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Soo Sunny Park & Spencer Topel Transform a Chain-Link Fence into Art

March 30, 2012 in Images, Sounds, Spaces with 6 Comments

 

Artist Mary Goldthwaite-Gagne studies "Capturing Resonance," a piece made of chain-link fencing on view at the deCordova Museum. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

On my recent visit to the deCordova Museum, one of the artworks I found most compelling was “Capturing Resonance” by sculptor Soo Sunny Park and composer Spencer Topel.

Park, who was born in Seoul, Korea, currently lives in Hanover, New Hampshire, where she is an Associate Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth College. The sculptor is best known for turning quotidian building materials like insulation and dry wall into sublime, experiential installations. For “Capturing Resonance,” Park has transformed the unconventionally-shaped Window Gallery of the deCordova into a multi-sensory environment using chain-link fencing.

 

Depending on the time of day, rainbow hued shadows fill the Window Gallery, shifting from crisp representations of the structure to abstract color washes. (Photo by Peter Harris courtesy the de Cordova Museum)

 

 

Soo Sunny Park

Soo Sunny Park is best known for turning quotidian building materials like insulation and dry wall into sublime, experiential installations. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

deCordova-Soo Sunny Park

When artists like Park re-purpose common materials, I find the technique is most effective when the everyday object becomes enmeshed in the final piece and doesn't advertise its cleverness in an overt, obnoxious way. The subtlety of Park's piece only adds to its drama. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

By inserting thousands of iridescent acrylic Plexiglas squares into chain link cells, Park has created a sprawling, undulating form that transmits, reflects, and refracts both the natural and artificial light into the gallery. (Photo by Peter Harris courtesy the de Cordova Museum)

When artists like Park re-purpose common materials, I find the technique is most effective when the everyday object becomes enmeshed in the final piece and doesn’t advertise its cleverness in an overt, obnoxious way. The subtlety of Park’s piece only adds to its drama. Only careful observers will recognize the fencing material, and I suspect some visitors never notice it at all.

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The Illusionist: The Mind-Bending Installations of Artist Felice Varini

March 20, 2012 in Images, Spaces with 2 Comments

 

Felice Varini, "Orangerie du cha‰teau de Versailles," 2006 (Photo by André Morin)

 

 

"Orangerie du cha‰teau de Versailles" from a different perspective (Photo by André Morin)

Note: This is a guest post by Riley MacPhee, a regular contributor to the Johnston Architects Blog. Johnston Architects PLLC is a small architectural firm focusing on creative, innovative, and sustainable design throughout the West. You can see their designs and learn more about their work at the Johnston Architects website.

 

To walk into a space exhibiting the art of Felice Varini is to be confused. You’ll immediately notice vaguely geometric, monocolor shapes stretching and sprawling across the room, but you won’t be able to determine any kind of method to the apparent madness. Varini’s work looks like interesting, abstract art superimposed on an architectural space.

But if you walk around and explore the space a little more, you’ll start to notice that the shapes change as you move.  The more you move, and the more you stare at them, the more you’ll start to realize that there’s something you aren’t getting. But then, suddenly you’ll arrive at a spot where everything comes together with startling clarity, and you’ll realize that you’re looking at a brilliantly composed perspective work that seems to pop out of the scene and hover eerily in front of it.
 

Felice Varini, "Encerclement à dix," Chapelle Jeanne d'Arc/Centre d'Art Contemporain, Thouars, France, 1999 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Felice Varini, "Encerclement à dix," Chapelle Jeanne d'Arc/Centre d'Art Contemporain, Thouars, France, 1999 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Felice Varini, "Carré aux seize disques," Commande du ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Centre national des arts plastiques, 2011 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Another perspective of "Carré aux seize disques," 2011 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Another perspective of "Carré aux seize disques," 2011 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

Varini’s work is really the opposite of a stereogram: a series of unintelligible figures painted across three dimensions, that when seen in just the right way, flatten themselves into a mind-bending 2D shape.

Varini is a Swiss artist who currently lives in Paris, and has done dozens and dozens of these types of installations. He thinks of his works comprehensively, not just from the single point where they come together:

“The viewer can be present in the work, but as far as I am concerned he may go through it without noticing the painting at all. If he is aware of the work, he might observe it from the vantage point and see the complete shape. But he might look from other points of views where he will not be able to understand the painting because the shapes will be fragmented and the work too abstract. Whichever way, that is ok with me.”

Felice Varini, "Une ligne, mille et une droites," Musée Bourdelle, Paris, France 2008 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Felice Varini, "Tra il Pieno e il Vuoto (In the Fullness and Emptiness)" 2003 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Felice Varini, "Tra il Pieno e il Vuoto (In the Fullness and Emptiness)" 2003 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

 

 

Felice Varini, "Tra il Pieno e il Vuoto (In the Fullness and Emptiness)" 2003 (Photo courtesy varini.org)

“If you draw a circle on a flat canvas it will always look the same. The drawn circle will retain the flatness of the canvas. This kind of working is very limiting to me, so I project a circle onto spaces, onto walls or mountain sides, and then the circle’s shape is altered naturally because the ‘canvas’ is not flat. A mountain side has curves that affect the circle, and change the circle’s geometry. So, I do not need to portray complicated forms in my paintings. I can just use the simplicity of forms, because the reality out there distorts forms in any case, and creates variations on its own accord.”

“The same goes for colours. Usually I use one colour only, and the space takes care of altering the colour’s hue. For example, if I use one type of red colour on a mountain side, the result is many kinds of red, depending on the mountain’s surface and the light conditions. Sunlight will affect the different areas on the surface and the same red colour may become stronger or darker or clearer in certain areas, depending on how the sun rays hit the surface. The sky can be bright or dark. And if the surface has its own colour or a few colours then that will affect the red that I apply on it. So, I do not need to use sophisticated colours.”

 

Felice Varini, "Cinq Ellipses Ouvertes," Exhibition: Constellation, En attendant l'ouverture, du Centre Pompidou, Metz 2009 (Photo by André Morin courtesy varini.org)

 
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Filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara: Gaudi Made Me Realize the Lines Between the Arts Are Insignificant

February 16, 2012 in Images, Spaces with Comments Off

 

In Barcelona Hiroshi Teshigahara came face-to-face with Gaudí. "The magic of it overwhelmed me."

 

In the West, Hiroshi Teshigahara is best known as the avant-garde director of the 1964 film Woman in the Dunes–an erotic, surreal film that was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Teshigahara’s haunting shots of sand, skin, and water amid the advancing sand dunes have stayed with me over the years. But there is another Teshigahara film, one that is less well-known, that left an even greater impression on me.

Antonio Gaudi is like no other movie I can think of. Teshigahara’s 72-minute meditation on the Spanish Art-Nouveau architect is essentially wordless. He avoids conventional  narrative and instead, lets Gaudi’s buildings do the talking.

Before watching this film, I didn’t consider myself a fan of the Spanish artist. (George Orwell described Gaudi’s cathedral, La Sagrada Familia, as “one of the most hideous buildings in the world.”) But my judgment was based on ignorance–on some vague, false impression that Gaudi’s work was not much more than bulbous, overdone kitsch.

But after viewing Teshigahara’s breathtaking film, my opinion of the Spanish architect has been entirely transformed. Anotnio Gaudi was nothing less than a visionary genius–an original, madly brilliant artist who was unappreciated and misunderstood in his own time.

 

Teshigahara's passion for Gaudi's work comes through on every frame. He's a patient, attentive director with a craftsman's eye for details. He takes the time he needs, allowing the camera to linger.

 

 

Gaudi's Casa Batllo, Barcelona, Spain (Photo by Roby Saltori via Flickr Commons)

 

 

A still from Teshigahara's "Antonio Gaudi" (Photo courtesy The Criterion Collection)

 

 

Gaudi's Casa Batlló in Barcelona. The roof, terminating in a turret and cross, could represent the sword or spear of Saint George (patron saint of Catalonia), which has been plunged into the back of the dragon. (Photo by Marcel Germain via Flickr Commons)

 

 

A still from Teshigahara's "Antonio Gaudi" (Photo courtesy The Criterion Collection)

 

 

The Casa Milà is Gaudi’s second most visited building in Barcelona. The roof of this apartment building and office block is one of the city’s hidden treasures, for its view of the nearby Sagrada Familia, as well as for its whimsical and imposing sculptures.

 

Teshigahara’s passion for Gaudi’s work comes through on every frame. Once he has set the scene with opening shots of contemporary Barcelona, Teshigahara brings his camera into Gaudi’s universe, taking us up a characteristic Gaudi spiral staircase. He’s a patient, attentive director with a craftsman’s eye for details. He takes the time he needs, allowing the camera to linger. Blue tiles shift in the light like water moving. Mosaics morph into a dragon’s scales. Güell Park, a planned garden village, feels like a surreal, fairy-tale landscape.

Teshigahara moves his camera slowly through these fluid, organic spaces. Slow tracking shots give us a sense that we’re actually inhabiting these bizarre, sublime places. Gaudi’s curved, organic designs are shockingly surreal and erotic. Like Woman in the Dunes, Antonio Gaudi pulses with human sensuality, and yet there is also something of the divine in both Teshigahara’s film and Gaudi’s fertile imagination.

Hiroshi Teshigahara

This meditation on the power of and beauty of nature is enhanced with music and sound effects by the renowned Japanese  composer Toru Takemitsu and two collaborators, Kurodo Mori and Shinji Hori. As the critic Stephen Holden explains, Takemitsu was an eclectic impressionist “whose music blended avant-garde Western techniques, electronics and random compositional methods with more conventional symphonic music and Japanese traditional instruments.”

The spiral motif, associated with the seashell, is emphasized in Takemitsu’s soundtrack, which incorporates the sound of the distant sea. “The score for Gaudi is a kind of free-floating East-meets-West impressionism,” says Holden, “whose organic flow mimics the sprouting curvilinear shapes of Gaudi’s buildings. The score includes four Catalan folk pieces, electronically altered and combined with other sounds.”

Antonio Gaudi is a tactile film–a visual poem that lingers in your memory long after its over. If you have the patience to listen and look and to defer any pressing questions you may have about Antionio Gaudi the man until the DVD extras, you will find the melding of Gaudi’s inventive architecture, Teshigahara’s sensitive camerawork, and Takemitsu’s haunting score a rewarding experience.

 

A spiral staircase in the bell tower of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The spiral motif, associated with the seashell, is emphasized in Toru Takemitsu’s soundtrack, which incorporates the sound of the distant sea. (Photo courtesy SantiMB via Flickr Commons)

 

 

The atrium of Casa Mila (Photo by Chong Ming courtesy WikiCommons)

 

 

The Park Güell bench as seen in Teshigahara's "Antonio Gaudi" (Photo courtesy the Criterion Collection)

 

 

Gaudí’s structures, Teshigahara once said, "made me realize that the lines between the arts are insignificant. Gaudí worked beyond the borders of various arts and made me feel that the world in which I was living still left a great many possibilities."

 

 

Tile patterns from the Park Güell Bench, designed by Gaudi (Photo courtesy Make Mine Mosaic)

 

 

The staircase at Casa Batllo (Photo by Chong Ming courtesy WikiCommons)

 

But how exactly did the avant-garde, Japanese filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara develop such an intense appreciation for the architecture of Antonio Gaudi? I was curious to know more.

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Creative Spaces: Painter Kim Uchiyama

February 7, 2012 in Creative Spaces, Images, Spaces with 5 Comments

 

Kim Uchiyama in her Tribeca studio (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)


 
Kim Uchiyama’s studio is located on a quiet, tree-lined side-street in Lower Manhattan. On a crisp fall day in mid-November over tea and brunch, I visited Kim in her Tribeca apartment. We spent the day looking at art and discussing her new painting series, her artistic development and influences, and the ups and downs of the creative life.

Her space is decorated in a minimalist, modern style, but is also intimate and warm–the perfect blend of Kim’s Iowa roots and vibrant life as a New York painter. The bedroom is the coziest room in the apartment with many personal photos, mementos, and artworks that have special meaning to Kim. The focal points of the living room are Kim’s marvelous art collection, her books, and the striking view of the Hudson River glimpsed through the windows.

The painting studio is in a separate room from the living space. It is tidy, but functional, and in many ways is the heart of the apartment. Bright canvases are stacked and spread throughout the studio; painter’s tape, paint, and brushes are close at hand. Postcards of favorite paintings and places are pinned to the walls.

 

Kim Uchiyama's apartment and painting studio is on a quiet Tribeca sidestreet overlooking the Hudson River. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

Kim Uchiyama, "Excavation," 2010. Oil on canvas, 20" x 16" (Photo by Kevin Noble)

 

 

Over tea and brunch at the dining room table, Kim and I discussed her new painting series, her artistic development and influences, and the ups and downs of the creative life. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

For those of you unfamiliar with Kim Uchiyama’s work, a short introduction may be useful.

Patient, attentive viewers will find a lot to enjoy in Uchiyama’s paintings. Art works that could be mistaken for simple, colorful designs at first glance unfold into a deeper and richer experience upon close observation. Layers bubble beneath layers, colors recede or emerge from the canvas. Music is a useful parallel, since Uchiyama creates variations on a theme, much like a composer or jazz musician would–texture, rhythm, timbre, and harmony are integral to each piece. There is an exciting tension between order and variation.

As she explains in our interview, place and landscape are central to Kim’s work. Whether she is influenced by the light of southern Italy or the color of the sky or sea, her work is an expression of her own experience within a landscape. She is not trying to capture a place literally, as a realist painter might, or make some grand political or personal statement, but is instead, trying to convey something deeper and more mysterious.

When viewing an abstract painting like Uchiyama’s, it is useful to quiet the mind and let the senses take over. Only then can you begin to appreciate the complexities, nuances, and visceral pleasures of her work.

Uchiyama’s art owes something to Josef Albers’ chromatic interactions with concentric, colored squares and to Hans Hofmann and Nicolas Carone’s ideas about spatial illusion and color relationships. But the writings of painter Agnes Martin are also strikingly relevant:

It is quite commonly thought that the intellect is responsible for everything that is made and done. It is commonly thought that everything that is can be put into words. But there is a wide range of emotional response that we make that cannot be put into words. We are so used to making these emotional responses that we are not consciously aware of them until they are represented in artwork…

Beauty illustrates happiness: the wind in the grass, the glistening waves following each other, the flight of birds – all speak of happiness.

The clear blue sky illustrates a different kind of happiness, and the soft dark night a different kind. There are an infinite number of different kinds of happiness.

The response is the same for the observer as it is for the artist. The response to art is the real art field.

Composition is an absolute mystery. It is dictated by the mind. The artist searchers for certain sounds or lines that are acceptable to the mind and finally an arrangement of them that is acceptable. The acceptable compositions arouse certain feelings of appreciation in the observer. Some compositions appeal to some, and some to others.

Like Martin, Uchiyama’s earliest paintings were landscapes. (You can see two of Kim’s early works below). Both artists eventually found a deeper, more power expression through abstraction. After all, it is not the actual sky or ocean that interests these painters–it is more elusive qualities like light, space, and color, and the ways in which these visual sensations affect the attentive observer.

We’ve all seen a vivid, memorable sunset. The impulse to capture such a sunset through painting or photography is as much about capturing the sensation of being there as it is about capturing a beautiful scene. These perfect and elusive moments of awareness are an underlying force in both Agnes Martin and Kim Uchiyama’s work.

Kim has many fascinating things to say about her creative development and about painting itself. Enjoy the interview and this special tour of her studio…

(Click images to enlarge)

 

Kim Uchiyama, "Archeo," 2010. Oil on canvas, 20" x 16" When viewing an abstract painting like Uchiyama's, it is useful to quiet the mind and let the senses take over. Only then can you begin to appreciate the complexities, nuances, and visceral pleasures of her work. (Photo by Kevin Noble)

 

 

Many of the art works on the living room wall were created by friends or by some of Kim's favorite artists. The piece above the bookcase is from the "Archaeo" series, completed by Kim in 2010. Her new series of paintings (resting on the floor) are much larger in scale and brighter in color. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

Music is a useful parallel, since Uchiyama creates variations on a theme, much like a composer or jazz musician would--texture, rhythm, timbre, and harmony are integral to each piece. There is an exciting tension between order and variation. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

Michelle: How long have you lived and worked here in Tribeca?

Kim: I’ve been living and working continuously in Tribeca since the mid ’90s. Originally I started here in 1976, two blocks from the newly constructed World Trade Towers, before the area even had a name. Then came studios in Chinatown, the East Village, upper Chelsea and finally, back to Tribeca.

 

Do you have any particular work routine that is best for you? Is it difficult to live and work in the same space? Do you limit your computer and phone use while you’re painting or drawing?

Where possible, I prefer to wake up and start the day in the studio. Straight from sleep and not yet conversational with the rest of the world, I find it’s easier to become immersed in my thoughts and connect to the language of painting. I’ve had outside studios at various points, but I do prefer to live and work in the same space for this reason. Living where you work also facilitates some very off-the-cuff glimpses and sideways glances — sometimes in the middle of the night — at the work in progress, which can be really illuminating because you’re not expecting anything.

 

"My choices in painting are intuitive. I spend a lot of time looking at the canvas I am working on. I will first "see" a color, and then depending on the color, I will have a sense of the shape of that color." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

Kim Uchiyama, "Light Study #4," 2011. Oil on canvas. (Photo by Kevin Noble)

 

 

"I was always drawing as child and very much wanted to become an artist, though I wasn't really sure how to go about it. Drake University had a program in Florence, Italy which I attended in 1975-76 with the idea of studying art history. Living there, and standing before the great originals I'd seen only in reproduction, inspired me to paint." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

Did you grown up in an artistic household or did you have to make your own way as a young artist? You have a small image of Florence in your studio. Was Florence significant to your artistic development in some way?
 
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The Gwarlingo Index: 2011′s Most Memorable Experiences in the Arts

January 5, 2012 in Events, Images, News, Performance, Sounds, Spaces, Words with 3 Comments

Michael Clark Company performing in Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern was chosen as one of the most memorable experiences in the arts for 2011. (Photo courtesy camelwritesart.blogspot.com)


 
It’s the New Year, which means it’s time for lofty resolutions and the annual onslaught of “best of” lists.

Here at Gwarlingo, I thought I’d provide readers with a new twist on the traditional “Best of 2011″ list.

I asked an array of artists, composers, filmmakers, writers, musicians, and performers to tell me about their most memorable experiences in the arts during 2011. I wanted to know which books, concerts, albums, art shows, films, plays, performances, essays, etc. had personal resonance with artists this past year. I gave participants the option to comment on their choice or not.

A critical difference between the Gwarlingo Index and other year-end lists is that the chosen work didn’t have to be created or released in 2011. The Index wasn’t meant to be comprehensive. The idea was to see if any zeitgeist emerged in the responses and to get a glimpse of how the arts impacted our lives in the past twelve months.

There are a few surprises here.

I was particularly struck by the cross-disciplinary nature of the list. Many artists chose works or events from outside their own discipline. (Who, for instance, could have guessed that Moosewood author Mollie Katzen would choose a dance performance as her most memorable art experience of 2011?) Five of the composers and musicians polled listed events in the visual arts, which was a surprise. It just proves that creative inspiration comes from a myriad of sources and that cross-pollination between disciplines is a fertile pursuit for today’s working artists. After all, creative people don’t live in boxes.

Dance was a popular category among the artists who responded. Music, less so. Curiously, no plays appear on the Index, but two literary classics from the 19th century do.

 

"I was fascinated to read that some British filmgoers were hopping a ferry and crossing the English Channel to see Tree of Life in France, where the film was already showing. Any movie that can incite this much passion, love or hate, must be doing something right."


 
I was pleased to see two controversial works appear in the Gwarlingo Index—Peter Greenaway’s monumental take on Da Vinci’s The Last Supper and Terrence Malick’s polarizing film Tree of Life.

In early June I began to hear all sorts of rumblings about Malick’s film. Some people loved it. Some people hated it. Some people were walking out of movie theaters in disgust. When I arrived in London that same month, where the film’s release date had been pushed back to July, I was amused to read that some British filmgoers were hopping a ferry and crossing the English Channel to see Tree of Life in France, where the film was already showing. Any movie that can incite this much passion, love or hate, must be doing something right.

As for Greenaway’s monumental installation at the Park Avenue Armory, Holland Carter gave the show a scathing review in the New York Times calling the piece “a dud.” “It is, however, a big, expensive, technological-bells-and-whistles-to-the-max dud, which is something,” Carter added. And yet, despite this public drubbing, Greenaway’s installation appears here as one composer’s “most memorable art experience.” It’s a useful reminder that art is exactly that–an art, and not a science. It’s also a reminder to keep an open mind when reading those New York Times’ reviews.

 

An installation view of "Leonardo's Last Supper: A Vision by Peter Greenaway." The installation received a scathing review in The New York Times, but appears on the Gwarlingo Index as a most memorable art experience of 2011. (Photo courtesy Luciano Romano/Change Performing Arts)

 
Many large-scale, public events received a mention, including two different art installations at the Park Avenue Armory and an impromptu concert at the Occupy Wall Street protests.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, artists like Rosanne Cash, Bill Powers, and Will Rawls speak eloquently about the relationship between art and solitude. They remind us how rewarding intimacy with a work of art can be. This is one of the benefits of art in the 21st century–it allows us to slow down, to think, to push away those pesky distractions that chip away at our dwindling attention spans, to encounter the world of others.

What were your own memorable experiences in the arts in 2011? Please share your own picks on the Gwarlingo Facebook page or in the “Comments” section below.

 

Singer and Writer Rosanne Cash

The de Kooning retrospective at MoMA had the most profound impact on me in 2011. To see the entire scope of his artistic life, from the small painting he made at age 12 through the complex figures, vast abstracts and sculptures, to the sparse canvasses at the end of his life when his mind was deteriorating, was so moving, heartbreaking, inspiring… overwhelming. I was in tears by the last few paintings.

My friend Laurie Beckelman, who is friends with John Elderfield, who organized the show, arranged for a private tour. Walking through empty galleries with nothing but the art added to the impact. I feel extremely fortunate to have seen this show.

 

Willem de Kooning, Woman, ca. 1969. Oil on canvas, 60 x 48 in. (Photo © 2011 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society, New York)

 

“De Kooning: A Retrospective” fills MoMA’s entire sixth floor with some 200 paintings, drawings and sculptures. The show is on view through January 9th. (Photo courtesy c-monster.net)

 

Grammy-winner Rosanne Cash has recorded 15 albums and 11 number-one hit singles. Her most recent albums are The List (Manhattan, 2009) and The Essential Rosanne Cash (Sony Legacy, 2011). Her prose and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Oxford-American, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and other publications. Her most recent book, Composed, was published by Viking in 2010. For more information visit her website or follow her on Twitter.

 

 

Writer William Powers

Last summer, I spent several days alone in an isolated house with no internet connection, dog-sitting for friends. My plan was to do nothing all day but read, and I brought along a novel, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, which somehow I’d never got around to. I dove into that beautiful book — it was the Richard Pevear / Larissa Volokhonsky translation — like I haven’t done since college days, and it was glorious. Crime and Punisment is a masterpiece, so in one sense it’s no surprise I had a powerful experience. But the circumstances, a rare chance, in a world of distractions, to focus for an extended period on just one thing, were also a big part of why it was so memorable. Four months have gone by and I still think about that extraordinary inner journey, and fantasize about repeating it with another book, one of these days.

 

 

William Powers is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Hamlet’s BlackBerry, which has been widely praised for its insights on the digital future. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times and many other publications. He has been featured in dozens of major news outlets, including interviews with Katie Couric, NPR, Good Morning America, the PBS NewsHour, CNBC and the BBC, and coverage in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Wired, and The Guardian. For more information, visit his website or follow him on Twitter.

 
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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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Creative Spaces: A Legendary Songcatcher Inspires Two Musicians on a Vermont Farm

October 9, 2011 in Creative Spaces, Images, Sounds, Spaces with Comments Off

Robin MacArthur and Tyler Gibbons are Red Heart the Ticker (Photo by Doron Gild)

Two weeks after Hurricane Irene I’m wandering the back-roads of Marlboro, Vermont, making my way to Robin MacArthur and Tyler Gibbons, also known as the music duo Red Heart the Ticker.

Route 9–the main thoroughfare between Brattleboro and Bennington–is closed because of storm damage, so Robin sends me “the back way.” When her lengthy driving instructions arrive by email, she says, “I realize these directions sound crazy…your phone might work along the way, or might not…if you get lost just knock on a door and ask directions.”

On the drive I pass cows, orchards, and working farms. As predicted, my cell phone has no signal, but so far, there’s been no need to rely on the kindness of strangers. The dirt roads wind and curve. As I climb Ames Hill, I catch glimpses of the Green Mountains rising above barns and fields.

Although it’s been two weeks since Irene, the storm has left a mess in its wake. Water rushes through deep gullies and the road is like a washboard. I pass hand-painted signs that say Bridge Out and Road Closed. Totally impassable. Bridge gone. Dangerous gullies. No sightseers please.

Marlboro, Vermont-Hurricane Irene

"Hurricane Irene was pretty devastating around here. The road to and from our house was eviscerated in about 20 places...twenty-foot deep chasms where gravel and concrete used to be. Houses were lost, businesses were lost. There are the short term, disastrous effects of homelessness and trauma..." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

Hurricane Irene damage in Brattleboro, Vermont

Flooding from Hurricane Irene caused this house in nearby Brattleboro, Vermont, to collapse. (Photo by Acorn via Flickr Commons)

 

Red Heart the Ticker

Berries grow in the fields surrounding Margaret MacArthur's Vermont farmhouse (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

The Vermont back-roads are named for local landmarks and the families who have lived here for generations. Finally, after miles of twists and turns, I see the name I am searching for: MacArthur Road.

There have been MacArthurs here since the 1940s. Decades ago a young woman named Margaret MacArthur and her husband, John, moved to an abandoned 1803 farmhouse in these woods. Margaret grew up hearing traditional music, first in the mountains of northern Arizona where her step-father was cruising timber in the Tonto National Forest, later in Missouri where he was raising seedlings for the Mark Twain National Forest, then in Southern California where he was raising guayule rubber plants during the war.

But in Vermont, the only songs Margaret heard were church songs. Hungry for the musical traditions she had left behind, Margaret bought a Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder, trekked around Vermont with her two-year-old daughter in tow, and began recording the forgotten folk songs of the region.

When Moses Asch, the director of Folkways Records, learned about Margaret, he asked to hear her music. She put some batteries into her Wollensak, sat down at the kitchen table after her five children were asleep, and recorded fifteen songs, never imagining anything would come of it. Six months later she received a letter from Moses and a record of the music she had recorded. The resulting Folkways’ record, Folksongs of Vermont, became the first album in MacArthur’s nine-record career. Her life-long dedication to the lyrical ballad would make her a seminal figure in Vermont’s folk music scene.

In the 1940s Margaret MacArthur moved to an abandoned 1803 farmhouse in Marlboro, Vermont--a house with no electricity or running water--and started collecting the region's folk songs. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

Red Heart the Ticker re-recorded the Vermont folk songs collected by Robin's grandmother in Margaret's study, where her instruments, books, awards, and folk art collection are still housed. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

"My grandmother, when she was dying, held the hands of her three granddaughters and said, 'Whatever it is, just do it. Just go for it. Whatever it is.'" (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

"The textures ended up being quite simple in a lot of places: just a banjo and voice and cymbal, or just a pump organ and glockenspiel. The orchestration was, in some ways, more a process of elimination than one of addition." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

More than 70 years later, Margaret’s granddaughter, Robin MacArthur, and her husband Tyler Gibbons, set up their instruments and recording equipment in Margaret’s study–the same room where she died in 2006–and began making their third album, Your Name in Secret I Would Write. The album is comprised of their favorite Vermont folk tunes in Margaret’s collection.
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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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Olafur Eliasson: Your Blind Passenger

July 25, 2011 in Images, Spaces with Comments Off

Olafur Eliasson's "Your Blind Passenger" (Courtesy Photo)

Olafur Eliasson, the Danish artist who brought the sun to Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall and created man-made waterfalls in New York City, has a new project at the ARKEN Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen.

Eliasson’s installation Din blinde passager (Your blind passenger) is a 295-foot-long tunnel filled with dense fog. Because of the tunnel’s limited visibility, visitors passing through the tunnel must use senses other than sight to orient themselves.

Din blinde passager is the sort of quality, experiential artwork that is attracting larger crowds to contemporary art museums and galleries in recent years. The worst examples of this type of installation art are a bit like a ride at Disney World–they give us a short-lived thrill, can be gimmicky, and lack resonance. But thoughtful works like Eliasson’s offer a deeper museum experience and allow us to engage in the world in an original way. I love the fact that Eliasson’s exhibit disorients museum-goers and invites them to pay close attention to subtle environmental changes like sound or the slow shift of light.

Your blind passenger uses many types of white light–bright daylight, a golden sunrise, chilly blues, deep twilight. Normally, these changes in our environment are so slow and commonplace that we hardly notice them, but Eliasson’s piece condenses an entire day down to a singular, intense experience. With the distractions of our surroundings eliminated, with limited visibility in a contained space, we notice light in a way we never have before. Eliasson’s piece is a reminder that we are enveloped by changing light (both natural and unnatural) on a continual basis, but few of us detect it as we go about our daily lives.

Arken Museum

"Eliasson's exhibit disorients museum-goers and invites them to pay close attention to subtle environmental changes like sound or the slow shift of light." (Courtesy photo)

Eliasson’s exhibition is the final instalment in ARKEN’s three-year UTOPIA series, which examines the role of utopia in contemporary art and culture. “For me, utopia is linked to the now, the moment between one second and the next,” Eliasson explained in an interview. “It constitutes a possibility that is actualised and converted into reality, an opening where concepts like subject and object, inside and outside, proximity and distance are tossed into the air and redefined. Our sense of orientation is challenged and the coordinates of our spaces, collective and personal, have to be renegotiated. Changeability and mobility are at the core of utopia.”

Christian Gether, director of ARKEN, believes that Eliasson is unique in how he engages with gallery spaces. “Eliasson is extremely interesting because he takes a new view of the institution of the museum,” she says. “He does not see the museum as separate from the world but as a concentrate of the world – a space made available for the contemplation of human relations. Hence, he is the ideal artist to conclude the UTOPIA project.”

Olafur Eliasson’s Your blind passenger is open through November 2, 2011. Luckily, for those of us who can’t make it to Copenhagen, there are two excellent videos of the piece available here. The first video was produced by the Tate and includes an interview with Eliasson, as well as footage of his installation. The second video is from Eliasson’s own website. Because the second video contains no voiceovers or cuts, it gives a better sense of what it is like to walk through the 295-foot-long tunnel in silence. (If you’re reading this article in an email, click here to watch the videos).

 

 

 

Din blinde passager – Arken museum from Studio Olafur Eliasson on Vimeo.

 
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Creative Spaces: Angela Cappetta’s Love Letter to Medusa

June 30, 2011 in Creative Spaces, Images, Spaces with 1 Comment

A photograph in the "Medusa" series (Photo by Angela Cappetta)

Photographer Angela Cappetta has a new show opening this weekend at the Medusa General Store as part of their MGS Projects series. “Medusa: A Love Letter to the Mountains” reflects on the working farm community of Medusa in Upstate New York. The hamlet is tiny–it had a population of only 376 people during the 2000 census–but this did not stop Cappetta from setting up a home and darkroom in the rural community. Cappetta’s photographs of Medusa were handprinted in her own basement darkroom, which is pictured below.

Negatives drying in Angela Cappetta's darkroom (Photo by Angela Cappetta)

 

Cappetta's basement darkroom. A Lee Friedlander poster hangs above the sink. (Photo by Angela Cappetta)

 

Legend has it that Cappetta's print flattener once belonged to Gary Winogrand (Photo by Angela Cappetta)

Cappetta’s photography has been collected by institutions like the Corcoran Museum of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and by private collectors like Agnes Gund. Some of you may be familiar with Cappetta’s documentary and commercial work, which has been featured in Vogue, Harper’s Bazar, and The New Yorker, but this new show is an opportunity to see another side of this versatile photographer. These contemplative images of Medusa have a real sense of place and are quite intimate for a series comprised largely of landscapes. Each photograph is a like a visual poem, capturing some small, quiet moment in the rural Upstate hamlet Cappetta calls home.

Legless deer in Medusa, NY

A Photograph from the "Medusa" series (Photo by Angela Cappetta)

The opening reception for “Medusa” takes place from 6:00-8:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 2nd at the Medusa General Store located at 6 Red Barn Lane. For more information, please contact April Roggio at aroggio (at) nycap.rr (dot) com.

And if you can’t make it, don’t worry. You can peruse Cappetta’s photo series from the comfort of your own living room. To see more of Cappetta’s work, please visit her website.

A photograph from the "Medusa" series (Photo by Angela Cappetta)

This is the second installment in Gwarlingo’s “Creative Spaces” series. To see the first feature on MacArthur fellow Anna Schuleit, click here.

If you’re a writer, visual artist, composer, filmmaker, architect, etc. who would like to have your own desk, studio, or work area considered for “Creative Spaces,” please email quality photographs to michelle (at) gwarlingo (dot) com. Your space doesn’t have to be large, fancy, or organized. (Readers enjoy seeing all types of work spaces in varying states of disarray!) Submissions should include a bio and a link to your website. We regret that we’re unable to publish all of the submissions we receive.

While you’re here, don’t forget to check out the Gwarlingo home page, which is updated regularly. Right now, you can preview new music by Gillian Welch and PJ Harvey, see the latest Gwarlingo recommendations and reader comments, plus view Gwarlingo’s Photo of the Week.

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To leave a comment about Angela Cappetta’s work or the “Creative Spaces” series, click here and scroll to the “Comments” section at the bottom of the page.

Gwarlingo Visits the Tate Modern

June 22, 2011 in Images, Spaces with 2 Comments

A painting from Cy Twombly's "Bacchus, Psilax, Mainomenos" series (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

This week I paid a visit to the Tate Modern in London. The museum is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world with over 4.7 million visitors a year. Currently, the Tate has special exhibitions by Joan Miró and Taryn Simon. (The Simon exhibit is particularly interesting, but more on that in a future Gwarlingo article).

Jenny Holzer's "Blue Purple Tilt" (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

Another painting in Cy Twombly's "Bacchus, Psilax, Mainomenos" series (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Some of my favorite highlights from the Tate Modern’s collection were Jenny Holzer’s “Blue Purple Tilt“ and Cy Twombly’s striking Bacchus, Psilax, Mainomenos series, which is comprised of three large-scale, canvases covered in whorling, red brushstrokes. Like Matisse in his later years, Twombly created this 2005 series by attaching a paintbrush to the end of a long pole. The deep vermilion color is reminiscent of both blood and wine.

"Maroon and Orange" (Seagram Mural) by Mark Rothko (Courtesy photo)

The Tate’s Rothko Room, which showcases Mark Rothko’s luminous, large-scale murals originally commissioned for The Four Seasons Restaurant in the Seagram Building in New York, is particularly memorable and offers a welcome respite to weary museum-goers. Rothko’s soft-edged rectangles radiate deep maroon, orange, gray, and black and glow meditatively in the dimly lit gallery. I also enjoyed Cindy Sherman’s 1975 Super-8 film “Doll Clothes,” which dates back to Sherman’s art school days, as well as a collection of posters by The Guerilla Girls.

One of the many works by The Guerrilla Girls on view at the Tate Modern (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

While the gallery’s permanent collection of modern and contemporary art is excellent, what makes a visit to the Tate Modern especially memorable is the building itself. The museum is housed in the former Bankside Power Station on the south bank of the Thames River. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of the original station, was also the designer of the the now-famous, red telephone boxes scattered across Britain. The massive Turbine Hall, which once housed electricity generators, stands five stories tall and has 11,155 square feet of floor space.

The height of the power station chimney at the Tate Modern is 325 feet. It was intentionally built shorter than the Dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, which stands at 375 feet. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

The architects Herzog & de Meuron wisely chose to retain the character of Scott’s original design and have successfully transformed this utilitarian building into an engaging public space. The old and the new complement each other perfectly. I was particularly struck by Herzog and de Meuron’s sensitivity to the surrounding vistas. There are numerous vantage points for visitors to enjoy. I found myself lingering in one gallery contemplating a panoramic view of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The way the scene is framed through the large, rectangular window encourages visitors to consider the cathedral as a work of art, just like the Twombly and Barnett Newman paintings hanging nearby. Another balcony offered a lovely vista of the river, Millennium Bridge, pigeon-filled courtyard, and London skyline.

View of Millennium Bridge from the third level gallery

A view of St. Paul's Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge from a third level gallery (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

St. Paul's Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge from the Tate Modern

A view of the London skyline from a balcony at the Tate Modern (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

But some of the most unique views were of the building’s own interior. Each level of the museum offered a different perspective of Turbine Hall. From the upper galleries I watched visitors move through the geometric shadows and ascend and descend the stairwell below. From this bird’s eye perspective, I had the sense that I was inside an M.C. Escher drawing. The Turbine Hall was especially striking at sunset as the light and shadows shifted minute by minute.

Looking down on a stairwell in Turbine Hall (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

A bird's eye view of Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

Turbine Hall in the late afternoon (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

The hall at sunset (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Between October and March each year, the Tate Modern uses the hall to display large commissioned pieces by contemporary artists. Louise Bourgeois was the first artist commissioned to create a special installation for the space. Since Bourgeois’s 2000 piece “I Do, I Undo, I Redo,” a number of memorable works have been installed there. Olafur Eliasson filled the space with a giant orange sun (“The Weather Project”), Rachel Whiteread cast and stacked 14,000 white boxes (“Embankment”), Doris Salcedo created a giant crack running down the center of the hall (“Shibboleth”), and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei filled the massive room with 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds.

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MacArthur Fellow Anna Schuleit & the Whole Sweep of Trying

May 31, 2011 in Creative Spaces, Images, Process, Spaces with 7 Comments

 

For the public installation "Bloom" Anna Schuleit and a team of volunteers filled the Massachusetts Mental Health Center with 28,000 blooming flowers and 5,600 square feet of lush, green sod, including corridors, stairwells, offices and even a swimming pool. (Photo by Anna Schuleit courtesy This is Colossal)

 

 

Anna Schuleit's studio is located in a renovated mill building in the historic town of Harrisville, New Hampshire. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Welcome to the first installment of “Creative Spaces,” a regular Gwarlingo series that will focus on the creative habits and work spaces of visual artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and other talented individuals.

I’m so pleased to kick off the series with an intimate profile of visual artist and MacArthur recipient Anna Schuleit.

Anna graciously agreed to talk with me about her daily work habits, studio space, recent projects, and much more. She also gave me permission to photograph her studio in exceptional detail, granting me access not only to her works in progress, but also to many of her sketches, personal collections, notes, and books.

Such generosity is in keeping with Anna’s personality. She is curious, playful, open-minded, intelligent, and exudes a positive, contagious energy. But forget the stereotypes of flighty creative geniuses (a word that makes most MacArthur fellows squirm). Anna is as deep and introspective as she is energetic and outgoing.

Born in Mainz, Germany, and raised in a family of artists, Anna came to the US at 16 as a high school student. She went on to study painting at RISD and creative writing at Dartmouth.

 

Visual artist Anna Schuleit (Photo by John Solem)

 

 

"Bloom" by Anna Schuleit (Photo courtesy Anna Schuleit)

Anna’s early, large-scale installations included Habeas Corpus (2000), in which she brought the crumbling Northampton State Hospital to life with the music of J.S. Bach, and Bloom (2003), where she filled the Massachusetts Mental Health Center with 28,000 blooming flowers and 5,600 square feet of lush, green sod. In 2007 she created Landlines–a public art project commemorating the centennial anniversary of The MacDowell Colony.

In 2009 Anna’s paintings and drawings were exhibited at the Coleman Burke Gallery in New York City. In 2010 she completed Just a Rumor, a large painting commission at UMass Amherst, as well as a painted set-design for Ivy Baldwin Dance at the Chocolate Factory Theater in New York. Her work has been praised for its “conceptual clarity, compassion, and beauty.”

Anna has been a visiting artist and lecturer at MIT, Brown, Smith, RISD, The New School, Bowdoin, and other institutions. Residency programs have been an important cornerstone to her artistic development. She has been a fellow at The Blue Mountain Center, The MacDowell Colony, Bogliasco, Yaddo, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard, among others. In 2006 Anna was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship.

(Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

The following interview and photo shoot took place in the early spring of 2011 in the small, rural town of Harrisville, New Hampshire, where Anna’s studio is currently located. On the morning I arrived at the studio, Anna’s dog Finnegan was relaxing on the couch and Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” was playing on the stereo. When I commented on this musical choice, Anna explained that she begins every work day in the studio by listening to Steve Reich’s “Drumming“ and “Music for 18 Musicians.”

 

Michelle Aldredge: Anna, what is your typical routine? Do you have any rituals that are important to your creative work?

Anna Schuleit: When I wake up in the morning I first go outside with my dog to check on the weather and the overall feel of the day. That’s the very first thing, going outside. Then a walk or run in the woods, then breakfast. And then off to the studio for the rest of the day.

Once there, I usually continue working on what I was doing the night before–a series of works, never just a single piece. If I stay long enough in the studio, just stay with the work even if it doesn’t feel great or seem satisfying or directional or conclusive, if I just stay to tend and garden, then my mind gradually yields control to the more automatic labor of painting, and with that comes a sweet spot in the process further down, a worn groove, a sense of ease.

"If I stay long enough in the studio, just stay with the work even if it doesn't feel great or seem satisfying or directional or conclusive, if I just stay to tend and garden, then my mind gradually yields control to the more automatic labor of painting, and with that comes a sweet spot in the process further down, a worn groove, a sense of ease." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

That’s a bit elusive and hard to describe, and it doesn’t really depend on any rituals other than, well…presence. Just staying with it allows it to open up. The same is true for any creative task, no?

I listen to music while I work, usually abstract things. But I also enjoy the quiet, sounds from elsewhere–birds. I eat simple meals, more lunch than dinner, and I read the news when I can, or make phone calls, or run quick errands, but usually I’m in the studio for long stretches of sameness: mixing paint, looking at paintings, drawing, looking more, painting, mixing more paint, drinking some tea, looking more. And so on. Just maintaining a presence. And I do enjoy this more than I can adequately express.

By the time I leave the studio at night I often feel deeply connected to my work, and I have to tear myself away like a kid from a playground. The process feeds itself, somehow, and I get to be a part of it, which is the best and simplest, and most tumbling and humbling feeling I know.

"By the time I leave the studio at night I often feel deeply connected to my work, and I have to tear myself away like a kid from a playground." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

What do you do when you hit a roadblock or get stuck on a certain piece?

For the past six years I’ve been working in series: multiple panels of drawings and paintings that help prevent the formation of serious roadblocks by creating a multitude of views of the same thing. That means there are multiple options spread out across more than a single pictorial plane, side-by-side, which means repetition, which in turn, means a built-in possibility for continuation.

I try to keep going at the speed each particular piece seems to require naturally, some slow, some fast. Slow for me means more than a month, and I actually have several works in that category right now, large paintings on linen. They just seem to need more time to remain “open” while I keep them around, keep looking without specific expectations other than to stay engaged.

"Ultimately, this is what I repeat most often to myself: avoid tip-toeing around, Anna. Stay. Go deeper. DON'T LEAVE." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

When I do get stuck and nothing moves forward for several days I will take a snapshot of the painting and enlarge it at a copy shop onto a large piece of paper, which I bring back to the studio with me. I cut the copy apart, paint on top of it, and use it as an impermanent collage. It gets me back into the work through a back-door and lets me see the colors and the composition differently, which can be crucial to getting unstuck again. But that kind of roadblock is ultimately part of the piece like all the rest, a sort of necessary detour.

"The different parts of the studio help me to keep moving, like stations along a road." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

I love the combination of intense creative energy and controlled order in your studio. Can you explain how your studio is organized?

My studio is one large space subdivided into several parts: paintings on the walls, drawings and prints on tables in the middle, paints and inks and dry media and other tools in-between, and books and papers on the fringes. The different parts of the studio help me to keep moving, like stations along a road.

"Good advice is really anything that keeps you afloat via a sense of shared struggle. Good advice is the kind that tugs at your heart a little, since it addresses something you know you need help with, be it focus, authenticity, endurance, fearlessness, etc." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Things are in flux though; it’s definitely not overly neat, nor is it too tidy. But it’s not chaos either. It’s a good, medium kind of state with room for dried paint and dust and empty bottles and clothes and traces of use. And there are large, handsome industrial windows overlooking a row of trees. Oh, and lots of lamps and spotlights, since I work at night, too. Working at night makes all the other things that aren’t part of the paintings fall away, adding contrast and saturation and a kind of temporary authority in the composition that the next day supersedes again.

"Now I'm switching over to found shoes and old wheels and pulleys--just ordinary things that are lovely and precious in small, unexpected ways when held and handled." (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Are there any objects in your studio that have special meaning to you?

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