "But you people are not permitted to enter the Abbey, are you?"
Alone, Choir had the waiter bring him another drink. He was so giddy with excitement at being once again in funds he knew it was best to sit, not run off wildly and start buying whatever came to eye. Be sensible, part of him warned. But he knew he would not feel fully alive until he had made his first extravagant purchase. The silk smoking jackets of the rue Dalier beckoned. A locket rested on the table. Yes, she had taken it off when extracting the key. He picked it up and looked for Madame Schlierbeck, but she was already gone. I shall pass it on to Hardheart, he thought, who shall return it along with the loan once I am able to sell off the Shepperton estate. The ludicrous image of Hepzibah tossing grain to the assorted livestock of Choir Castle made him shake his head. What was the world coming to?
In Rome, the Duchess Middleton was entertaining similar thoughts. There are Jews everywhere, she scowled, mistaking the Holy Father himself (perhaps because of the office's tiny white skullcap) for his illustrious predecessor. A contingent of Swiss Guards nearly ran her down. The Eternal City was a dangerous place. She would never have come here at all, certainly not in October, had it not been a question of duty. The Duchess was very conscious of her role as matriarch of the Bourneville clan. It gave her actions meaning. She was a representative, a dignitary, even if these greasy heathens refused to acknowledge the fact. Of course the only way to get respect from foreigners is to wave a piece of gaudy play money under their rather pronounced noses, she told herself. But, here incognito, she suffered the outrages of the solitary traveller in silence. Anything for family. The via del Corso gave onto a more crowded street. To escape, or rather to more fully enter the heat, families dined out on the roadway itself, wax-spattered bottles sporting candles whose flames shone feebly in the still-bright dusk. Horses, used, apparently, to fettucine on cobblestone, picked their way around the various repasts, their great tongues lolling, drool pooling in soft corners of elongate jaws. I am in Hell itself, she fantasized, which I would gladly traverse with the family scutcheon held high, and ferry it unsullied to the opposite shore. But there was the contrasting, nagging notion that she was only wading deeper into a morass, not simply meddling, but having taken an actual wrong turn in the real world. She was too timid to consult the map the owner of her pensione had scrawled on the torn page of a French novel. Walking towards my doom! she thrilled, seeing a boy with no shirt, thin, and with just the start of manhood about him, advance on her with a glass of red champagne.
"I have no money," she said, thinking he meant to sell her refreshment. This stark admission she would have never made in London, where it was simply assumed any Bourneville was rich. So Italy, even to those not seeking it, encourages visitors to cleanse themselves with simple truths. In fact "airs" were mostly what the Duchess lived on.
But the child insisted, holding forth the goblet, which was heavy cut glass, not all what one served sparkling wine in, so that the round surface fizzed like a lake situated in a volcano's crater.
"No!" she cried again. The boy had an idiot's wolf-like smile.
"Lambrusco!" someone called.
Surely being summoned by name would make him break off. But he only motioned again, exaggerated his already outstretched offer, causing the wine to slop and spill towards her, one red drop catching the late Roman sun.
"Signora." A man had gotten up and was lumbering over. "It is Lambrusco, a wine of celebration. My boy asks you to drink to our daughter's health."
"Oh." She saw now the wedding party, charmingly grouped before one of the subsiding tenements.
"It is custom," the man went on, taking the glass from the boy and handing it to her. "A stranger gives her blessing."
"I will indeed." She felt the bubbles bite her lip.
"Miranda." The father pointed out each member of the multitude. "Her husband, Sergio. Sergio's mother, Alma..." And on it went. The Duchess nodded at each in turn, with a vague smile she hoped conveyed her lofty beneficence. "And two of your own countrymen who live here in the quartiere."
She had by now unconsciously drunk half the glass and felt less a sense of violation at the man's sweaty, garlicky presence. But seeing the very people she had come in search of, seated comfortably among the other celebrants, the Duchess stiffened, took a deep breath, much as an actress does before stepping out from the wings, and advanced on the unsuspecting pair.
"What did you ever do with my macaw?" Bradley Ghoulrich was asking.
"He was very good with parsley sauce," Lutwidge Finch recalled.
On any weekday evening, more people watch Wheel of Fortune than watch all network news programs combined and more than vote in any election. Since what we do reflects our values, reveals our attitudes, and gives evidence of what we consider enjoyable, itâs easy to conclude that people derive more satisfaction from watching the game show than they do from voting or keeping up with the news. Obviously, viewers want to be entertained, and the popularity of television in general attests to the fact that distraction is high on the list of what we want.
But why, precisely, is this glitzy program, this simple game with its easy rules, so appealing? It is, as proclaimed, âAmericaâs gameâ (and it accurately manifests American values, desires and attitudes.) What citizen of this great country wouldnât want to win thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of dollars expending only a few minutesâ worth of effort? Greed is our driving force, getting something for nothing is our dream, and luck is our talisman (according to surveys, luck ranks higher than intelligence or ability on the scale of what it takes to achieve success in America). And luck counts for more than anything else on this show: a spin of the wheel could land a player on an amount as high as $10,000 (the lowest is $250), on some âfabulous prize,â or on one of the two unfortunate spaces, BANKRUPT and LOSE A TURN. After landing on a lucky space, the player calls for a consonant, and if it is not in any of the blank spaces of the puzzle, the turn is lost, but if it is in the puzzle, Vanna White, called the âhostess,â will put her hand on the square or squares to bring the letter(s) to life, and the player gets to continue. For years, the letters were hidden on huge cubes, which Vanna had to turn by hand to expose, but now they are controlled electronically, giving the hostess more time to smile and pose, since she is purely an ornamentâeye candyâand her role (what she does is not work) is superfluous.
If Vanna doesnât have to be smart, neither do the contestants; indeed, some big winners have seemed dumber than your dullest relative. Many times players call for letters that are already showing in the puzzle or that have been called by other players. Many times. I have watched people lose a turn for calling a wrong letter only to have the next player request the same letter immediately (the studio audience, usually sympathetic to those onstage, sometimes titters at such witlessness). Once, I watched a player ask twice for a letter another player had already lost a turn for calling (letters that have been requested but are not in the puzzle are posted on a board that the contestants are supposed to watch if their short-term memory is AWOL or they have the attention span of a flashbulb). Pat Sajak, the bored âhostâ of this show, was prompted to say âStill no Nâ in his wry if not sardonic manner. With lots of money at stake, youâd think the players would be alert, but some of them appear to be absolute fatheads, all their concentration on avariceâthey love to yell âBIG MONEY! COME ON, BIG MONEY!â And if you want to laugh at unmatched dumbness, watch the show during one of its Celebrity Weeks, when actors and actresses try to play the game. Youâll be convinced that showpeople are ego-bloated lamebrains who are impervious to embarrassment.
DEJA ZING: Excerpts from Swann in Love Again (The Lesbian Arabian Nights)
Excerpt from Shelley F. Marlowâs Excerpts from Swann in Love Again:Â The Lesbian Arabian Nights:
After going through the mark twain cave, in Hannibal, Missouri, Swann drove to the middle of town to find a phone. She was directed to one bar -the phone had no dial tone and she was too tired to figure out how to use it. The locals in that bar were subtly hostile cowboys. Swann went across the street where the vibe was softer and asked some one how to use the phone. Swann called a friend of her aunt's who lived on a women's chocolate farm in Iowa, where Swann would visit next. While on the phone, she got a flash of recognition, noticing three soft shouldered women at the bar ordering food from a cardboard menu. She sat down near them on a barstool and ordered food. Two women were wearing blue jean shirts with slicked back short hair, fifties style.
Swann sat down and yacked it up with these three fellow inverts. They told her they drank at the Bordello almost every night and people wouldn't let them drive home if they were too drunk. Swann noticed that one of the women, whose name was Jane, had cutting scars from her wrist to her elbow. Jane caught Swann's eye looking at her arm.
Swann was wondering: was this ritual cuttings after too much drinking and too much despair? One dyke badgering the other verbally and the other cutting herself in response? Or too much harshness from the factory, low wages? Or just plain old quantities of suicide attempts?
They didn't speak about this.
Pat: Factory life sucks and we barely make enough to survive. Slavery was never abolished, really. Just rearranged. Ha ha ha ha.
Jane was pleased that her stone butch looking lover, Pat, for the first time in years was smiling, inspired out of her stoic depression by Swann's warm glamour. Swann liked Pat's roman nose.
Pat: Swann listen, is that your real name? Swann. Listen, you must as a traveler not lose your head. I mean things ain't always what they seem. This town may look cute as a baby kitten, but well, let it stay that way for you, don't push your luck.
The third woman was named Red, a woman in her sixties, who wore a pink leisure suit.
Red: She's right, a traveler shouldn't drink or get too happy. Swann, we do have some interesting architecture I'd like to show you, if there's a moment ahead for it. May be you'll decide to stay.
The four women sat for hours eating and drinking. Swann stepped outside around midnight for some fresh air. She heard something thinly wafting through the wind, putting an ear to listen it was a haunting sound, like witches incantations, a wild crying song, a crying working song.
Red joined Swann outside to smoke.
Red: That's the sound of the ghosts of the Mary Magdalene Laundromat that we hear, run just like a factory at this midnight hour. Let me tell you, this bar, the Bordello was the real thing run at the turn of the century. A popular one due to the Mississippi riverboats always bringing in fresh faces from all over. According to Granny, you could get a champagne, milk, seaweed, oatmeal, or even peppermint baths. There were glass floors and ceilings in some of the rooms. Anything you could imagine. Dames and men were on the menu as well as being customers. The reputation was a happy joint with happy workers. The usual bunch from the street urchins to unwed ma's all went to work there. Not the usual thing of the girls being sex slaves, this place was run by good witches. One day there was a witch hunt, according to my Granny. The law sided with this religious group, rumor was the law was bought. The same religious group started the Mary Magdalene Laundromat soon after. They took a large cross from the Bordello and hung it over the inside of the Laundromat doorway. The witches went west. All the new pregnant teens and orphans were taken to live there and run the religious laundromat day and night. All babies born there were put up for adoption, the word was the babies were being sold actuality-. And the mothers, well they didn't know which one was theirs, the priests wanted it that way. Before they closed the Bordello, this town was a flourishing joyous place with a little dark underbelly. My granny who used to work at the Bordello said once"Its been just a dark day ever since that laundromat opened."
She had family obligations and couldn't go west with the witches. And factory work don't pay so well. Now the women have grown old and finally the courts are closing it down, deciding on a date.
Swann is in awe at this bit of history when a woman with dyed red hair, pale warty skin and fifty year old bony hands walked up to the bar entrance with a look that Swann read as"I want a girl." Swann thinks: How come I'm attracted to this witchy babe?
"Hey, you witchy babe!"is what the woman said to her, right out of Swann's thoughts. Swann laughed and thought: Oh, here we go! And followed the woman inside.
Mark Twain coined the term âthe Gilded Ageâ in the novel of that title written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner and published in 1873. The only criticism I can bring to this succinct and suggestive phrase is that its definite article implies the era was unique in American history. We now find ourselves in another period of vast capitalist accumulation and staggering political corruption. (Hundreds of millions circulate mysteriously through âsuper PACsâ of recent vintage.) In a society where everything has a dollar value, the ultimate goal has become the concentration of the most wealth in the fewest hands, whenever possible with the assent of an electorate reeling from the latest scam.
âGilded Ageâ is a reminder that certain key elements of American society have been with us for a very long time. This montage of historical photographs and cartoons from the Library of Congress asks questionsâwhere does money come from? where does it go?âand provides an answer or two. Perhaps one day cash will disappear, and people will fetishize pieces of currency strictly as collectorâs items, as they now do old silver and gold certificates. I suspect this agenda will fulfill itself only in the distant future in the United States, where even replacing the humble dollar bill with coins has met with decisive resistance. Venality, whatever material form it takes, is unlikely to go away in any but the most utopian society, and these days, utopia seems very far away indeed.
âIâve thought of doing a version of Emerson in which you simply take every sentence of âSelf-Relianceâ and flip it... So like at the beginning he says, âYesterday I read in a book somebody stating very well an idea I had myself, and I felt ashamed that I hadnât expressed it myself.â Well, you could say, âYesterday I read in a book somebody stating very well an idea I had myself, and I felt glad that I was not alone, and that my ideas were not my ideas.ââ
âLewis Hyde
Iâm fairly certain about the events that led up to the day that I answered the question to: âWhich came first the chicken or the egg?â I donât know why I suddenly knew the answer to this question but it may have something to do with a specific sequence of moments. I figured out the answer while I was looking at a James Ensor painting. This work (I canât remember the title) was interesting to me at the time because it looked a lot like of work that a bunch of young artists were making - artists who may or may not have seen this piece. Whatever the case, it was remarkable to me that work separated by nearly a century could look so similar. The other thing that happened the day before the Ensor âmomentâ was that I read somewhere that a certain type of liquor was made in America during the 1800âs in 8 separate places, and that each gristmill had produced identical booze entirely independent of one another. This is easily explained if not for the non-standard, complex nature of the recipe.
That people reach similar, sometimes identical conclusions independently of one another is something that happens with regular frequency. In science this is called multiples. This fact is almost never celebrated. In art, as in science, itâs almost always about who got there first - like landing on the moon. Ample evidence exists to show how people figure things out or make discoveries at the same time. Darwin is credited with his work in On The Origin of Species as being vanguard when in fact many of the ideas discussed therein are remarkably similar to ideas expressed in Alfred Russel Wallaceâs papers published a full year in advance although there are many explanations for this. The invention of the four-track recorder (probably the single most important invention to shape modern music) is also still hotly contested as being invented at the same time in two different places by Tom Dowd and guitarist Les Paul. And there are endless examples of this phenomenon occurring throughout the history of art. That both Italy and Tibet were using near identical materials and processâ to create Secco for Frescoe paintings in the 15th century is yet to be fully explained except for the obvious explanation which is that it was a good idea and good ideas arenât contained by geography and sometimes even time.
Recently Iâve been finding the notion that itâs actually cause for celebration if you reach a similar conclusion that someone else already did even if it stings a little when you find out your brilliant idea was already patented by 50,000 people 100 years ago. Most of us are all too familiar with petty arguments that ensue about who went where first, about who did what first, about who saw what first, who made what first; sometimes being first is a cheap form of entitlement and other times being first means everything. The images that follow are a very small selection of work that bears un-avoidable similarities â either visually, materially, in terms of process, ideas, or all of the above. Rather than drawing from the vast well of art historical examples that hammer home this point, these images are culled from more obscure sources although there are also some well-known, well-debated examples. Admittedly, I have also included a few pairs that have nothing to do with each other whatsoever other than surface similarities. This is to demonstrate the way that artificial context can be manipulative/persuasive.
What remains truly rare over time is invention. Innovation is the constant but invention is much trickier ground. Where invention is credited and where it comes from is almost a total mystery. The images that follow are neither an indictment nor a provocation (discussions about influence and originality are endless...) just a small collection of works that carry a dialogue some even unbeknownst to one another. The choice to highlight similarities, to group and catalogue (taxonomy) is one aspect of empirical endeavor but does little to explain the impulse to materially realize ideas or notions. The way that ideas are formed and then realized materially is similarly one aspect of making art but does even less to explain where those ideas come from.
View the rest of this this issue #22 project here.
My Uncle is a Priest. His upbringing was Unitarian. In his twenties he decided to become an Episcopal monk. In his forties he became a Catholic. Throughout this spiritual path, he has always been generous enough to take me into the priories he lived in, and to let me see something of his life in these extraordinary places. It would always surprise me at people's curiosity about these places when I mentioned my visits with him. I began to photograph some of the priests he knew, and the locations they lived a few years ago. Some rooms in these priories seem new and very modern, others have remained as they were in the 1970's. The decor is one not necessarily chosen by it's occupants . The attachment of this home to a public place of worship is also fascinating to me. âWork from homeâ is almost right in this case.
The act of giving all material wealth, yet living in a furnished dwelling and being provided for creates an interesting conundrum. These occupants are very different from, and also the same as anyone else on the street on an average day. The difference is a profound one for me-the devotion of one's life to a spiritual pursuit. The sameness is as profound for me as well-my uncle, the very funny, lanky tall man that lives this life.
Brandon Ballengee is an artist, biologist, and environmental activist working out of New York City whose interest is in communities both human and non-human affected by climate change and other ecological impacts of the Anthropocene. His project in issue #8, âThe Atomic Frog Series,â are a series of drawings based on species of amphibians indigenous to nuclear reactors or nuclear waste sites within the United States. Since 1996, a central area of concern in his scientific research has been the occurrence of developmental deformities and population declines among amphibians. On the page, the project takes form as drawings of different species of frogs done in the manner of scientific illustration, which include text with their scientific names, locations ranging from New York state to Tennessee to Florida, and a set of alphanumerics which Iâve been unable to determine the meaning of. Pretty straightforward, but thereâs something unusual happening. Each frog is preying upon a human beingâhalf a body protruding from their mouths, or crushed beneath their forefeet. Apparently the radiation has had the effect of mutating these creatures into Godzilla-size proportions. In one fell swoop, the tables are turned and the food chain is upended. Frog legs are on the menu no more. Perhaps this gesture is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it does introduce the very real idea of the Anthropoceneâthe epoch in which human activities began to have a significant global impact on Earthâs geology and ecosystems. The project suggest a karmic comeuppance for human beings as a result of their introducing nuclear radiation to an ecosystem in which these animals lived. Despite the general consensus that human technology is progressive and beneficial, there are often unforeseen, and sometimes disastrous, consequences. In this case, itâs a direct impact upon human beings in predation by gigantic frogs. But typically the brunt of the impact is felt by non-human organisms and ecosystems. Amphibians are often considered to be the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to indicators of pollutionâs effect on the environment. With âThe Atomic Frog Series,â Brandon Ballengee raises a red flag on negative consequences of nuclear development.
