Writer and raconteur.
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Topic A, KDHX in St. Louis, September 08, 2008
Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius, September 10, 2008
The Top
The reason why I could never get him back was: he was at the top. He wasn’t like the others who, if you thought about it long enough, went back to the bottom somewhere. He was at the top of the heap of the desperate.
And beneath him was me; and beneath me was Ron; and beneath Ron was his ex-wife; and beneath his ex-wife was her yoga instructor; and beneath her yoga instructor were all his students who, really, did worship him; and beneath the students were countless ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends, some of which would surprise you with their talent and looks; and beneath them probably half of New York State, plus pockets of cities on the West Coast and much of the Islington neighborhood in London. If you don’t see what I mean, instead of “beneath,” try inserting “in love with,” and maybe you’ll get the idea.
When Bill Pedersen, FAIA, co-founder and principal design partner of Kohn Pedersen Fox, bought a three-acre piece of land on Shelter Island, New York in 1981, “Things were a little different on the island,” he wryly recalls. He means that one could buy a waterfront plot with views of Long Island Sound and Coecles Harbor without the excessive fanfare or money that nowadays accompany real estate purchases. In the intervening years, the island has grown more expensive to live on and crowded with visitors during the summer, but Pedersen has created a residence that, nested in the earth and angled to create uninterrupted views of nature, is protected from those changes. Read more…
Sarah Morris’s art is touted for its allusions to and interpretations of the urban environment. With deft mimcry of the grids found in cityscapes, her Midtown series of paintings (1998-99) recall the green-glass-windowed facades of a Gordon Bunshaft building. She followed these up with the series Los Angeles (2005-06), in which her Mondrian-like abstractions were more frantically paced and garishly colored, referencing architectural icons in Los Angeles.
The pieces riff on the chaos and colors of urbanity, but they leave the viewer wondering how they critique it. Pretty and superficial, much of Morris’s work fills the same role in popular culture that a Hollywood starlet or a soulless skyscraper does. But with her latest installation, Robert Towne (named after the famed scriptwriter of Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown, and other classics of the 1960s and ’70s), Morris may be finally making her long-vaunted commentary on architecture.
Located on the underside of the Lever House’s atrium ceiling, this 19,744-square-foot installation of brightly colored house paint gives new life to an unused space along Park Avenue’s sea of gray suits and black streets. Here Morris’s Technicolor mural—aptly applied to one of Bunshaft’s most celebrated works—offers an alternative reality to the muted tones of Midtown. Like many of the other pieces funded by the city’s Public Art Fund, such as Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror at Rockefeller Center or Sarah Sze’s Corner Plot near Central Park, Robert Towne greets its viewers unexpectedly. For the dozens who lunch, smoke, and talk in the Lever House’s outdoor space, the painting is mesmerizing, yet inexplicable; pulsing and exciting, but directionless. Named after a director whose films are ruthlessly real, Morris’s installation is likewise in-your-face and confrontational.
At the very least, the piece speaks to the many missed opportunities to enhance public space with art. It continues the dialogue that the Lever House started almost 60 years ago, when the building redefined how architects could merge architectural behemoths with human-scaled courtyards. Robert Towne offers a utopian vision where the grid is replaced by a maze; where swathes of energetic hues replace neutral ones; and where people walk while looking up instead of at their feet.
It’s every architect’s fantasy—getting carte blanche from a client. “It was excellent, and the first time for me,” Gus Wustemann says with evident glee, recalling how a couple contacted him after seeing his work in magazines, and offered complete creative license. The couple owned a 2,000-square-foot attic apartment in the historic quarter of Lucerne, Switzerland, and wanted it not just renovated, but transformed. Read more…
By photographing buildings and streets, Thomas Struth transcended the role of architectural photographer to become the creator of contemplative portraits of urbanism, globalization, and architectural spectacle. Over several decades, Struth was developed a method of making familiar sights fresh, causing viewers to look more closely at what they take for granted. While this retrospective explores Struth’s vast range of subjects, his recent images of urban architecture suggest he is returning to his original interest in photographing streets. Read more…
When Paul Chan visited New Orleans for the first time in November 2006, the digital media and video artist expected to hear the sound of jackhammers and to see evidence of post-Katrina progress. He instead witnessed a far different scene: “The streets were still, as if time had been swept away along with the houses. Friends said the city now looks like the backdrop for a bleak science fiction movie. … I realized it didn’t look like a movie set, but the stage for a play I have seen many times. It was unmistakable. The empty road. The bare tree leaning precariously to one side with just enough leaves to make it respectable. The silence.”What the streetscape reminded him of was the setting in Samuel Beckett’s classic work Waiting for Godot. In the play, two men grapple with their nonsensical wait for a third; its philosophical reflection upon man’s uncertainty in the world seemed to Chan an apt metaphor for New Orleans’s precarious condition. Read more…