Performance & Intervention II

The readings for this week were generally regarding how artists intervene with the public space of the city. This tactical way of working is a form of disruption within social order. It is slightly manipulating the strategies of the urban planners, in that it alters the image of the city based on the ideas of those who dwell within. The most direct ways to alter this image is through graffiti. In this way of working, the artist's marks literally remain on the public space until someone else intervenes by removing or painting over it. 

Jean-Michel Basquiat's graffiti art is a form of protest by using the public space as his own to exclaim a message.

Here we have a very direct message addressed to the public. Basquiat was specifically addressing the "hegemonic forces within the art world" and uses the public space as his way of protesting. The images we see of Basquiat's art are simply representations. The work is intended to be seen by the general public. 

While Basquiat's graffiti art is more about the message and its actual space, Robin Rhodes interventions are more about creating the image.

Robin Rhode intervenes and interacts with the public space to create an image. Without the presence of the artist in the photograph, the drawings on the wall would not make any sense. While this form of art making is similar to graffiti, it is less concerned with making a statement to the public and more about using the public space as a canvas to create an image with. Here is an image by Rhode, with bad photoshop representation of what the space might look like after he is gone.

compared to:

Once Rhode is not in the space, it becomes entirely different. Rhode's art is primarily the image; it is the documentation from a specific perspective to represent his interaction with his drawing. This would be related to more of a counter culture than a protest culture. Rhode is not using the public space as a way of making claims or statements to the public. Unlike the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, there is not a direct or confrontational message that remains on the space after the artist has left the site. 

Rhode uses the literal public space, performance, and the photograph to create his work. Another form of intervening with the imagery of the public space is through Andy Warhol's Birmingham Race Riot in which he mass-produced an image of police setting their dogs on protesters.

It is still a form of intervention within the public space but it is through wide-spread imagery and not the literal, physical public space. The public space goes beyond the sidewalks within a city. Warhol is intervening with the image-circulating public space of news and media. In relation to the distinctions between the protest culture and the counter culture, Birmingham Race Riot seems to be a part of both. The way in which Warhol mechanically produced the work would relate more to a counter culture, in that it is an art making practice that, at the time, was very oppositional since the artist was not physically creating the work. The content that Warhol is working with, however, is at the top of protest culture - an actual protest that has led to violence.

In attempt to further understand the differences between the protest culture and the counter culture through performances and interventions of the public space, I have made a diagram including some of the artists in these readings and where I think they would fall in these categories.

In the more performative works such as David Wojnarowicz and Nikki S. Lee, there is a difference between intervening with the public space and the public audience.

Although there may be other people in the images or around the masked figure, Wojnarowicz is much more concerned with the space than those who are in the space. The figure is not addressing the public audience but is addressing the camera. The two-dimensional mask is clearly aligned with the camera. Similar to Robin Rhode, Wojnarowicz is making an image where he is using the public space, he is not confronting public space when the image is made.

In Nikki S. Lee's photographs, the artist is interacting and intervening with an unknowing public audience. This performance, though still not directly confrontational, would be closer to the protest culture because it is directly including the public audience. This is similar to the graffiti art of Jean-Michel Basquiat in that it seems to be less about the construction of the image and more about the performance and the relation with the public audience. 

Chicago

The Pacyga reading about the history of Chicago was split up into primarily 3 sections. After giving an introduction to the new mayor, Richard J. Daley, the reading goes on to address the racial issues and public housing issues during the 1950s-1960s. Public housing started in Chicago in the late 30's and early 40's with the Jane Addams Homes, Julia C. Lathrop Homes and Trumball Park. These were very small because they were built during the depression.

Jane Addams Home

Julia C. Lathrop Home

The next set of public housing was Cabrini, Lawndale Gardens, Bridgeport and Brooks. These were built primarily for war workers. The majority of people moving into these homes were African-American which caused the white working class people to move out to the suburbs. During the 1950's, the suburbs of Chicago started to develop. There were a lot of concerns around this time as to if city funding should go to development in the suburbs or high-rise public housing. High rises began construction. There were many low income families living in the public housing, causing dense populations and over crowding in not only the homes but schools as well. 

Taylor Homes

The second main section of the Pacyga, addressed the construction of the highway system in Chicago. Daley and city planners planned for a major highway to cut straight through the south side of the city, which would in turn demolish many homes, churches, and schools. The influence of creating the highways came from a larger movement in America around this time to provide more significant use of the automobile. Constructions of the Dan Ryan Expressway, the Eisenhower, the Kennedy, and the Stevenson dislocated thousands across the city. In addition to the highway expansions, the CTA offered extended rail service to provide opportunity for private or public transportation to and from the city. 

Dan Ryan Expressway

The final section of the Pacyga reading addressed racial and civil rights issues around Chicago. Much of the problems arose from public schools. Schools, at this time, were divided as white and black schools. The back schools were incredibly over-crowded which led to many problems. Around this time, Daley was caught in a tough situation. If he pleased the African-American community too much, then he would lose support of white voters, and vice-versa. Neighborhood protests started to erupt. African-Americans would boycott public schools and 225,000 would stay home from class. With all the protests going on, the city drew the attention of Martin Luther King. King made Chicago a center target far the civil rights movement addressing the Chicago Freedom Movement which was about fair housing and equal rights in schools and the workplace. King led a huge rally at Soldier Field that led to a riot 2 days later. 

1968 was when everything really started to get out of control. On April 4, Martin Luther King was shot and a surge of riots broke out in Chicago and across the nation. Daley struggled to keep everything under control and suffered much criticism after he gave orders for police to "shoot to kill" during the riots. Another large demonstration happened in Grant Park after the Democratic Convention. Police intervened and once again, the violence spread throughout the city. 

Richard Nickel - Carson Pirie Scott Building

The reading about Richard Nickel addressed his photographic practices during the late 1950's and 1960's. Nickel was an architecture photographer who was more interested in documenting certain buildings in a more stylized as opposed to neutral way. He was very drawn to Sullivan architecture which was being demolished all across Chicago because of the construction of the highways. Here, it is very interesting to see another side of the highway construction. While the city as a whole is improving and moving forward, here is Nickel photographing these buildings "as if they were on death row." Nickel is portraying these places as if they are people and is convinced that they are entirely necessary to photograph. In the reading he is compared to Dorthea Lange and her photographs of the depression.

Ed Ruscha and the Image of LA

Los Angeles in the 1960's was developing into a city similar to New York or Chicago, however, much more vehicular. Naturally, artists reacted to this idea by making work influenced or critiquing this culture. The car, and anything in direct association with it (gas stations, roads, motorcycles, etc.) was the icon of Los Angeles. Judy Chicago painted on car hoods, Vija Celmins painted the view from a car windshield, and Dennis Hopper made photographs while driving.

Because Los Angeles was so "spread-out" it was a failure in the sight of Kevin Lynch. The "mental map" that Lynch presents consisting of the path, edge, landmark, node, and district was far more challenging for the urban dweller to create because of the sprawl. The Los Angeles dweller experienced the city primarily through the windows of the moving car. In this way, the flaneur is much more prevalent. When separated by windows and speed of travel, the flaneur in the car is even more detached from the city and just as, if not more, observant of it. The flaneur in the car sees a building, but only for a second or two before it is gone. Driving around the city is similar to watching a film. Just sit back and enjoy watching.

Ed Ruscha's Every Building on the Sunset Strip is a great example of the flaneur in the car. In one regard, Ruscha has reenacted the flaneur experience while driving down the Sunset Strip. By having the camera automatically make the pictures as Ruscha was driving, this group of photographs is a documentation of observing the city through the car.

Ed Ruscha Every Building on the Sunset Strip. 1966, accordion-folded book. 

Every Building on the Sunset Strip is twenty-four feet long. The viewer has to move through it just as they would have to move through the city. While moving through it, one notices the consistency of the building facades. Most often two story and very similar visually. The viewer can refold the book to alter the city scape, but it will not look much different. This parallels the drivers experience of the city while driving down the street and seeing building after building.

In addition to the image of the city and the reaction to vehicular culture, the perceptual experience of the viewer was something that Ruscha was very interested in and was a large part of his work.

Ed Ruscha Standard Station with Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half. 1964, oil on canvas

In Standard Station with Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half, Ruscha has incorporated many of his interests into the single piece. The content is the Standard gasoline station - an icon in direct relation to the car culture of Los Angeles. The gasoline station appears to be massive and very powerful or dominating. The majority of the content is located on the left half of the canvas (wide like a windshield) which relates to the view of the driver. While Ruscha used paint to make the image, he is clearly interested in it as an object as well. The object is 5ft x 10ft and replicates the billboard. The emphasis on the viewers perceptual experience of the piece is found in the painted torn comic book in the upper right corner. Here, Ruscha disrupts the image and draws attention to the piece as an object. The realistic comic book is painted in a perspective that appears as though it is resting on top of the painting. The placement of it in relation to the massive gasoline station encourages the viewer to move from a far distance to a closer one and from side to side. 

This technique of conceptual imagery paired with the viewer's relationship to the object is very interesting. Ruscha's work appropriates ideas of objectivity from minimalist sculpture and compiles them with indirect, referential imagery. Here is a diagram of some of the pieces in the Ken D. Allan article and how they blur the lines of medium specific art:

How do we define the work of Ed Ruscha? Is it painting, sculpture, photography, or all of the above? While this work includes imagery referencing something else, it is all still dependent on the viewer's experience of the work. In relation to ideas of Michael Fried, the work is theatrical yet absorptive. Art that is referential to the vehicular culture of Los Angeles during the 1960's, while entirely dependent on the viewers physical participation in experiencing the art object is in a direct relationship to anyone experiencing the city of Los Angeles. The city is dependent on the participation of the individual driving through it (in order for the city to exist), while paradoxically the image of the city is a reflection of the car culture. The image of Los Angeles is roads, gas stations, similar two-story buildings sprawled across the land, and of course: cars.

Art and Spatial Politics

The readings from this week led me to reconsider public space within the city and specifically the role of public art. The urban public space is anything from a neutral zone. In our capitalist democratic society, our public art is advertising. Billboards flood the city displaying text and images directly leading to a specific, understandable, and often thoughtless meaning. The vast majority of modern public art is comprised of abstract or minimalist sculptures. Two examples in Chicago are the Richard Serra sculpture in Grand Park and the UIC Skyspace created by James Turrell.

Richard Serra

James Turrell

Here we have public art works that are very ambiguous and non-threatening to the public viewers. These art works are visually pleasing and were probably funded by the city of Chicago or, in Turrell's case, the University of Illinois in Chicago. These pubic art works work in a similar way to urban public parks. They are made for people to enjoy. They are a step away from the fast pace, utilitarian functions of the city. They add beauty to the city. On very few occasions is public art threatening.

Here we have public art by Barbara Kruger. While this work was far from being commissioned by the city, Kruger has taken the advertising space as a way of bringing her highly confrontational art into the public space. I am not sure why more have not followed Kruger's approach to bringing her art out of the confines of private spaces and displaying it for all to see. Why is critical art so absent from the public space? 

One aspect of this that was not mentioned in any of the readings was that of public and government funded art programs and institutions. Most art is, in some way, funded by the public and/or the government in some way. Whether it was a commission or the publicly funded grant that the artist received at the beginning of their career. There are somewhere around 109,000 non-profit art organizations around the country that are publicly funded. The problem with critical art in the public space is that it becomes potentially hazardous to the ability that artists have to continue and further their work. One of the most recent and popular examples of this is the notorious examples of this is the David Wojnarowicz and Smithsonian ordeal. 

Still from Wojnarowicz's A Fire In My Belly

When Wojnarowicz's video A Fire In My Belly was removed from the Hide/Seek exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, it appeared that the largest issue that made the controversy so complicated, was the fact that the Smithsonian is largely a publicly funded institution. From what I understood, it seemed like the Smithsonian was caught in a complicated dilemma. If they were to remove the piece, the Andy Warhol Foundation stated that they would cut all funding to the NPG in the future, also stirring up commotion about art censorship, but if they allowed the piece to stay in the exhibition they would put their federal funding in jeopardy. In regards to art within the public space, I think that G. Wayne Clough made the right choice in the removal of the piece. By doing so, the Smithsonian secured further federal funding while simultaneously drawing a massive amount of attention to the piece, and Wojnarowicz's work in general. By removing the video from the museum, the video was brought into the public space, largely through the internet, that probably saw far more public attention than the projects at Pier 18, even though all of them were outside in the public space. 

Images of Gordon Matta-Clark's Day's End

Gordon Matta-Clark's Days End is another unique approach to public art. Here the site-specific "installation" (or maybe "modification" is a more appropriate term) is in an abandoned pier in the Hudson River Harbor. He stated that he "wanted...to make it possible for people to see it" and wanted it to be non-threatening to visitors. Matta-Clark related this work with homeless and workers. Here is art that is not confrontational while also not commissioned by the city. It is not work that is intended to improve the image of the city while it is also not meant as a critique of mass culture. It is not federally or publicly funded. This work, in a way, seems to remove itself from any sort of politics within our capitalist democracy while making a unique and original use of public space. 

Master Builders and Resistance

In The Uses of Neighborhood Parks, chapter 5 of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs directs attention to neighborhood parks within cities. Jacobs prefaces the chapter by claiming that large parks, such as Grant Park and Central Park among many other examples, are too diverse from each other to be able to generalize the standard urban park. Instead, Jacobs turns towards neighborhood parks which are typically intended for "general bread-and-butter use as local public yards."

In order to generalize urban neighborhood parks, Jacobs refers to four diverse parks in Philadelphia, all established at the same time, as the same size, and with the same intentions. The first park is Rittenhouse Square. Of the four parks, Rittenhouse is the most successful. Because the square has a diverse surrounding neighborhood consisting of apartments, a library, a church a cultural society, art galleries, and restaurants, the park flourishes with people on various schedules throughout the day. 

Washington Square is an example of a park that is the complete opposite of Rittenhouse. The park is "filled with perverts." Jacobs believes that the suffering of the park is not due to the creeps that dwell within it, but because of the surrounding neighborhood. This park is not surrounded by a diverse neighborhood, it has a perimeter of office buildings. Office workers are the only civilized people that use the park. The park only becomes alive during the lunch hours, while leaving it deserted for the majority of the day. Jacobs claims that the park used to maintain a good population until the surrounding neighborhood changed into the business district that it was at the time this book was written. Jacobs goes on to state that it is not the offices that led the park to its demise, it can happen in any park that is surrounded by people who are all on the same daily schedule. "Liveliness and variety attract more liveliness; deadness and monotony repel life."

Moving on to the third park, Franklin Square, Jacobs describes a park that is constantly being used. Jacobs refers to this type of park as a "Skid Row park." This is the park that is surrounded by shelters, missions, cheap hotels, and pawnshops. Comprised of primarily the homeless, these types of parks are filled on a twenty-four hour basis. 

Jacobs is claiming that the park is not what is going to develop a strong, diverse neighborhood, but it is the strong, diverse neighborhood that will develop the park. She directly presents this idea when she writes, "It is obvious that a place that looks like a jail yard will neither attract users nor reciprocate with its surroundings in the same fashion as a place that looks like an oasis."

As the chapter continues, Jacobs brings the reader's attention to another factor in determining a successful neighborhood park from an unsuccessful one: design. Successful park design is broken down into four elements.

1. Intricacy - If a neighborhood park is to attract a diverse group of users, it must be complex and suiting to the various needs. The park cannot be understood at one glance but it must offer a greater amount of visual stimuli in order to gain appeal. The park only needs to be intricate at eye-level.

2. Centering - A park needs to have a common area that is at the center of the park. This way, when users walk through the park, they will never feel like they are walking in the same place. Most neighborhood parks are just a center with no surroundings resulting in an incredibly dull area.

3. Sun - If a park is surrounded by buildings that block the sun from large areas of a park, this is going to have a large affect on the amount of users. But to have too much sun would affect the amount of users just as well. The park needs to be well balanced between areas that receive a lot of sunlight and areas which provide shade.

4. Enclosure - While there should not be so many buildings to disallow sunlight, there should still be enough buildings to give the park an enclosed appearance. When a park is surrounded by large buildings, it appears to be a feature of the city as opposed to a side project. Enclosure gives the park credibility and importance.

To close the chapter, Jacobs addresses the "demand goods" or activities within parks. If a park cannot generate a diverse crowd based on its location and design, then there must be an initiative to create events that will draw a diverse crowd. Music and drama are a huge part of this. Free concerts and plays within bandshells often draw a large and diverse crowd. Jacobs suggests other minute activities that can stimulate a diverse crowd such as, places to hire and to ride bikes, places to dig in the ground, outdoor pig roasts, kite flying, and ice skating.  

Photography in the Urban Milieu, 1930s-50s

The reading that briefly summarized the New York School photographers was very informative. 

In William Klein's New York, we see photographs made in the city that were quite unusual during this time. There was a small interest in photography as art. The small amount that was considerable was of a much more formal aesthetic, such as the work of Henry Cartier-Bressan, Walker Evans, and Alfred Steiglitz. Klein and his high-contrast, grainy, gritty, utterly informal photographs depict multiple lifestyles and visual aspects of New York City. The book is split into 7 chapters and with the images there is no accompanying text. To the opposite end, there is an abundance of text within the images.

During the time that Klein made these photographs, he began working for Vogue magazine. I find the relationship between Klein having a new day job at Vogue and his use of advertising text in his work to be incredibly fascinating. Although he was making work separate from the type of photographs one would find in Vogue, he was heavily influenced (whether knowing or unknowing) by the visual stimuli of the marketing and what that did to the image of the city. Klein even stated that he would be inspired by things "all over the place, three million a day, blowing in the gutter, over-flowing ashcans, the New York Daily News." He also said, "Fashion magazines were our art magazines." With any magazine, as with any city, there is an extreme abundance of advertisements.

 

In these photographs, we are seeing the intensive visual stimuli that the city produces. The images suggest that the advertising and text is unavoidable in creating photographs in the city. There is no escape. By portraying all of this advertising in the Klein's art, we see these signs and texts as what Gleber refers to as the "art of the street".

In relation to the past reading by Anke Gleber, Klein can be considered as a "flaneur". He is drawn to the visual stimuli produced through this massive amount of advertising, yet approaches it with a "blase" attitude. Klein states, "I was never after news, of course, just the dumbest, most ordinary stuff." If Klein is looking for the "most ordinary stuff", and there is an obvious amount of advertisements within the work, then William Klein, in relation to Gleber's interpretation of Georg Simmel's thoughts, is experiencing a reactionary defense to the over-abundance of visual stimuli presented by the city.

Although there is a great deal of advertisements photographed in the images of New York, most of them do not hold the advertisement as the primary subject within the frame. This method is further suggesting that Klein had a more casual response to the over abundance advertising visual stimuli within his art inspiration from magazines, his job at Vogue, and the city itself.

The Navigators: Flaneurs

In Man of the Crowd, a short story written by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator is sitting in a London coffee shop observing people. After a short while of witnessing a various sort of moderately intriguing people, the narrator spots, through the window pane, an old man who instantly draws his attention. Leaving the coffee shop, he pursues this man, not to confront but to observe. The man speeds up and slows down, aimlessly crosses streets, and settles in a bazaar until close. Once the night is over, the narrator stops, allowing the old man to continue on his way, in the same place the pursuit began.

Walter Benjamin refers to the old man as Charles Baudelaire's interpretation of the flaneur. This is one who dwells in the majority's exterior allowing the city as a whole to be his interior. The old man does not want to be alone so he becomes a part of the crowd, a deceptive illusion of social interaction. The man becomes a part of, while simultaneously separated from, other people. 

The ideas of Baudelaire as stated by Benjamin regarding the flaneur, can be ascribed to the photographs of Manuel Vasquez:

Manuel Vazquez, Trace 20, 2008.

Manuel Vazquez, Trace 23, 2008.

Manuel Vazquez, Trace 3, 2008

These photo montages display a crowd of flaneurs. While compiled together within the frame, the darkness surrounding them isolates each person from the next. Like the Man of the Crowd, they are separated from, while also a part of, the crowd. By leaving the smallest amount of environmental context, before none at all, the walkers appear to be in a shared urban setting. Each person goes a different direction and, because of the emptiness of the black, appear to be completely aimless. Aside from the cultural context presented through the style or trend of the walkers' clothes, these people are all anonymous. We are not told who they are, where they are, or where they are going. These ideas can be related to Benjamin, as he refers to people in a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, "the anonymous consumer who enters a cafe and will shortly leave it again, attracted by the magnet of the mass which constantly has him in its range." and continues, "an enormous crowd in which no one is either quite transparent or quite opaque to all others."

Anke Gleber furthers the idea of the flaneur. By observing how others have theorized the perception of the modern city, the flaneur is found in the center of two extremes. Here is a diagram:

While the flaneur seems to gravitate more towards the viewpoints of Georg Simmel, because of the flaneur's indifference, he is still separated.The flaneur is a result of the modern city producing a vast amount of visual stimuli. The flaneur takes part in what the perception of modern city has to offer, while simultaneously rejects the physical and utilitarian advancements offered by the modern city. The flaneur sees the train and accepts the visual stimulus that the train has to offer, yet does not take part in the physical nature of it; the train has the ability to transit at a faster pace.

While the modern city is based on visual stimuli, (trains, streetlights, traffic signals, advertisements) what would the perception of the city be if it became more of an audio stimuli? The roar of the train that is unmistakeable, the obtrusive honking of multiple horns, the consistency of sirens flowing in and out of buildings are all audio stimuli. The sound of the city, while still increasing stimuli, seems to do so, but  much less desirably than the image of the city.