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The Cleveland Art Scene: Be Prepared to Be Surprised

April 4, 2013 in Design, Events, Images, Spaces with 15 Comments

 

Barry Underwood, Archimedes. This photograph was taken while the new MOCA museum was under construction. (Photo C Barry Underwood. Click to Enlarge)

Barry Underwood, Archimedes. This installation was created at the construction site for the new Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. (Photo © Barry Underwood. Click to Enlarge)

 

As New York artists search for the next affordable, urban frontier in Bushwick and Queens, a renaissance of sorts is taking place in the most unlikely of cities: Cleveland, Ohio. Perhaps the city’s motto should be Cleveland: It’s Not What You Think, for that phrase was used by more than one local during my recent tour of the city’s art scene.

My visit began at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where I was giving a talk on creative process and career strategy to a Business and Professional Practice class taught by photographer Barry Underwood. The school’s facilities are housed, in part, in a refurbished Ford Model T factory building, and the classrooms are filled with space, light, and cutting-edge equipment. Thanks to the Gund Foundation a new 91,000-square-foot addition to the factory building is also under construction and will consolidate the CIA’s facilities on Euclid Avenue.

While it’s not possible to learn everything about an institution in a single day, I was impressed with CIA: the staff, the administration, the facilities, the galleries, the diversity of programming being offered. The Institute has one of the only biomedical art programs in the country, a creative field that blends science, art, and technology.

The work of CIA staff member Michael Wallace caught my eye as I toured the Institute. Wallace’s commemorative plate series, Guess Who’s Coming to Lunch (More Important People We Can’t Afford to Know), is a clever rift on the problematic connection between money, power and politics.

 

A commemorative plate from Michael Wallace's series Guess Who's Coming to Lunch (More Important People We Can't Afford to Know)

A commemorative plate from Michael Wallace’s series Guess Who’s Coming to Lunch (More Important People We Can’t Afford to Know)

 

 

The school's facilities are housed, in part, in a refurbished Ford Model T factory building. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

CIA’s facilities are housed, in part, in a refurbished Ford Model-T factory building. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

The Cleveland Institute of Art is ???Designed by Stantec, a national architecture firm. (Photo courtesy of Stanec via Cleveland.com)

A new 91,000-square-foot addition to the old Model T factory building, where the Cleveland Institute of Art is currently housed, is under construction, thanks to the Gund Foundation. The new building is designed by Stantec, a national architecture firm. (Photo courtesy of Stanec via Cleveland.com)

 

Local studio spaces are plentiful and cheap in Cleveland, as are restaurants and cafes serving fresh, local food. $150 a month will buy you a large, private studio in the city, a price unheard of in cities like Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, or Philadelphia. Cleveland’s Little Italy is bustling with affordable studio space, top-notch bakeries, and a diverse mix of residents. The city has a surprising small-town feel. As Underwood and artist Sarah Kabot gave me a tour of the city, we ran into students, friends, and fellow CIA professors nearly every place we visited.

The city is also home to the Cleveland Clinic, which has an extensive arts program. During my visit, Barry Underwood’s Cuyahoga, a series of photographs that explore Cleveland and its environs, were on view. The series was a special commission and is now part of the Clinic’s permanent collection. The Clinic integrates art throughout their facilities, not only in Cleveland, but around the world. Their mission is not only to offer a healing environment to patients, but also to research the relationship between the arts and medicine. The Clinic’s Arts and Medicine Institute is leading the way in this integrative field.

 

Barry Underwood, Edgewater.

Barry Underwood’s dyptich Edgewater is part of Cuyahoga, a series of photographs that explore Cleveland and its environs commissioned by the Cleveland Clinic. (Photo © Barry Underwood. Click to Enlarge)

 

 

Barry Underwood's dyptich Edgewater is part of Cuyahoga, a series of photographs that explore Cleveland and its environs commissioned by the Cleveland Clinic. (Photo © Barry Underwood. Click to Enlarge)

Barry Underwood’s dyptich Cornfield Sirna’s Farm is also part the Cuyahoga series, which explores Cleveland and its environs. (Photo © Barry Underwood. Click to Enlarge)

 

In this video from Art 21, photographer Catherine Opie talks about her permanent installation Somewhere in the Middle at Hillcrest Hospital, a branch of Cleveland Clinic, in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. The series of 22 photos was taken on the shores of Lake Erie near Opie’s hometown of Sandusky, Ohio, and was created specifically for the hospital setting. Opie hopes that the photographs provide a space for doctors, patients, vistors and hospital employees to experience an ethereal moment during what may be a difficult time in their lives.

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Why Design Matters: Imagining the Future of the Rockaway Waterfront

February 28, 2013 in Design, Images, Spaces with 0 Comments

 

The wreckage of Rockaway Boardwalk, after Sandy (Image via CNN.com)

The wreckage of Rockaway Boardwalk after Sandy (Image via CNN.com)

 

A few months ago I shared Eve Mosher’s piece, High Water Line, a public art project in Manhattan and Brooklyn that brought the topic of climate change directly to the city’s residents.

Mosher’s inventive project showed what might happen if an historic storm ever struck the coast of New York, but Hurricane Sandy made this nightmarish, what-if scenario a reality.

The storm was a wake-up call and raised an important question: what is the role of art in this fragile, post-Sandy ecology? When it comes to inventive solutions for environmental problems, what do artists bring to the table?

This week I was happy to see MoMA PS1 and MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design turning their attention to this very issue. The central question: How can we create a sustainable waterfront in the Rockaways—a waterfront that will meet the needs of the community, but also resist the destructive forces of weather and a rising sea level?

 

A Rockaway home destroyed in Hurricane Sandy

A Rockaway home destroyed in Hurricane Sandy

 

Now that a portion of New York has been exposed as the flood plain that it is, where will we go? How will we build? As singer and Rockaway resident Patti Smith says in the below video, we need to “redefine what it means to live in conjunction with nature.”

While scientists can evaluate the state of the environment, it is the role of artists, architects, and designers to imagine potential solutions. Imagination will be just as important as scientific research in the decades ahead, as will collaborations between artists and scientists.

As Joshua David and Robert Hammond learned when they created The High Line park in Manhattan, this early, visionary stage of anything-goes is essential.

We continue to produce the same tired designs and developments not because they are best solutions, but because they are the easiest. Cheap, high-density housing, to use one example, is the “low-hanging fruit” of the real estate world, one that generates money quickly not only for the developer, but also for cities and towns in the form of tax revenue. Designs that rely on common, cheap building materials that can be easily purchased from Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other suppliers only perpetuate the soul-numbing cycle of mediocrity. To make effective use of interesting, locally-sourced materials, architects and builders need a rich knowledge of their community’s resources.

 

nyc wetlands MoMA

In 2010 MoMA asked five architects to come up with a redesign of lower Manhattan that would prevent damage in the event of major flooding. Architecture Research Office and dlandstudio proposed creating wetlands around the edges of Manhattan. They also suggested replacing asphalt streets with a perforated cast-concrete surface that could absorb rainwater. (Photo courtesy of MoMA and Architizer)

 

Rising Currents-Click to Purchase

 

Hurricane Sandy is an unprecedented opportunity: a chance to re-imagine and create new “low-hanging fruit” on the waterfront. This is an opportunity to create a viable model for other oceanfront communities–one that is designed thoughtfully with quality of life and our changing ecology at its core.

What do coastal communities like the Rockaways need most as they rebuild? Public space? Quality food shopping options? Pockets of nature for relaxation and gardening? Small businesses that will fulfill local need and provide jobs? Attractive, energy efficient housing in a range of prices? A safe-haven from future storms?

All of the above, I suspect. But it is up to city planners, designers, developers, and community members to ask the right questions if we’re going to transition from cookie-cutter architecture to a more thoughtful, innovative way of living.

 

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Re-Branding the Barnes: Has a 25-Billion-Dollar Art Collection Been Disneyfied?

June 13, 2012 in Design, Images, News, Spaces with 3 Comments

 

A wall in the new Barnes Foundation museum describes Albert Barnes' educational philosophy (Photo by M. Edlow for GPTMC courtesy Visit Philly)

 

A New Museum Mile?

Rush hour is still two hours away, but a swarm of cars is buzzing by me on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. As I parallel park in front of the new Barnes Foundation museum and feed money into the parking kiosk, an over-sized tour bus, only a quarter full, is herding tourists down the divided highway. The overly enthusiastic guide shouts through the crackly loudspeaker like an annoying uncle belting through a cardboard, wrapping-paper tube at Christmas.

The mile-long, landscaped, auto-friendly Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which connects Philadelphia’s City Hall to Fairmount Park, is one of the earliest examples of urban renewal in the United States. Designed by French urban planner Jacques Gréber in 1917 the boulevard was modeled after the Champs-Élysées in Paris. As Ken Finkel observes, “planners envisioned the Parkway cutting across the city’s northwest quadrant to accommodate schools, hospitals, libraries, museums, cathedrals, courthouses, administrative headquarters for schools and agencies, and even a hall for conventions. If it served the public, it belonged on the Parkway.”

This month the controversial new Barnes Foundation museum opened its doors, taking its place beside the Philadelphia Free Library and Rodin Museum on this historic road.

 

The view of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway from the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

The new Barnes was a rare opportunity to engage the city's foot traffic. Unfortunately, the architects failed to put down the welcome mat. (Photo © Michael Moran courtesy of Architectural Record)

 

 

Paul Gauguin, "Mr. Loulou (Louis Le Ray), 1890. Oil on canvas, 21 3/4 x 18 1/4 in. (55.2 x 46.4 cm). (Photo © 2012 The Barnes Foundation)

Back in 1917, while the city was busy knocking down houses and constructing a highway for the common good, Dr. Albert C. Barnes, who made his fortune by co-developing an early anti-gonorrhea drug, had his hands full assembling one of the world’s most important collections of post-impressionist and early modern paintings. In his lifetime, Barnes grew his collection to include 69 Cézannes—more than in all the museums in Paris—44 Picassos, 60 Matisses, and an astonishing 181 Renoirs. The 2,500 items in the collection include major works by Modigliani, Soutine, Gaughin, Seurat, Degas, Rousseau, and van Gogh, Asian prints, African sculpture, medieval manuscripts, decorative metalwork, as well as Old Master paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, El Greco, and Titian.

A self-made man who put himself through college by tutoring, boxing, and playing semi-professional baseball, Barnes despised the art establishment and old Philadelphia money. His hatred of the establishment was partly the result of a 1923 show at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts featuring 75 paintings from Barnes’ collection. The work was too avant-garde for prevailing tastes, and art critics ridiculed the works, calling them “trash,” “incomprehensible masses of paint, and an “infectious scourge.”

Barnes wrote a series of fiery letters in reply. He said the Philadelphia Museum of Art was a “house of artistic and intellectual prostitution” and claimed that the main function of museums “has been to serve as a pedestal upon which a clique of socialites pose as patrons of the arts.” As James Panero of Philanthropy magazine observes, “Barnes was a conflicted figure, a man of titanic intelligence, unflinching will, and self-destructive pride.”

 

During his lifetime, Barnes maintained tight control over access to the collection, requiring visitors to write and request appointments and giving preference to students and the working class over members of Philadelphia society. Writers James A. Michener and T.S. Eliot were among the visitors personally rejected by Barnes. (Photo courtesy The Barnes Foundation)

 

 

The original Barnes Foundation building in Merion sits seven minutes away from the new Barnes museum.

In 1925, the same year that the Insurance Company of North America opened its headquarters at 16th and the Parkway, Albert Barnes dedicated a new home for his collection designed by Philadelphia-based French architect Paul Cret in nearby Merion. It’s mission, “the promotion of the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts.” Eager to avoid the city’s cultural elite, Barnes built his innovative school, called the Barnes Foundation, seven minutes from downtown on a twelve-acre arboretum insulated from the new parkway and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Barnes’ primary passion was educating the underprivileged. As Panero details, Barnes was “deeply impressed by John Dewey’s Democracy and Education” and “believed that the development of cognitive skills, rather than the memorization of facts, was the key to education…In arranging his art on the wall, Barnes…dispensed with labels, period rooms, chronological order, and the solemnity of your typical white-walled gallery. Instead, with his art hanging floor to ceiling, Barnes let the harmony of shapes and forms sing for itself. He wanted his collection to enliven the eye, not confound it with facts. He believed his students would be able to see the visual connections between disparate works, styles, and periods, and learn from those associations without the benefit of words.”

 

"In arranging his art on the wall, Barnes...dispensed with labels, period rooms, chronological order, and the solemnity of your typical white-walled gallery." (Photo: Room 18, east wall © 2012 The Barnes Foundation)

 

 

When the Philadelphia art establishment ridiculed Barnes' collection, he wrote a series of fiery letters in reply. Barnes wrote that the Philadelphia Museum of Art was a “house of artistic and intellectual prostitution” and claimed that the main function of museums “has been to serve as a pedestal upon which a clique of socialites pose as patrons of the arts.” (Photo © The Barnes Foundation)

During his lifetime, Barnes maintained tight control over access to the collection, requiring visitors to write and request appointments and giving preference to students and the working class over members of Philadelphia society. Writers James A. Michener and T.S. Eliot were among the visitors personally rejected by Barnes. In 1928, The New Yorker noted, “In order to get the honest reaction of a simple mind to art…[Barnes] called in a negro truck-driver who was delivering coal, plumped him down in front of a Cézanne, and asked for an opinion.”

Barnes had witnessed the Philadelphia Museum of Art take control of the collection of his late lawyer, John Johnson, and tried to prevent the same from happening to his own collection. The Foundation’s Indenture of Trust and other documents stated that the Barnes Foundation was to remain an educational institution, open to the public only two to three days a week. His art collection was to stay on the walls of the foundation in exactly the places the works were at the time of his death and could never be loaned or sold.

Until the very end, Barnes was true to his stubborn, self-destructive reputation. Panero vividly describes Barnes’ unexpected death:

“It was sunny and hot on July 24, 1951, and Barnes seemed distracted after his Sunday dinner at Ker-Feal, his country farm. Barnes decided to return to Merion. He loaded his dog, Fidèle, into his Packard and began the 25-mile drive. There was a stop sign on Route 29, near Phoenixville—Barnes had objected to its installation and refused to observe it. He blasted through the intersection and barreled directly into a 10-ton trailer truck. The 79-year-old’s body was thrown 40 feet from the car. Fidèle, near dead herself, would not allow state troopers near her crumpled master. She had to be shot.”

According to Panero, although Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller were much wealthier than Albert Barnes during their lifetimes, today the value of the art assets of the Barnes Foundation are 10 to 20 times greater than either the Carnegie Corporation or the Rockefeller Corporation.

Now, sixty-one years after Barnes’ death, Philadelphia’s politicians are once again banking on the Parkway to revive the city’s reputation and economy. The Benjamin Franklin Parkway, originally named the Fairmount Parkway, is now being dubbed the “Museum Mile,” and the 25-billion dollar Barnes collection–the very collection Barnes insisted remain in Merion–is the latest bait.

 

One cannot simply plunk a new building along a parkway and expect it to turn a bland strip into a dynamic destination capable of rejuvenating Philadelphia's creative economy. (Aerial view from the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and 20th Street. Photo by Tom Crane © The Barnes Foundation)

 

 

You’ll forgive me if I remain skeptical of the hyperbolic PR spin surrounding the Barnes. Everything about this project reeks of commercial repackaging–of the unfortunate trend of “museum as theme park.” (Looking south east at the new Barnes Foundation. Photo © 2012 Tom Crane)

 

Art for the People

During the collection’s controversial move to the Parkway, the city and foundation’s PR machine has been quick to emphasize the egalitarianism of moving the Barnes seven minutes down the road to the “Museum Mile.” Art for the people has been the ongoing mantra. Art for the people is a cause that is easy to rally behind, though no one involved in this controversial project has been able to agree on the best way to realize this goal. Is it through educational classes like the ones taught for decades in Merion? Is it through increased access and public programming? Do you bring the people to the art or the art to the people?

If you wade through the hyperbole—the political rhetoric, the rants of angry citizens and neighbors unhappy about the collection’s relocation, the foundation’s PR spin, and the conspiracy theories proposed in the fascinating documentary The Art of the Steal—if you can ignore this hype, certain things are clear.

The foundation could have been revitalized in its original location if the right people had been so inclined. There were valuable paintings in Barnes’ personal collection (not the foundation’s) that could have raised much needed funds for building repairs, new programming, and the endowment. And there are plenty of examples of outlying architectural and cultural gems who manage to serve their missions without taking the radical step of dismantling a collection or relocating. It’s true that Barnes’ restrictions needed to be loosened in some capacity, but to move the collection in its entirely was to take the most radical step of all.

Why not partner with a nearby institution, like the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and shuttle visitors from one museum to the other? During the short ride, visitors could be educated about Barnes, his collection, the architecture, and his educational philosophy. I’m sure plenty of museum visitors would have welcomed the fresh air and gardens of Merion. One day, as we all become increasingly overwhelmed by the constant assault of noise, commercialism, and technology, I suspect that the cloistered retreat offered by the foundation’s original location in Merion will be in high demand. Unfortunately, the foundation has traded one of its most valuable resources–the refuge and uniqueness of its collection set amongst historic grounds, buildings, and gardens–for the glamor of a $150 million dollar building and the almighty cultural tourist dollar.

 

 

 

The Barnes Foundation has traded one of its most valuable resources--the refuge and uniqueness of its collection set amongst historic grounds, buildings, and gardens--for the glamor of a $150 million dollar building and the almighty cultural tourist dollar. (Photo: Barnes protest sign courtesy outofordermag.com)

 

 

This 1926 painting of Albert C. Barnes by Giorgio de Chirico was on display in the special exhibit area of the new museum.

I won’t recount the entire controversy here (you can watch The Art of the Steal). Long story short, certain politicians and cultural institutions saw that the Barnes Foundation was floundering and took advantage of the opportunity. The foundation’s neighbors in Merion exacerbated the situation by complaining about noise and traffic, but quickly changed their minds when their community gem was at risk of being dismantled. They didn’t want the Barnes, but then they did. By the time they changed their minds and launched a SAVE THE BARNES campaign, it was too late. By then, the cultural machine had a well-crafted narrative ready. Liberate the art and bring it to the people! It was the perfect propaganda, for even Barnes himself believed in education and access first and foremost.

Perusing the Barnes Foundation’s PR materials reveals a carefully orchestrated narrative:

“Dr. Barnes’s Last Will and Testament makes no stipulations about the installation of the Collection in Merion. Among its provisions, it simply restates Dr. Barnes’s prior gift of the Collection to the Foundation. It also addresses the gift of Dr. Barnes’s country estate Ker-Feal and other real estate to the Foundation.”

Seriously? Then what has all of the fuss been about and why did the relocation of the collection require a petition to the Montgomery County Orphans’ Court? I made careful note of the fact that the relocation controversy didn’t even merit a mention in the special exhibit gallery, which details the history of the Barnes Foundation, Barnes the man, and his educational philosophy. The foundation’s new book The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks (2012), which was selling like hotcakes in the museum gift shop, also fails to mention the relocation controversy.

 

I made careful note of the fact that the relocation controversy didn't even merit a mention in the special exhibit gallery, which details the history of the Barnes Foundation, Barnes the man, and his educational philosophy. The foundation's new book "The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks," which was selling like hotcakes in the museum gift shop, also fails to mention the relocation controversy. (Photo © Roger Barone)

 

 

A defaced Barnes protest sign on a lawn in Merion (Photo by William Thomas Ternay courtesy Postcards from Philly)

 

 

(Photo by William Thomas Ternay courtesy Postcards from Philly)

For the most part, it appears the PR campaign has been successful. Major critics like Peter Schjeldahl and Roberta Smith have declared the museum a success, and while I was visiting the Barnes, an old man in his 80s in an U.S. Air Force ball cap leaned against his daughter as he explored the new building. In the main room on the first floor I overheard him telling a story about attending classes at the foundation as a young man. Exhausted, he parked himself on a bench next to me and gazed up at Matisse’s The Dance on the south wall. “Well I’m glad they finally brought the art here where everyone can see it,” he said proudly. “It’s all too beautiful to be hidden away.”

The truth is that everything about the Barnes collection has been askew from the very beginning. It started with Barnes and his desire to stick it to Philadelphia’s cultural elite. He did this by collecting controversial modern art, opening his own school, limiting who could attend, and giving precedent to the working and middle classes over the wealthy and the famous. A second twist of the knife came when Barnes left his collection to Lincoln University, an historically African-American college. Though Barnes was friends with Horace Mann Bond, the university’s first black president, he also knew good and well that handing his valuable collection over to Lincoln was a way of  depriving Philadelphia’s art establishment. Intention is everything and the ripples caused by Barnes’ project were poisoned with ill-will from the start.

In the main room on the first floor I overheard an old man in an U.S. Air Force ball cap telling his daughter a story about attending classes at the foundation as a young man. Exhausted, he parked himself on a bench next to me and gazed up at Matisse's "The Dance" on the south wall. "Well I'm glad they finally brought the art here where everyone can see it," he said proudly. "It's all too beautiful to be hidden away." (Photo © Michael Moran courtesy of Architectural Record)

 

 

From the second floor galleries, visitors get a marvelous look at Matisse's "The Dance," which was tucked away and difficult to see in the old space. (Photo by Rick Echelmeyer © 2012 Barnes Foundation)

 

How (Not) to Reinvent a Cultural Institution

No institution, no parkway or city surrounding it, is fixed. Places, even the most historic ones, are dynamic and changing and shouldn’t be mothballed and left to fade into obscurity. Dioramas will be refurbished as style (and insect damage) dictates, plumbing will be upgraded, new pieces will be bought, and old pieces sold, text panels will morph into screens, and screens into projections, and the words on the wall will also change as new research requires revision to the official narrative. And this is just as it should be.

From 2009-2012 the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, perhaps the Barnes’ closest equivalent in the U.S., took the radical and controversial step of building a Renzo Piano addition to the museum in an effort to revitalize attendance and programming. The addition was contentious and required a visit to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, but the central difference between the Gardner Museum and the Barnes Foundation is that Gardner’s original vision and legacy remained intact. It is hard to imagine city and museum officials deciding to relocate the Gardner collection elsewhere, while leaving its original home vacant. It would be unthinkable.

There are many ways for an institution to recreate itself–some better than others. To separate artwork from its context is the worst sacrilege of all, particularly for an idiosyncratic collection like Barnes’, which was meant to be seen in a specific setting. It’s true that the foundation needed to be reinvented in some capacity, as well as stabilized financially. It needed more transparency and quality leadership capable of establishing priorities and reinventing the institution. But the idea that the collection was being held hostage or needed to be rescued is hyperbolic adspeak. After all, this isn’t World War II. There were no art-rabid Nazis or destructive dictators at the Barnes’ doorstep–only powerful political figures who saw that the Barnes Foundation, in its weakened condition, was ripe for the picking.

 

The best art and architecture is by nature radical and unconventional in some respect---if not radical politically, then radical to the senses. Barnes' collection was the most radical art collection of its day and the building he created it for it was carefully designed to showcase this unique, original work. (Photo: Room 23, West Wall © 2012 The Barnes Foundation)

 

 

Henri Rousseau, "Woman Walking in an Exotic Forest (Femme se promenant dans un forêt exotique)," 1905. Oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 31 3/4 in. (100 x 80.6 cm). (Photo: © 2012 The Barnes Foundation)

Barnes’ restrictions handicapped the institution from the start. As Panero details, Barnes “limited the salaries of the foundation’s employees without mechanisms that could account for inflation. He restricted any changes to the collection or to the facility’s grounds. Perhaps most importantly, he restricted the investment of the foundation’s endowment, restrictions to which the Old Guard scrupulously adhered. During Barnes’ lifetime, the indenture granted that the endowment could be invested in ‘any good securities.’ After his death, however, the corpus could only be invested in federal, state, and municipal bonds. Over time, this restriction severely eroded the endowment.” The inflationary decades after Barnes’ death dealt a further blow to the endowment. According to Panero, by the early 1970s, says former Girard banker and Barnes trustee David Rawson, the endowment “had lost money.”

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Ai Weiwei : Creativity Is the Power to Act

March 11, 2012 in Design, Images, Process with 14 Comments

 

Ai Weiwei, "Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn," 1995. Middle view of a triptych of gelatin silver prints, each print 49 5/8” x 39 1/4”. (Photo courtesy dailyserving.com)

 

Ai Weiwei, "Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn," 1995. Last view of a triptych of gelatin silver prints, each print 49 5/8” x 39 1/4”. (Photo courtesy dailyserving.com)

 

Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009 has been good company the past few days. Between 2006 and 2009, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei used his blog as a daily notebook where he posted thousands of photos, documented his artistic practice and personal life, wrote about art and architecture, and turned out a steady stream of scathing social commentary. Over 100,000 people visited the blog on a daily basis until the Chinese government shut Ai’s site down in 2009.

Ai Weiwei is a Renaissance man of sorts, with a broad range of interests. He is a writer, architect, sculptor, curator, poet, critic, publisher, and photographer. In the West, he is probably best known for his spectacular installation Sunflower Seeds at the Tate Modern in London. The work consisted of one hundred million porcelain “seeds,” each individually hand-painted by 1,600 Chinese artisans, and scattered over a large area of Turbine Hall.

 

In Ai Weiwei's "first large-scale solo exhibition to be held anywhere in the ethnic Chinese world," Taipei Fine Arts Museum's 'Ai Weiwei absent' was a critical success. The highlight was the artist's "Forever Bicycles" installation, which was made specifically for this exhibition out of 1,200 bicycle units. (Photo courtesy thisiscolossol.com)

 

Herzog and DeMeuron’s Olympic Stadium, fondly referred to by some as the “Bird’s Nest,” is a feat of engineering, an aesthetic marvel. Ai Weiwei served as a consultant on the project. (Photo courtesy Inhabitat.com)

 

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei holds some porcelain sunflower seeds from his installation at The Tate Modern in London on October 11, 2010. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images courtesy The Asia Society)

Ai is also a self-taught architect and proponent of authentic, simple design. He has worked on over 70 architectural projects total, including a notable collaboration with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron , which resulted in the memorable “Bird’s Nest” stadium for the Beijing Olympics

Recently, Ai has been making headlines for other reasons. On April 3, 2011, the artist was arrested at Peking Airport just before catching a flight to Hong Kong. Around 50 police officers searched Ai’s studio and took away laptops and hard drives. Police also detained eight staff members and Ai’s wife, Lu Qing. The arrest sparked major protests around the world. On 22 June 2011, the Chinese authorities released him on bail after close to three months’ detention on charges of tax evasion. He is prohibited from leaving Beijing without permission for one year.

Ai Weiwei with musician Zuoxiao Zuzhou in the elevator when taken in custody by the police, Sichuan, China, August 2009 (Photo courtesy Ai Weiwei and Christine König Galerie)

 

One thousand and one antique Chinese chairs for the 1,001 Chinese visitors Ai Weiwei brought to Kassel, Germany, for Documenta 12 (2007) as part of his project, "Fairytale." (Photo Courtesy Ai Weiwei via pbs.org)

 

Artist Cpak Ming took a series of photographs of flash stencils around Hong Kong after the arrest of Ai Weiwei. The photographer received a firm warning from the Chinese government after photographing this piece of flash graffiti on the side of the People’s Liberation Army barracks in Admiralty, Hong Kong. Next to Ai's Weiwei's face are the words: "Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei?" (Photo by Cpak Ming courtesy mymodernmet.com)

In his art practice, Ai has actively embraced technology. “I think the Internet and information era is the greatest period mankind has encountered,” Ai told Hans Ulrich Obrist in the book Ai Weiwei Speaks. “Thanks to this period, humans finally have the opportunity to become independent, to acquire information and communicate independently…I think that art won’t have too grand or too much of a future if it fails to connect with today’s lifestyles and technologies.”

For Ai, virtual reality is as important as reality itself. He believes that all art is social in its way and  that technology can bolster the power and reach of art, particularly in oppressed societies. Ai’s first blog post was one sentence: “You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.”

In 2007 Ai used his blog to create a compelling work titled Fairytale. Using the internet, he recruited 1,001 Chinese people who had never been to Europe to wander around the town of Kassel Germany during Documenta. As someone who spent 12 years in New York City, Ai understood the power of travel and hoped Fairytale would change the lives of those 1,001 individuals who made the trip to Europe.
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The Spectacular Snow Drawings of Simon Beck

February 29, 2012 in Design, Images with 6 Comments

 

 

Winter has finally arrived in New Hampshire. We’re expecting about a foot of snow here in the Monadnock region by the time the storm ends Thursday evening. There hasn’t been a single opportunity for snowshoeing this year, which I’ve missed.

Snowshoeing has been on my mind…This week I noticed these snow photographs popping up again and again on Facebook, Inhabitat, and other sites. Curious about their original source, I did a little digging and discovered the official Facebook page of Simon Beck, an artist who creates these incredible designs by walking in the snow with snowshoes.

The Oxford-educated, self-employed map maker creates these designs on the frozen lakes in the valley of Savoie, France, just outside of the ski slopes at Les Arcs resort. An average work is the size of three soccer fields and takes about two days to complete.

The biggest challenge for Beck (besides getting overly tired) is finding a way to reduce the visibility of his own tracks when he begins and finishes a piece. Sometimes, he might work all day only to have his design covered by fresh snow overnight. At other times, he finishes a design right at sunset and doesn’t have enough light remaining to photograph his work properly. But the inability to predict the outcome is part of the fun.

 

 

 

Snow Artist Simon Beck (Photo courtesy Now That's Nifty)

 

 

 

 

 

I love the simplicity of Beck’s method, and the impermanence of each piece. Personally, I’m partial to Beck’s simpler designs that rely more on line and texture for their effect. A number of the designs are reminiscent of crop circles and other patterns from ancient art.

All of the photographs I’ve seen flying around the web are from Beck’s official Facebook page, which is where he posts his latest work for the public to peruse. There are also a large number of beautiful pieces Beck made between 2009 and 2011 in this photo album on the artist’s personal page. You WON’T find these images anywhere else, and many of my favorite images can be found there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simon Beck's Snow Art (Photo courtesy Inhabitat)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The remnants of one of Beck's designs can still be see on the melting surface of Lac des Combes. A few hours after this photo was taken, the ice completely disappeared. (Photo courtesy Inhabitat)

 

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Gwarlingo Tours the High Line, New York’s Park in the Sky

December 26, 2011 in Design, Images, Spaces with 1 Comment

The end of The High Line as seen from street level (Photo Courtesy Wired NY)

 

If you’re fed up with partisan bickering and political dysfunction in Washington, the gratifying, lavishly-illustrated book High Line: The Inside Story of New York City’s Park in the Sky, just published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, might temper your burgeoning cynicism. The book is a lesson in what can be accomplished in the face of overwhelming skepticism and bureaucracy.

The new High Line park in New York City deserves to be celebrated not only for its innovative design, but also for the grass-roots collaboration that made the improbable idea of converting a derelict elevated railway on Manhattan’s West Side into a beautiful green space a reality.

 

(Photo Courtesy Urban Design Review)

 

The High Line is one of the most important public projects in New York City in decades, and the ultimate example of how fruitful a cross-pollination among various disciplines can be. The book’s authors, Robert Hammond and Joshua David, had no prior experience in planning and development (one journalist referred to them as “a pair of nobodies”), but this didn’t stop them from collaborating with artists, elected officials, neighbors, local business owners, horticulturists, and landscape architects to realize their vision.

This is a story about two ordinary guys taking on a behemoth bureaucracy and actually winning.”I didn’t understand the complexity of what we were getting into,” Hammond says in the book. “We would need to become versed in urban planning, architecture, and City politics, raise millions of dollars, and give years of our lives to the High Line.”

 

Phase 2 of the High Line in 2011 (Photo by Iwan Baan Courtesy Friends of the High Line)

 

This industrial structure has a fascinating history. The first street-level railroad tracks were built on Manhattan’s West Side in 1847. So many accidents occurred between freight trains and street traffic that 10th Avenue became known as Death Avenue. In an effort to improve safety, men on horses, called West Side Cowboys, rode in front of trains waving red flags.

After years of public debate about the hazard, the High Line was built in the 1930s as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. The elevated railway lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan’s largest industrial district.

The new High Line connected directly to warehouses and factories on its route, allowing the trains to deliver milk, meat, produce, and other goods right inside buildings. This innovative design also reduced theft for the Bell Laboratories Building (now the Westbeth Artists Community), and the Nabisco plant, (now Chelsea Market). The entire project was 13 miles long, eliminated 105 street-level railroad crossings, added 32 acres to Riverside Park, and cost over $150 million in 1930 dollars—more than $2 billion today.

 

Before the High Line was built, trains ran at street level. Conditions along 10th Avenue were so bad that it was nicknamed "Death Avenue." (Photo Courtesy Friends of the High Line)

 

 

For safety, the railroads hired men – the "West Side Cowboys" – to ride horses and wave flags in front of the trains. (Photo Courtesy Friends of the High Line)

 

 

The city’s solution was to build a 22-block long elevated railway, or High Line. (Photo Courtesy Friends of the High Line)

 

 

An archival photo showing construction of the original High Line (Photo Courtesy Friends of the High Line)

 

 

Construction of the Elevated Railway on Gansevoort Street Looking North (Photo Courtesy the NY Historical Society)

 

 

The elevated railroad on the West Side of Manhattan is it appeared in 1934 (Photographer unknown)

 

By the 1950s, the popularity of interstate trucking reduced rail traffic nationwide. The southern section of the High Line was demolished in the 60s. In 1980 the last train ran on the High Line pulling three carloads of frozen turkeys.

In the mid-1980s, a group of property owners with land under the line lobbied for the demolition of the entire structure. Peter Obletz, a Chelsea resident, activist, and railroad enthusiast, challenged the demolition efforts in court and tried to re-establish rail service on the Line.

As the line sat unused, it became known to a few urban explorers and local residents for the tough, drought-tolerant wild grasses, shrubs, and trees that had sprung up in the gravel along the abandoned railway. The photographer Joel Sternfeld shot some striking photographs of the High Line during this period. His book, Joel Sternfeld: Walking the High Line, is a transporting glimpse at this rusty, derelict structure before it was reclaimed.

 

Peter Obletz, a Chelsea resident, activist, and railroad enthusiast, challenged the demolition efforts in court and tried to re-establish rail service on the Line. This photo shows Obletz outside his home in 1983. (Photo by Peter Richards Courtesy Friends of the High Line)

 

 

As the line sat unused, it became known to a few urban explorers and local residents for the tough, drought-tolerant wild grasses, shrubs, and trees that had sprung up in the gravel along the abandoned railway. The photographer Joel Sternfeld shot some striking photographs of the High Line during this period. (Photo © Joel Sternfeld Courtesy Friends of the High Line)

 

 

(Photo © Joel Sternfeld Courtesy Friends of the High Line)

 

 

(Photo © Joel Sternfeld Courtesy Friends of the High Line)

 

 

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Rockefeller Center’s Secret Roof Gardens

August 21, 2011 in Design, Images, Spaces with Comments Off

Rockefeller Center's hidden rooftop gardens (© James Maher via Inhabitat)

Inhabitat has just published a short piece on Rockefeller Center’s hidden rooftop gardens. The Center has been maintaining these gardens for the past 75 years, but public access to the gardens is a rare event.

According to Inhabitat, the building’s developer John R. Todd and architect Raymond Hood originally envisioned a network of rooftop gardens connected by pedestrian bridges (an homage to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon), but this design idea never came to fruition.

Inhabitat says that the gardens are primarily enjoyed by the building’s employees, though my friend’s husband has worked in the building for eleven years and has never been permitted to use the gardens. For a price, the space can be rented for weddings and private events, and according to my friend, the gardens are an occasional setting for Saturday Night Live skits. At this point, it seems that the gardens are primarily eye candy for those who live and work in the surrounding buildings. Only a lucky few get to experience the roof gardens up close.

Until the garden’s next open house, you’ll have to settle for these photographs. You can also peruse Inhabitat’s slideshow of the Rockefeller Center’s rooftop garden’s here.

The rooftop gardens overlook St. Patrick's Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan (© James Maher via Inhabitat)

 

(Photo by Brian Dubé via New York Daily Photo)

 

(Photo by Taismelillo via Flickr Commons)

 

(Photo © James Maher via Inhabitat)

 

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Animal Architecture: A Bat Tower, a Bee Folly, & a Five-Star Hotel for Bugs

August 15, 2011 in Design, Images, Spaces with 4 Comments

Created by architectural firm Arup Associates, the Insect Hotel was one of the winners of the ‘Beyond the Hive’ competition, a unique architectural competition to design five star hotels for insects. The contest is sponsored by the British Land and the City of London Corporation. (Photo courtesy British Land via Animal Architecture)

One of the benefits of living in a rural place like New Hampshire is that interactions with wild animals occur on a daily basis. I see birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and insects when I’m hiking, commuting to work, or simply strolling around the yard. Wild turkeys, bears, grouse, moose, foxes, dragonflies, deer, minks, bobcats, raccoons, toads, porcupines, beetles, bald eagles, woodchucks, fisher cats, skunks, and coyotes are all commonplace where I live, and not a day passes when I don’t have some kind of close-encounter with the natural world.

Two weeks ago, for instance, I was hiking alone on a trail when I startled a huge flock of turkeys. I’m not sure who was more alarmed–me or the birds. One minute the woods were silent and calm, and the next I found myself in the middle of a turkey squall. They squawked and fluttered in twenty different directions, wings flapping, feathers and leaves flying. (Yes. Those giant, awkward birds actually leave the ground!) The encounter changed everything about my hike that day; I was more aware, more attuned to the sound of the woods as I proceeded up the trail.

If you live in an urban area like New York City, interactions like this are atypical in daily life, and your relationship to the animal world is more removed. Pigeons and rodents are a regular feature of the urban landscape, but you may never have reason to think about the Peregrine Falcons nesting on skyscrapers and bridges, or about the muskrats, coyotes, possums, and deer lurking in the city’s parks.

Urban and suburban animal sightings recorded in the media typically focus on the most dramatic or entertaining stories–bears shot down in New Jersey, coyotes roaming the West Side of New York City, a turkey nicknamed Hedda Gobbler living on the grounds of the Riverton Houses in Harlem. But the fact of the matter is that we all share our environment with a wide variety of animals whether we notice them or not.

 

The façade of Arup's Insect Hotel consists of a series of compartments based on a Voronoi pattern, which can be found in the natural world (as in the rib structure of a dragonfly’s wing). The compartments created by the pattern provide the supporting armature for a variety of recycled waste materials and deadfall that are loosely inserted into the voids. The structure caters to the needs of stag beetles, solitary bees, spiders, lacewings and ladybirds. The sides of the hotel are accessible for butterflies and moths, and the top is suitable for absorbing rain water through planting. (Photo courtesy British Land via Animal Architecture)

Imagine for a moment what it might be like if we were less passive about this relationship. What if were more creative and proactive about the ways we coexist with animals?

What if architects designed shelters not only to accommodate humans, but also to accommodate the animals who inhabit the same piece of land?

What if urban planners thought about wildlife corridors as much as they thought about zoning, sidewalks, or traffic calming?

What if we were able to replace some of the natural animal habitats that have been destroyed with new habitats that would boost dwindling populations? Imagine if we could design a way for bees to live outside the hive?

What if zoo enclosures were designed from the animals’ perspective instead of from a hierarchical, human point of view? And what would happen if zoo designers reversed the concept of being “inside” an enclosure versus on the “outside”? How might this change the interaction between animals and humans in an artificial space such as a zoo or park?

These are some of the intriguing questions being explored at Animal Architecture, an online project curated by Ned Dodington and Jonathon LaRocca. Dodington and LaRoocca believe in the importance of ecological relationships and their ability to transform design, urban planning, and more. They describe Animal Architecture as “an ongoing investigation into the performative role of biology in design…illuminating alternative ways of living with nonhuman animals, discussing cross-species collaborations, and defining new frameworks through which to discuss biologic design.”

I first learned about Animal Architecture from architect Joyce Hwang, who has designed several animal habitats, such as the Bat Tower shown in the below photo. (You can learn more about this project and read an interview with Joyce on the Animal Architecture website). Joyce’s Bat Tower is a good example of “Animal Architecture” in practice, as is Fritz Haeg’s Animal Estates project, which I saw at the Whitney Biennial in 2008. Arup’s Insect Hotel, one of the winners of the 2010 Beyond the Hive competition, also shows some of the creative possibilities in this emerging field.

 

The Bat Tower designed by architect Joyce Hwang and her students at SUNY Buffalo. "When I first became interested in bats and their behavior," Hwang explains, "I was surprised to learn that many species are able to live in spaces that we tend to think of as uninhabitable, for example, under loose pieces of tree bark, between pieces of building material, etc." (Photo by Joyce Hwang via Animal Architecture)

Today, Animal Architecture announced the winning entries for the 2011 Animal Architecture Awards. The projects, which range from the “fantastical, plausible” to the “built,” are an excellent introduction to the concept of Animal Architecture. Of the more ambitious projects, my personal favorites are the Nottingham Apiary and BirdScraper. Of the simple, low-tech designs, I like Bird Habitats and Window Unit.

The winning entries featured below are taken directly from Animal Architecture–all photographs and text are courtesy of the Animal Architecture blog. If the subject interests you, do take some time to explore Dodington and LaRoocca’s site further. Each of these award-winning projects featured below will be published in more detail on Animal Architecture within the coming weeks, and an exhibition is also in the works. You can check the Animal Architecture website for regular updates.

The 2011 Animal Architecture Awards

First Place: Theriomorphous Cyborg

Simone Ferracina

 

 

Inspired by Uexküll’s animal Umwelt, the “Theriomorphous Cyborg” is an immersive Augmented Reality game aimed at endowing participants with a non- and extra-human gaze. It is software designed to uncover alternative fields of experience and to activate novel relations between human cyborgs and their “sentient” surroundings.

Each level establishes a new and unfamiliar environment-world; LEVEL 1 endows players with the ability to perceive the Earth’s magnetic field. LEVEL 2 allows them to manipulate their own awareness of time by mixing synchronous and asynchronous signals. LEVEL 3 substitutes the participant’s eyesight with broadcasts from CCTV cameras activated by proximity.

First Runner Up:The Nottingham Apiary

Amelia Eiriksson, Fraser Godfrey, Ana Moldavsky, Esko Willman from the University of Nottingham

 

The Nottingham Apiary project addresses the problem of collapsing bee populations, upon which humans depend to pollinate food crops. This phenomenon, Colony Collapse Disorder, is attributed to many causes, however there is no conclusive evidence for any specific one. The project aims to restore bee populations locally, with the potential to be replicated in other locations around the world.

An existing derelict structure is used as framework for bee habitation, with hives gradually expanding and taking over. New elements, attached to the old, allow the process to happen. The folly creates a dialogue between the process, the surrounding area and the public, introducing the bees in a nonthreatening context. It acts as the entrance to the building. The visitor route follows The Plight of the Honey Bee installation, creating a gradual crescendo through the spaces.

Second Runner Up: Farmland World

Stewart Hicks and Allison Newmeyer of Design With Company, with Katharine Bayer and Hugh Swiatek

 

 

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Drainspotting: 61 Amazing Manhole Covers from Japan

August 14, 2011 in Design, Images with 14 Comments

 

One of my favorite book discoveries this summer is Drainspotting by Remo Camerota. The book celebrates an array of fascinating manhole cover designs from Japan. According to Camerota, nearly 95% of the 1,780 municipalities in Japan have their very own customized manhole covers. The country has elevated this humble, practical object to its own art form. The designs depict everything from local landmarks and folk tales to flora and fauna and images created by school children.

Camerota explains the evolution of these custom covers in Drainspotting:

“In the 1980s as communities outside of Japan’s major cities were slated to receive new sewer systems these public works projects were met with resistance, until one dedicated bureaucrat solved the problem by devising a way to make these mostly invisible systems aesthetically appreciated aboveground: customized manhole covers.”

A manhole cover in Hiroshima decorated with a paper crane design (Photo source unknown)

 

(Photo courtesy Tokyo Five)

 

(Photo courtesy wired.com)

 

(Photo by Carlos Blanco via Flickr Commons)

 

(Photo by Toby Oxborrow via Flickr Commons)

 

(Photo by jpellgen via Flickr Commons)

 

As the book explains, design ideas for the specialized covers originate with the local city or council and are then presented to in-house designers at a municipal foundry. Once local officials and the designers agree upon an image, a prototype is created before the final manhole covers are cast in metal. Hirotaka Nagashima, the president of the Nagashima Foundry, explains the process in Drainspotting:

“We carve the design on a piece of wood. Next we put sand on the wood pattern and make a negative sand pattern; then we pour melted iron into the pattern, clear up the iron,…blast and paint the cover black. When we have colored ones they are done by hand and painted with a thick tree resin, colored from pigment. The tree resin sets rock hard and lasts much longer than paint.”

The Nagashima Foundry, which is the second largest in the country, makes about 400 manhole covers a day. The foundry has made over 6,000 different patterns in all. Not every design finds it way to the streets and sidewalks, however. In Camerota’s interview, Nagashima explains how one design of a shrine gate was abandoned when local priests objected. The priests did not believe it was appropriate for a sacred image of a shrine to be driven over and walked on.

A design for a new drain cover (Photo by Remo Camerota)

 

A Japanese foundry making manhole covers (Photo by Remo Camerota)

 

(Photo by Remo Camerota)

 

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