tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89244687034835184882024-02-19T05:00:47.586-05:00Exegetteexegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-74049895492845902382016-09-09T13:05:00.001-04:002016-09-09T20:47:56.061-04:00A WaPo Editorial Worth KudosThe following editorial appeared in the <i>Washington Post</i> after NBC's Commander-in-Chief forum, and deserves to be commended, quoted and widely reprinted.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>"The Hillary Clinton email story is out of control</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b> </b>By Editorial Board</span><br />
<br />
<div id="U112011847919346LH">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Judging by the amount of time NBC’s Matt Lauer spent pressing Hillary Clinton on her emails during Wednesday’s national security presidential forum<span style="color: black;"></span>,
one would think that her homebrew server was one of the most important
issues facing the country this election. It is not. There are a thousand
other substantive issues — from China’s aggressive moves in the South
China Sea to National Security Agency intelligence-gathering to military
spending — that would have revealed more about what the candidates know
and how they would govern. Instead, these did not even get mentioned in
the first of 5½ precious prime-time hours the two candidates will share
before Election Day, while emails took up a third of Ms. Clinton’s
time.</span></div>
<div id="U112011847919346LH">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Sadly, Mr. Lauer’s widely panned handling of the candidate forum was not an aberration. Judging by polls
showing that voters trust Mr. Trump more than Ms. Clinton, as well as
other evidence, it reflects a common shorthand for this election articulated by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick last week: <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span>You have Donald Trump, who’s openly racist,<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span> he said. Then, of
Ms. Clinton: <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span>I mean, we have a presidential candidate who’s deleted
emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That
doesn’t make sense to me, because if that was any other person, you’d be
in prison.<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"In fact, Ms. Clinton’s emails have endured much
more scrutiny than an ordinary person’s would have, and the criminal
case against her was so thin that charging her would have been to treat
her very differently. Ironically, even as the email issue consumed so
much precious airtime, several pieces of news reported Wednesday should
have taken some steam out of the story. First is a memo
FBI Director James B. Comey sent to his staff explaining that the
decision not to recommend charging Ms. Clinton was 'not a cliff-hanger'<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>and that people <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span>chest-beating<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span> and second-guessing the FBI do not know
what they are talking about. Anyone who claims that Ms. Clinton should
be in prison accuses, without evidence, the FBI of corruption or
flagrant incompetence.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Second is the emergence of an email exchange
between Ms. Clinton and former secretary of state Colin Powell in which
he explained that he used a private computer and bypassed State
Department servers while he ran the agency, even when communicating with
foreign leaders and top officials. Mr. Powell attempted
last month to distance himself from Ms. Clinton’s practices, which is
one of the many factors that made the email story look worse. Now, it
seems, Mr. Powell engaged in similar behavior.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Last is a finding
that 30 Benghazi-related emails that were recovered during the FBI
email investigation and recently attracted big headlines had nothing
significant in them. Only one, in fact, was previously undisclosed, and
it contained nothing but a compliment from a diplomat. But the damage of
the <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span>30 deleted Benghazi emails<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span> story has already been done.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"</span>Ms. Clinton is hardly blameless. She treated the public’s interest in
sound record-keeping cavalierly. A small amount of classified material
also moved across her private server. But it was not obviously marked as
such, and there is still no evidence that national security was harmed.
Ms. Clinton has also admitted that using the personal server was a
mistake. The story has vastly exceeded the boundaries of the facts.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Imagine
how history would judge today’s Americans if, looking back at this
election, the record showed that voters empowered a dangerous man
because of . . . a minor email scandal. There is no equivalence between
Ms. Clinton’s wrongs and Mr. Trump’s manifest unfitness for office." </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<br />exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-15250574443885911132016-09-07T13:32:00.000-04:002016-09-07T13:32:25.604-04:00Shocked by the Polls?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Have the post Labor Day polls shocked the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i>, or was it Paul Krugman’s
incisive September 5th column? Or have NYT news editors and reporters suddenly realized what
their continuously negative coverage of Hillary may have wrought? Have they
suddenly awakened to the frightening consequences of their non-stop/ non-critical
attention to Trump? Do they finally understand which candidate always lies?
Which candidate is the truly “corrupt” one? Whose "scandals" are the most truly scandalous?</div>
exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-67560136652752440152016-09-06T16:40:00.005-04:002016-09-06T16:54:07.484-04:00Paul Krugman on the Campaign: Weasel Words and the Presumption of Guilt<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In an excellent column
(“Hillary Clinton Gets Gored,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York
Times</i>, Op Ed, 9-5-16), Paul Krugman expresses succinctly the reasons he and
many others are beginning to have a “sick, sinking feeling” about the
presidential campaign. Issuing an implicit warning, Krugman notes that the widespread,
continuous suggestions and/or outright attacks on Hillary Clinton as guilty of unspecified
dishonesty, illegal conflicts of interest and vague “corruption” (all
unsupported by facts) are painfully reminiscent of the kind of baseless
insinuations that ended up destroying Al Gore’s campaign. (Krugman might also
have mentioned the similar “Swiftboating” that doomed John Kerry).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“True,” Krugman says, “there aren’t many
efforts to pretend that Donald Trump is a paragon of honesty. But it’s hard to
escape the impression that he’s being graded on a curve. If he manages to read
from a TelePrompter without going off script, he’s being presidential. If he
seems to suggest that he wouldn’t round up all 11 million undocumented
immigrants right away, he’s moving into the mainstream. And many of his
multiple scandals, like what appear to be clear payoffs to state attorneys
general to back off investigating Trump University, get remarkably little
attention.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">With media coverage
of Clinton, on the other hand, the operative presumption is always that
anything she does “must be corrupt,” an attitude, Krugman says, “most
spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton
Foundation.” He</span> points out that the Clinton Foundation “is, by all
accounts, a big force for good in the world. For example, Charity Watch, an
independent watchdog, gives it an ‘A’ rating—better than the American Red
Cross.” But he also acknowledges that “any operation that raises and spends
billions of dollars creates the potential for conflicts of interest…So it was
right and appropriate to investigate the foundation’s operations to see if
there were any improper quid pro quos. As reporters like to say, the sheer size
of the foundation ‘raises questions.’ But nobody seems willing to accept the
answers to those questions, which are, very clearly, ‘no.’”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" data-para-count="402" data-total-count="3521">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Krugman urges</span> journalists to ask
whether they are reporting facts or simply engaging in innuendo, and he urges
the public to read with a critical eye. “If reports about a candidate talk
about how something “raises questions,” creates “shadows,” or anything similar,
be aware that these are all too often weasel words used to create the
impression of wrongdoing out of thin air.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Others have also
commented on the use of innuendo in the coverage of Clinton. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vox</i> (8-30-16), Matthew Yglesias effectively
contrasted the way the media treats the Clinton Foundation with the coverage of
a similar charitable foundation established by former Secretary of State Colin
Powell. With the latter, the context has been a “presumption of innocence.” For
Hillary, of course, the context is always the presumption that she, and
anything connected to her, is bound to be “corrupt.” Even when reporters find
no evidence of wrongdoing (Like Krugman, Yglesias cites examples), they
insinuate otherwise, and never bother to issue corrections. “</span>The
perception that Clinton is corrupt is one of her most profound handicaps as a
politician,” says Yglesias. “And what’s particularly crippling about it is that
evidence of her corruption is so widespread exactly because everyone knows
she’s corrupt.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Will responsible members of the press pay attention? Will
they finally realize that, at the least, their baseless insinuations wildly distort
the public’s perception of Hillary Clinton? Will they understand that, at
worst, their feckless reportage could hand over our country’s presidency to the
most preposterous, most unqualified candidate in recent history?<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-84783063575998603902014-12-06T11:17:00.000-05:002014-12-07T00:18:59.143-05:00On Turrell at the Whitney 1980-81<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin-right: 27pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">JAMES TURRELL: THE ART OF DECEPTION</span><span style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin-right: 0.25in;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">By NANCY
MARMER</span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin-right: 0.25in;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">[reprinted
from <i>Art in America</i>, May 1981, pp.90-99]</span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-right: .25in;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin-right: 0.25in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">Perfect instances of what Emily </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">Dickinson
called "sumptuous </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">Destitution," James Turrell's </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">bare space
and light installations </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.65pt;">demonstrate that an appeal to the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">senses is not
incompatible with austere </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">means. It is their extreme austerity </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">rather than
their muted sensuosity, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">however, that has seemed especially striking
this year [1980-81] in New York, where a </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">number of extravagant environmental </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.8pt;">exhibitions
have recently been </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">mounted. In such a context, Turrell's mini-retrospective
at the Whitney and </span>his
single piece at Castelli this past win<span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">ter
performed once again the ritually </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">purifying
role that is one of reductiv</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">ism's
great strengths. Indeed, com</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">pared to
Turrell's work, several of the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">season's
most elaborate environmental </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">shows
were undone, their fashionable </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">clutter
suddenly made to seem manic, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">over-embellished,
incurably frivolous. </span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin-right: 0.25in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">Turrell's chaste New York installa</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">tions were
vivid reminders of the schis</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">matic, renunciatory mood of the late </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">'60s, when
Californians first began con</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">structing art out of nothing but light </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">and space.
His 1966-67 light "Projec</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5pt;">tion Pieces," his 1968-69 "Shallow </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">Space
Constructions," and his 1969 "Mendota Stoppages" were among the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">earliest
examples of one of the few real</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">ly distinctive forms of advanced art to </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">have
developed independently on the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.85pt;">West Coast during the past two </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">decades.
Sometimes referred to as </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">"perceptual environments," </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">these lean
and parsimoniously equipped </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">installations began making their first </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">public
appearances in Southern Cali</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">fornia just as the style called "fetish </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">finish"
(L.A.'s slick, plastically gleam</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">ing version of Minimalism) was en</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">tering its
decline. In fact, several of the West Coast's most notable exponents of </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">the polished
object—e.g., Robert Irwin </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">and Larry Bell—were prominent early
practitioners of the perceptualist mode. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">Other California artists at one time
or </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">another associated with the form have been Michael Asher, Doug Wheeler, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">DeWain
Valentine, Maria Nordman, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">Hap Tivey and Eric Orr.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin-right: 0.25in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">The typical California perceptual environment of the
mid-'70s was a silent and empty space, its unadorned interior </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">inflected only
by minor alterations in </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">architecture or by subtle rearrange</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">ments in
light: some unforeseen brightness fell from the upper air; a barely perceptible
scrim split a room in half; a </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">thin streak of noon leaked arclike into </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">an otherwise
darkened studio; a skimpy </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">new wall interrupted an old, familiar </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">vista; or
perhaps an old wall, newly </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">dismantled, revealed an unexpected </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">view of the
Venice beach. Such slight </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">tamperings with the status quo gently </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">marked the
artist's presence. They were </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.75pt;">also meant to rivet the spectator's </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">attention,
to turn him into a super-</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">esthete, or at least into one of James's </span>preternaturally alert
people—those in<span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">tense voyeurs for whom
observation is </span>the most exquisite kind of pursuit. <span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Addressed to the solipsistic world of the </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">individual viewer's nervous system, the </span>perceptual
environment revealed char<span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">acteristic aspects
of the West Coast </span>mentality of the 1970s, in particular its
hyper-attentiveness to the nuances of <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">sensory
experience, its perfectionism verging on preciosity, and its oxymoronic
addiction to a hedonistic brand of </span>purity. The perceptualist mode also <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">reflected the fortunate freedom of Cali</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">fornians to be profligate with the </span>resources
of natural illumination and <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">space, a
birthright which may begin to </span>explain the unbounded West Coast <span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">adoration of light and disembodied </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.35pt;">color.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin: 0.25pt 0.25in 0.0001pt 0.7pt; text-indent: 35.3pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;"> Though there is no doubt about
the </span>uneasiness of
the Southern California <span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">artist's
relationship to art traditions </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">and to
traditional art materials, it is a </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">moot
point whether the innocence of history often attributed to California artists
is real or feigned. The perceptual installation, for </span>example, takes its
place quite naturally within the lengthy art-historical gene<span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">alogy of the environment form, a </span><i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">Gesamtkunstwerk </span></i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">tradition that in our </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">own
century has contained works as </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">crammed
as Schwitters's <i>Merzbau, </i>as </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">clean-cut
as El Lissitzky's <i>Proun </i></span><i>Spaces, </i>as overdressed as Kaprow's
<i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">Garage, </span></i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">and as labyrinthine as Du</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">champ's <i>Mile of String. </i>If the West </span>Coast
environment seems singularly <span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">emptied of
history, a deprived stepchild </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">in
relation to its overprivileged anteced</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">ents—a
<i>camera rasa, </i>as it were—it is, </span>among other reasons, because of
the intervening influence of Minimalism.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin: 0.25pt 0.25in 0.0001pt 0.95pt; text-indent: 35.05pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
Without the prior existence of the <span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">denuded, "situational"
sculpture of </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">Morris, Andre and
Flavin, it is virtually impossible to imagine the evolution of </span>the
perceptual installation. But those <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">precedents
scarcely account for the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">exaggerated
reductiveness—the hy</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">gienic
purification—to which West </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">Coast artists
like Turrell and Irwin sub</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">jected the
environment form, nor for </span>the extremes to which they took the <span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">already popular, phenomenologically justified idea
of defining art by the sen</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">sory
experience it provided and not by </span>the palpable forms it took. Nor does <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">Minimalism explain the unprecedented seriousness
with which the California </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">artists
high-mindedly rejected what Morris would later (1971) label the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">"static, portable, indoor art object."</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin: 0.5pt 0.25in 0.0001pt 3.1pt; text-indent: 32.9pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin: 0.5pt 0.25in 0.0001pt 3.1pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">
II</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin: 0.5pt 0.25in 0.0001pt 3.1pt; text-indent: 32.9pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"> The intensity of
the California artists’ </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">rejection has to be remem</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">bered within
a larger art-</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">political context—the rebel</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">lious anti-object mood that swept </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">through the
international art world </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">during the latter part of the Vietnam </span>War years. Though in no way overtly
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">political, perceptual installations were </span>political
in spite of themselves. The <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">supreme West
Coast version of the "de-</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">materialization
of the art object," they </span>quintessentially symbolized the idea of <span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">art striving to detach itself both from </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">corrupt matter and corrupt money. If </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">some dissenters (not irrelevantly) saw the mode as
yet another middle-class </span>evasion, yet another pseudo-spiritual <span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">accommodation to temporarily exacerbated
political circumstances, percep</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">tual
environments were nevertheless </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">more widely
read as conscientious objectors to the "consumer fetishism" </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">of the art establishment and as non-participants
in that establishment's sys</span>tem of distribution and validation. And <span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">during those politically charged years, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">the public exhibition of an unsalable </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">room filled only with equally unmar</span>ketable
light did indeed have a piquan<span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">cy and a
point that has become hard to </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">recall
today, when all types of concep</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">tual
projects, environments, earth</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">works,
performances, and other forms </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">of
non-object, "post-studio" art have </span>long been absorbed into the
system as <span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">smoothly as simple sugars.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"> Nor was the seemingly
fastidious dis</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">affiliation of the perceptual installation from the
"cash nexus" the only radical</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">ism of the mode. Without the support </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">or
presumption of a dissenting ideology, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">West Coast perceptualists unselfconsciously
subverted a number of late-</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">modernism's most tenaciously espoused </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">theoretical
premises, among them the </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">Romantic notion of the work of art as a </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">self-enclosed,
self-referential micro</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">cosm and the Lessing-derived, modern</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">ist-endorsed
dictum that the visual arts </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.55pt;">must deal in spatial, not temporal,</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;"> form. The
diachronic, sequential struc</span>ture of the experience provided by per<span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">ceptual installations was the exact </span>reverse of orthodoxy's construct—that
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">autotelic form whose stable meaning </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">grew out of synchronic relations. View</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">er participation and duration were </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">essential to California environments, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;">and a colorful mythology of slow </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">time—perhaps ultimately based on </span>nothing
more than the sweet Angeleno preference for the laid-back life—grew up around
them. It was understood that <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">such pieces
could be fully appreciated </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">only after
the passage of hours, even </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">days.
During that time, significant </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">changes
(either actual or subjectively </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">induced)
would have occurred in the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">light and
mood of a piece, and, if he or she </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">were
properly responsive, in the psyche </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">of
the spectator. The modernist's instantaneous moment of apprehension </span>was
thus exchanged for the perceptual<span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">ist's
instant of misapprehension—a </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">first impression
that would be modified </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">and remodified
by a patient viewer who </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">was both a
participant in the piece and its beholder.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;"> In retrospect, it now seems obvious </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">that the
generic ambiguity of percep</span>tual installations constituted a direct, if finally abortive,
challenge to the reign<span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">ing orthodoxy of
'60s art. Hovering </span>indeterminately between painting and <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">sculpture, these new works impudently bypassed
late-modernism's increasingly </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">restrictive
definitions of genre as well </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">as the
rigid insistence of late-modernist </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">critics
on the integrity of traditional </span>mediums. Yet, the issues were by no <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">means clear at the time. For many sym</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">pathetic viewers, the shift from the </span>optic
emphases, the metaphorically <span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">deracinated
hues, of color field and </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">stain
painting to the literally disembodied opticality of the light and color of
perceptual environments was not diffi</span>cult to negotiate. "To
examine a work <span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;">of art," says Rene
Girard, is "to </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">attempt to
discover what the work </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">omits as much
as—if not more than— </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">what it
includes." Considered as direct </span>descendants of "optical"
painting, per<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">ceptual environments
obviously omitted </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">the <i>matière </i>of
paint. But since the paint of late-modernism was already so emaciated as to
mimic incorporeality, its </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">transubstantiation
into light and air could be experienced in the late '60s </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">less as a significant omission or a poi</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">gnant sacrifice than as a subtle varia</span>tion
on an already familiar, if anorexic <span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">theme.
From such a vantage point, the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">new
form could be (and often was) </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">neatly subsumed
within the history of </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">late-modernist painting as a further </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">stage in the
Greenbergian reductive </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">process—even a conservatizing trend, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">given the
extravagance of some more unruly manifestations of "post-studio" </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">art—rather
than interpreted as an </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">apostatic move that questioned the principles
of modernism itself.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"> Viewed within the history of sculp</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">ture,
however, the same environments revealed more readily their adversarial </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">posture,
their clearly deconstructive </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">role. For when considered as sculpture, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">even as
descendants of Minimalist </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">sculpture, these works clearly omitted a </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">great deal.
No matter how bare, how </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">stripped-down, how "primary," how </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">exceedingly
meager in surface interest </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">Minimalist sculptures were, they still </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">had an
incontrovertible, even aggres</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">sive, presence. They came in wood, in </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">steel, or in
aluminum; they could be </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5pt;">pushed or thumped; they could be </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">shifted from
one indoor site to another. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">Perceptual environments, on the other hand,
dispensed entirely with the sine </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">qua non of sculpture—the solid, mov</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">able object.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"> It is not difficult to read such a dra</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">matic
omission as a schismatic gesture, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">a decisive moment, in the history of </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">modernist
art. Benjamin Buchloh, for example, commenting on </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">Michael
Asher's work, sees the reduc</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">tive environment not only as a rejection </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">of certain
modes of sculptural production, but as a challenge to the "material </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">and
historical legitimacy" of the genre </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">of sculpture itself; to him such works </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">question the
very validity of "sculpture </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">as a category," and thus, presumably, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">sever all
ties with the modernist tradi</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">tion. The argument is cogent only to </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">this extent:
what the perceptual envi</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">ronment preserved of the sculptural </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">object's
remembered presence—i.e., its </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">architectural container and the occa</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">sion that
the object had provided for the experience of art—was scarcely enough </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">to link the
new form to the modernist tradition, unless "sculpture" itself were
radically redefined. But, of course, that </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">is exactly what did happen during the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">mid-'70s.
Conveniently elasticized and </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">generously expanded to tolerate all </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">manner of
"post-studio" art, the estab</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">lishment definition of
"sculpture" was pluralistically revised. In that recupera</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">tive gesture
the force of tradition was </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">upheld, the dissident content of generic </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">ambiguity
defused, and the palace </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">revolution of non-object art was suc</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">cessfully
aborted.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;"> III</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">During the decade-and-a-half </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">since their
first appearances </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">on the West Coast, a few Cal</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">ifornia
perceptual environ</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;">ments have journeyed east to New </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">York, most
notably those of Irwin, Bell </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">and Asher. Now, James Turrell, in <i>his </i></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">first bid to
join what Angelenos like to </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">call "The Mainstream," has arrived.
</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">Before
this season, Turrell's installa</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5pt;">tions were known on the East Coast </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">only from
occasional references in </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">national publications or by those who </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">had visited
his West Coast studio, his </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.8pt;">Roden Crater project in Arizona </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.65pt;">(where the
artist lived from 1976 to 1980) or by those who had seen his </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">work in
Europe.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;"> Yet, in the late '60s in Southern California,
Turrell's career began in high </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">gear. After studying experimental psy</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">chology as
an undergraduate at Po</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">mona College, he constructed his first </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">light
projection piece, <i>Proto-Afrum </i></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">(1966), while enrolled as a graduate </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">student at
the Irvine campus of the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">University of California. Within a year, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">Turrell was
already being given his first </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">one-man show at the Pasadena Mu</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">seum.
Curated by John Coplans, whose </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">article on the young artist appeared </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">concurrently
in <i>Artforum, </i>the Pasade</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">na show inspired Barbara Rose to label </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">Turrell as
"the most interesting artist </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">to come out of California since Ron </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">Davis."
But, as a matter of fact, Tur</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">rell's work did not come <i>out </i>of
Califor</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">nia for some years afterward. Though </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;">supported in the interim by a few </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">grants and
later on by important commissions from Count Panza di Biumo </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">and the Dia
foundation, Turrell's ca</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">reer during the next decade developed </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">almost
exclusively within the privacy of </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">the Southern California artists' com</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">munity and
away from public view. Between the 1967 Pasadena show and </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">his next
one-man appearance in 1976 at </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">Turrell's
exhibition history lists only a<i> </i></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">few "formal exhibitions"—all
held at </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">his own studio, which was located in an </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">Ocean Park building formerly known </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">as the
Mendota Hotel.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin: 0.25pt 0.25in 0.0001pt 3.35pt; text-indent: 32.65pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;"> A significant event for Turrell, </span>though the project itself would
never be <span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">realized, was Bob Irwin's
invitation to </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5pt;">the younger artist in
the summer of </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">1968 to join him in planning
a collabo</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">rative proposal for the Los
Angeles </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">County Museum's
much-publicized </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">"Art and
Technology" show. Turrell is </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">credited
with having introduced Irwin </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">to many
of the perceptual concerns that </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">the
older Californian had just begun to </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">explore
at this time, and both artists </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">were
evidently much influenced by a third member of their team, the psy</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">chologist Ed Wortz. An employee of a </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">California aerospace research compa</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">ny, Wortz had been instrumental in </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">developing life support systems for </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">manned lunar flights; he was especially </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">familiar with experiments on the visual </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">perception of space under highly un</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">usual circumstances. The three collabo</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">rators devoted their attention to explor</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">ing the effects of sensory deprivation on </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5pt;">human perception; if implemented, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">their project would have isolated subjects in
anechoic chambers and submit</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">ted them to biofeedback techniques as </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">well as to
the dislocating experience of </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">ganzfields. (Wortz defined the latter as </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">visual
fields in which "there are no </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">objects you can take hold of with your
eye." A ganzfield is "entirely homoge</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">nous in color. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 1.65pt;">...</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;"> Its unique
feature is </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">that it appears to be light-filled" and </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">that its
light seems "to have sub</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">stance.") The team's stated goal—to </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">create a
setting in which individuals </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">could "perceive their perceptions"—
</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">and
become "conscious of their con</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">sciousness"—has remained central
to Turrell’s own subsequent preoccupa</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.3pt;">tions.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin: 0.25pt 0.25in 0.0001pt 3.35pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"> IV</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; line-height: 150%; margin: 0.25pt 0.25in 0.0001pt 3.35pt; text-indent: 32.65pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">All
Turrell's pieces since 1966 have<span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;"> been concerned
with light as the</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;"> fabricator of
illusion, or, more</span><i><span style="font-variant: small-caps; letter-spacing: 0.15pt;"> </span></i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">specifically, with the
way a </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">manipulated light source can
control </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">(and distort) a viewer's
perception of a </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">given space. Turrell
works with both </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">interior and
exterior space—with en</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">closed rooms
and with the open sky. </span>Since his latter pieces require penetra<span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">tion of structural walls to gain access to
outside space, only interior works were </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">constructed at the Whitney and Castel</span>li. (An environment from the
artist's <span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">"Structural Cuts and
Skyspaces" series </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">is, however,
now nearing completion at </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">P.S. 1, and
the Roden Crater project, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">where
Turrell is currently building </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">areas
for controlled viewing of the "size </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">and the shape of the sky," was represented by drawings at
Castelli.) In his </span>interior pieces, Turrell's means are the <span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">height of economy: using only the gal</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">lery's walls and several additional </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">dividing partitions, he builds simple </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">room-size environments which he coats </span>with
pristine titanium white paint. Into <span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">these
spare settings, the artist intro</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">duces
a variety of light sources, ranging from argon, quartz, xenon and fluores</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">cent tubes to commonplace tungsten </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">bulbs and ordinary daylight. Unlike Flavin and many
other light artists, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">Turrell never
treats the bulb or tube as </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">an art
object in itself. In his work such </span>hardware is either hidden or
unobtrusive. Turrell's earliest installations use <span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">bright beams of projected light to </span>create discrete, sharply edged
geomet<span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">ric shapes that seem to hover weight</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">lessly in the gallery. In subsequent works, large open
spaces are parti</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">tioned and
variously illuminated, struc</span>tured, and transformed by ambient or <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">direct lighting.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"> Transplanted from their native lo</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">cale and
shorn of their original and now </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">almost forgotten polemical context, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">Turrell's
environments still make their </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">basic appeal today on the somewhat </span>dated grounds of the perceptual
experience they offer. Indeed, now that the <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">art-political
radicalism of his pieces has in effect been extinguished by several </span>turns
of art's wheel of fashion, the per<span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">ceptual emphases
and the sensuous </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">appeal of Turrell's
work may seem even </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">more blatant. For
the artist deals quite </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">openly in the
seductive visual appeal of </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">luminosity.
His installations do not </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">eschew
moods and atmospheric vapors, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">nor do
they fail to exploit the inherent </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">potential
for mystery in the emptiness </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">of a
dimly lit room. His work even </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">verges
on evoking the extramundane symbolism of light. (Can any abstract </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">Western art that takes light as its chief </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">medium <i>not </i>remember all those centu</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5pt;">ries in which radiant energy was </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">equated with divinity?) Illumination in Turrell's
pieces can range from the diffused glare of a smoggy morning to the </span>brilliant
halo that rings an eclipsed sun. <span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">In his work,
vacancy can glitter or </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">gloom, and
light is both occult sub</span>stance and scientific phenomenon, both <span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">incorporeal essence and sensuous ef</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">fect. Predictably, Turrell's installations </span>in
New York have been interpreted as <span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">"doors
to perception"—i.e., as occa</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">sions
for a tremulous appreciation of </span>exquisite light and color, as excuses
for <span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">belated excursions into Zen arcana, or </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">as opportunities for a bit of ad hoc, midday
meditation. Nor are such uses </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">of his
work altogether alien to one </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">important
part of the artist's intention. </span>(Turrell has described the experience of
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">his environments as "analogous to </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">entering [a] dream" while still "in the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">conscious, awake state.")</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"> At the Whitney, two installations in
particular exploited the sensuosity of light and its capacity to create a hyp</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">notic,
quasi-mystical, meditative mood. </span><i>Wedgework 3 </i>(1969), the prettiest and most narrative work of the group,
con<span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">sisted of a room containing a short </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">dividing wall which sectioned off a </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">small portion of the total space. The </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">area behind that partition was hidden </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">from view, but out of that secret corner </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">streamed a mix of blue and pink fluo</span>rescent
light, producing what at first seemed to be a transparent, diagonally extended,
pastel-colored curtain. The <span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">effect was
somehow both theatrical and </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">intimate.
There was an air of muted </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">expectancy,
an annunciatory flavor— </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">as if that
slant of light might be pro</span>logue to some majestic vision, some <span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">angelic arrival, though, in fact, the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">mood itself was the only (and suffi</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">cient) event.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;"> The City of Arhirit </span></i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">(1975-76)
was a </span>cooler, less
ingratiating, but even more <span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">hypnotic installation.
A partial ganz</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">field (a complete
ganzfield would have </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">enclosed the
viewer on all sides), the </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">piece
consisted of an empty cubicle—a </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">smallish
room with a lowish ceiling, its </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">five
sides painted an impeccable white, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">and
its corners gently rounded. During </span>the day the work was illuminated by <span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">daylight filtered through a plexiglass </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">sheet and entering the space from a </span>window
behind the spectator. At night, <span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">argon lit
the room. Both made the air </span>inside seem exotically blue-tinted, pal<span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">pable, almost shimmering. At first the space
appeared endless and its periph</span>eries impossible to locate. One's own <span style="letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">equilibrium felt oddly threatened. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">Soon, however, the intensity of the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">color faded and it was possible to find </span>an
interim balance in a field of spatial uncertainty. Nevertheless, viewers lin<span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">gered, staring passively or pensively </span>into
the emptiness, hypersensitively at<span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">tuned to
a low-level humming sound </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">(perhaps
generated by the air venting </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">system),
and waiting for some flicker of </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">change,
some nudge from the numi</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.25pt;">nous.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"> Such non-verbal pleasures and/or </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">mystical
experiences are freely avail</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">able in Turrell's installations, but his </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">work has
another more rigorous, even </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">didactic, aspect to it that tends to be </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">ignored—an
aspect that points to the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">future, rather than the past. What for </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">me exempts
Turrell's installations from </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">being simply exercises in pure '70s nar</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">cissism—from
being, that is, merely </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">spaces in which to indulge in the "vo</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">luptuousness
of looking" or in the solip</span>sistic calm of meditation—is their crucial use of the chilling
art of deception. <span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">The most startling feature
of his works </span>is that they are never what they initially seem to be, and
his most interesting <span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">installations are those
that insist on the disjunctions and contradictions inher</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">ent in that disparity.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.55pt;"> V</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.55pt;">T</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.55pt;">he spectator
approaches all of</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.7pt;"> Turrell's works as if from the</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;"> wings of a
stage; one feels drawn</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">into them, feels solicited, as it </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">were, to
move about in their hushed </span>spaces and theatrical lights, and feels lulled into believing
one’s first impres<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">sions. "Everything
looks permanent un</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">til its secret is
known," says Emerson. </span>The secrets of these installations are <span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">known fairly soon, in some cases </span>abruptly.
It is characteristic of Turrell's works that after initially deceiving <span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">viewers, and subsequently demystifying them</span>,
his installations finally leave viewers in posses<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">sion of two irreconcilable visions—one </span>illusory (or inauthentic)
and one fac<span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">tually accurate (or authentic).
Both </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">visions are essential to the
piece, but cannot logically be entertained at once. </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">That the gap between the two views is </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">impossible to bridge, is beyond healing, </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">lends a character of irony to the experi</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">ence of Turrell's work, and, further</span>more,
makes that experience paradig<span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">matic of the
imperfections and discon</span>tinuities of all visual experience.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
Let me trace, for example, the dis<span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">continuous,
diachronic, and finally </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">ironic nature
of the viewer's experience </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">of <i>Laar</i> (1980), a work in Turrell's </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">"Space Division Series." The piece one </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">entered as one stepped off the Whitney </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">elevator, <i>Laar</i> at first seemed to be sim</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">ply an untenanted gallery—an open </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">space dimly lit, impressively large, and immensely
vacant. At the far end of the </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">gallery,
however, was an oddity—a wall </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">with,
apparently, a large, opaquely </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">painted,
monochromatic gray rectangle inscribed on it. Late '30s decor? A </span>Minimalist
wall painting? An austere <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">backdrop for a
performance? It was impossible to determine the rectangle's purpose until one approached
the wall, at which point it suddenly and surprisingly became evident that the
gray rec</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">tangle was not an opaque
painting at </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">all, but a windowlike
aperture cut into a </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">very thin
dividing wall—an opening </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">that gave
onto an inaccessible small </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">inner space,
an unexpected interior </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">room in which
the atmosphere was </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">dense, grainy,
foggy, almost tangible. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">(Turrell
constantly frustrates the em</span>pirical, literalist side of us that, like <span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">Wallace Stevens's Nabob of bones, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">wants "imperceptible air," wants
"the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">eye to see/And not be
touched by </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">blue.") It soon became
apparent that </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">the interior room was
also initially </span>deceptive—that there was no fog, but <span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">only the illusion of fog, that the empty </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">inner space was atmospherically mys</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">terious only because of reflections from </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">the gallery lights outside. And, stepping </span>back,
one was amazed to discover that, <span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">in spite of
what one now knew, the </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">illusion of
opacity was perfectly recov</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">erable.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;"> Laar</span></i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">(and its sibling "Space Divi</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">sion" piece at Castelli)
elucidates the </span>pitfalls
of trusting our normal sensory <span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">responses to
a given set of conventional</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">ly
interpreted spatial cues. Unlike our </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">attitude
towards the illusions invoked </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">by
perspectival drawing (illusions </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">which
we in Western culture accept without feeling deceived, even though we realize
that such distorted drawings </span>can be ambiguous and may, in Gom<span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">brich's words, represent "an infinite </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">number of possible, if improbable, con</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">figurations"), we rarely expect such
ambiguities to occur in our experience </span>of real space. We assume that, as
Gom<span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">brich says, "our eyes are eminently </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">suited to guide us." But it is precisely that
easy and unquestioned assumption </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">that
Turrell's installations refute. As we move about his rooms, our eyes </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">seem constantly to deceive us, and we </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">learn a new language of spatial tenta</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">tiveness, a new doubt, a new feeling of </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">distance about our immediate sensory </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">reactions. In short, we encounter an </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">experience that leads either to anxiety </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">or—more acceptably—to irony.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"> In an art context, the latter reaction </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">lends itself
more profitably to investiga</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">tion. At the moment when Turrell's </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">work
demystifies us, when it becomes </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">clear that we were formerly deceived </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">and that we
are now undeceived, at that </span>disjunctive moment we experience a <span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">curiously vivid feeling of self-awareness, a condition that Turrell and
Irwin </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">would no doubt describe as
being "conscious of consciousness." Baudelaire's </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">label for that state was <i>dédouble</i></span><i>ment</i>, which he identified as an eerie <span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">sense of self-duplication, of detach</span>ment,
that occurred when the subject of <span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">an
experience simultaneously became its observer, a double who watched </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">himself in the act of responding to a </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">surprising event. The "other" who </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">watches is inevitably an ironist ("Iro</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">ny," says Paul de Man, "divides the </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">flow of temporal experience into a past </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">that is pure mystification and a future </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">that remains harassed forever by a </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">relapse within the inauthentic"), a viewer whose </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">mode of response significantly alters </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">the experiential tone of the work.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
Although tempered by the sensuous<span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">ness with
which light is treated in indi</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">vidual
installations, that same sense of </span>ironic distance is produced in varying
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">degrees by all of Turrell's works. In </span><i>Afrum</i> (1967), one of his earliest light <span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">"Projection Pieces," a high-intensity beam of light emitted
from a quartz-</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">halogen projector is
directed into a cor</span>ner. The light creates the illusion of a <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">three-dimensional
object (it could be a </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">floating Larry Bell cube) somehow </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">attached to the two walls it touches. As we
approach the cube, however, its </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">three-dimensionality
dissolves, and we </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">know it for what
it actually is—a beam of light. Turrell describes his piece as seeming "to
objectify and make physi</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">cally present
light as tangible material." But for the viewer, the decisive </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">point is the moment when seemingly </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">solid matter becomes <i>in</i>tangible; at that
point, we become aware of our </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">own
processes of perception and move </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">into
an ironic mode.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;"> Turrell's canny manipulations of il</span>lusory trompe-l'oeil effects and
his <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">incorporation of disjunctive perception
into the fabric of his works finally pro</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">voke the viewer to question the way </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">visual art in general is experienced. By demystifying the illusions his
installa</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">tions create, Turrell provides
a para</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">digm for the viewer to
deconstruct all </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">visual experience,
which is now seen to </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">be a matter of
fragmentary, unreliable </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">sensory
impressions and thus subject to </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">doubt.
Furthermore, Turrell's environ</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">ments
also introduce the disconcerting </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">possibility
that discontinuity rather than unity characterizes art itself as </span>well as
the viewer's experience of that <span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">art.
Modernist esthetics has alway </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">insisted
on the organic unity of the individual work—on the healing wholeness </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">in art that somehow compensates for </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">the self-evident lack of <i>integritas</i> in
life. </span>Parting company with that
nostalgic <span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">vision, Turrell's work pits
radiance </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">against
</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">wholeness and harmony, and </span>makes
art, too, a matter of disjunction <span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">and
contradictions.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;"> Admittedly, such an
interpretation </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">of Turrell's perceptual environments is less amiable than
the artist's own poet</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">ic, though not necessarily privileged, </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">reading of
his work as a magical union </span>of dream and reality. Seen in their disjunctive aspect, however,
Turrell's installations have a compelling contem<span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">poraneity. They talk to us in the pres</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">ent, and not from their Western past</span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">["James Turrell: Light and
Space" was curated </span>by Barbara Haskell and
exhibited at the Whitney<span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;"> Museum from October
22, 1980 to January </span>1, 1981. The catalogue contained an essay by <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">Melinda Wortz and commentaries by Turrell on </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">his own work.]</span></span></span></span></div>
exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-31212828801975310352014-02-01T19:35:00.000-05:002014-02-02T13:50:12.239-05:00The Musée Disparu: An Update<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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In November 1995, Hector Feliciano's book, <i>Le musée
disparu</i>, created shockwaves in France. <i>The Lost Museum</i>, an English
translation<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>published two years later
by Basic Books, had a similar effect in the U.S. </div>
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Feliciano's bombshell concerned a little known collection of
about 2000 Nazi-looted art works returned to France after the war and retained
by the French government. Labeled the <i>Musées nationaux récupération</i>
(MNR), these works were considered orphans. They were dispersed and quietly
installed in various French museums ranging from the Louvre and Orsay in Paris
to a large number of smaller institutions in the provinces. Feliciano accused
the French government of having done little or nothing to seek out the rightful
owners of the returned works or to notify surviving descendants.</div>
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Feliciano's reportage was widely covered in the French
media. "Les musées détiennent 1,995 oeuvres d'art volées aux juifs pendant
l'Occupation," headlined <i>Le Monde</i>, in one of many articles. In the
U.S., the <i>New York Times</i>, the <i>Christian Science Monitor</i> and
others carried the story. I myself wrote a couple of news pieces for the
January 1997 and May 1997 issues of <i>Art in America</i> in which I covered
the French government's embarrassed response to Feliciano's revelations-- their
decision, first, to post information about some of the works on the web and,
subsequently, to exhibit a small number of them at Orsay. Over the years, the
story of the orphaned art works continued to haunt me-- so much so that
recently it became part of <i>Uncommon Crimes</i>,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a novel I just finished writing. </div>
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The MNR story has never entirely disappeared from the media,
but neither has much progress been made. In 2008, the Israel Museum in
Jerusalem, in conjunction with France's ministry of culture and communication,
exhibited 53 works from the collection. And in February 2013, François
Hollande's government announced that it was starting an intensive search for
owners of the plundered art works. On January 23, 2014, a year later, Aurélie
Filippetti, the French Minister of Culture, announced that seven works had been
returned last year, and that three more, two from the Louvre and one from the
Dijon's Musée des Beaux Arts, were about to be restored to their rightful owners.
According to some reports, only 80 of the MNR works have thus far been
returned.</div>
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This weekend, the <i>New York Times</i> has published a
surprise addition to the MNR story. Titled "Loot No Longer" and
written by Doreen Carvajal, it's the lead piece in the February 2, 2014, Arts
and Entertainment section. An enterprising reporter, Carvajal was intrigued by
the difficulties the French authorities claimed to have in their attempts to
restore the MNR art works. She decided to see if she could do better. Starting with
a large painting by Courbet in the Musée d'Orsay and working with a genealogy
expert, Carvajal needed only two weeks of research "to find one of its
likely owners, a descendant of a Jewish émigré<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>from Russia and her husband who consigned the Courbet painting for sale
before they were arrested and deported to Auschwitz." That's only her
first success-- for more, you should read Carvajal's fascinating article.
Here's the link: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/arts/design/a-reporter-in-france-helps-to-return-art-taken-by-the-nazis.html">Loot No Longer</a></div>
exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-62578844379759430402013-06-19T18:04:00.003-04:002013-06-19T18:30:14.513-04:00Saddam's Bank Revisited<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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When David Ignatius’s thriller, <i>The Bank of Fear</i>,
became available as an e-book on Amazon a few weeks ago (May 28), I immediately
downloaded it to my over-stuffed kindle. I’ve enjoyed Ignatius’s novels (as
well as his political commentary in the <i>Washington Post</i> and on NPR) in
the past, and I looked forward to reading what I thought was his new book.
Shortly thereafter I devoured this page-turner in a day. What I carelessly
ignored (so easy to do with an e-book) was that it was a “reissue” by W.W.
Norton of a novel originally published in 1994 by William Morrow.</div>
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As a new book, it was a puzzler. The text provided no
indication of when the novel’s action was meant to occur, only suggesting that
it was the present. Yet, at the beginning, there was an unnamed “Ruler” in
power in Iraq, a Saddam Hussein-like dictatorial despot who, in the course of
the book, was assassinated, probably by a family member. Reading <i>The Bank of
Fear</i> now, so soon after W’s misbegotten Iraqi War adventure, I could only
innocently imagine that Ignatius intended his story as some sort of “alternate
history.” I spent a few idle minutes thinking about how “reality,” in the form
of actual historical figures, functions in a fictional world. When does it
enhance credibility? How much leeway does an author have before losing a
reader’s willing suspension of disbelief?</div>
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But, of course, such speculation was totally irrelevant.
Given the novel’s actual date, I now wonder whether Ignatius in 1994 meant his
fictional assassination of the Iraqi “Ruler” as a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>wishful prediction of a still-unknown future. The novel’s vivid
depiction of torture scenes in Baghdad, however, would seem to have a different
purpose. Though the victim is a fictional character-- the attractive computer
expert Lina Alwan-- those grim pages read like documentary evidence of Saddam’s
cruel regime. On the other hand, Alwan’s Swiss bank escapade, in which she
cleverly moves millions of The Ruler’s ill-gotten loot from its hiding place in Geneva to her own private
account, is sheer fictional entertainment. And delightful. </div>
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Also delightful, singular and surprisingly early-- i.e.,
even before the brilliant Lisbeth Salander made an appearance-- is that the
computer whiz and her expert pal in <i>The Bank of Fear</i> are both female.
Are there others in contemporary fiction that I’ve missed? Readers-- please let
me know...<br />
<br />
</div>
exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-24298900920711811342013-05-11T18:44:00.001-04:002014-12-06T11:29:00.231-05:00James Turrell's Annus Mirabilis<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">This is James Turrell’s big year! Starting
this spring, a trilogy of Turrell retrospectives will appear across the
country-- at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, Los Angeles’s LACMA, and Houston’s
Museum of Fine Arts. In addition, there have been recent gallery shows and
visits planned to the Roden Crater project. And, as a lagniappe, there’s a
pictorially splashy piece on the numerous “sky spaces” Turrell has
constructed for private patrons in the May 12 issue of the <i>New York Times
Style</i> magazine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></span></span></h1>
<h1>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">On the festive occasion of all the above,
I will reprint in a subsequent post a long article I wrote after seeing James Turrell’s
1980-81 exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York-- his first and only New
York museum exhibition before the forthcoming Guggenheim show (though there have
been many elsewhere). My article appeared in the May 1981 issue of <i>Art in
America</i> magazine. The initial sections were devoted to the art-political
context-- both in California and the broader art world-- in which Turrell’s
work first appeared. The last sections treated the installations exhibited at
the Whitney.</span></span></span></h1>
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exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-91862950294426744652013-05-10T16:28:00.000-04:002013-05-10T16:28:26.317-04:00MOMA the Destroyer?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFbR5eqN4-5I5mVG6imbxkhsxflqqiWABYetFbhdlE3PE24ZrSqwPH7YnAcv7bno2cj9sHAT5PrpaH_3Z096x5grMDoHipxmFsggabRJ6pRUnkbhX4fbtAo8hxNneEutiyrmvOpxsGKdw/s1600/filler_1-052313_jpg_230x1424_q85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFbR5eqN4-5I5mVG6imbxkhsxflqqiWABYetFbhdlE3PE24ZrSqwPH7YnAcv7bno2cj9sHAT5PrpaH_3Z096x5grMDoHipxmFsggabRJ6pRUnkbhX4fbtAo8hxNneEutiyrmvOpxsGKdw/s320/filler_1-052313_jpg_230x1424_q85.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The former American Folk Art Museum building. New York City 1997-2001, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. Photo Giles Ashford.</td></tr>
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We're not talking about the latest bizarre horror movie. The villain is New York's own Museum of Modern Art and its proposed plan to raze Tod Williams and Billie Tsien's 53rd Street building, a striking structure which formerly housed the American Folk Art Museum. The plan has provoked volleys of criticism from architects, preservationists, ordinary citizens, and serious architecture critics. (See Martin Filler's acerbic article in the May 23, 2013 issue of the <i>New York Review of Books</i>.) If MOMA goes ahead with the ill-advised destruction project, it would be committing cultural vandalism. And this horror would occur in real life-- not on the silver screen.<br />
<br />
Perhaps responding to the protests, MOMA announced yesterday (May 9) that it would reconsider its plans. But as Robin Pogrebin reports in the <i>New York Times</i>, anonymous insiders say that the museum is still likely to go ahead with the destruction. We await MOMA's final decision and can only hope for the best.<br />
<br />
<br />
exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-54966662207803708792013-01-22T09:47:00.000-05:002014-04-18T12:55:10.092-04:00Lisa Gherardini Visits the Moon<!--[if !mso]>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left, Initial transfer. Right, Image with laser-communicated corrections.</td></tr>
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On January 18, it was widely reported that NASA’s scientists
had successfully beamed a picture of Leonardo’s <i>Mona Lisa</i> to the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter, a powerful spacecraft which has been orbiting the moon
since 2009. NASA claimed that it was testing the technology of laser
communications in deep space, and that its effective transfer of the image was
a major advance for interplanetary spacecraft.</div>
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Thinking of the lone <i>Mona Lisa</i>, out there circling
the moon, I imagine her reception in that alien region. Perhaps ET art
historians are already on the case-- worrying over the image, analyzing the <i>Mona
Lisa</i>’s enigmatic expression, debating the model’s true identity. Are they
trying to decide whether it is in fact a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del
Giocondo, rather than Isabella of Naples, or Caterina Sforza, or Cecilia
Gallerani, or Isabella d’Este? Or are they wondering whether the image that
dazzles and puzzles them is perhaps a self-portrait of the great Leonardo
himself? </div>
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<br /></div>
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I’m curious about how these art-deprived ETs would react if,
as a follow-up, instead of another single painting, we decided to send a truly
comprehensive representation of our globe’s art works. If, for example, we were
to send them, via digital images, the entire contents of the Louvre, or another
major art museum. Would they be overwhelmed with admiration, stunned by our
skill and aesthetic taste, and, longing to see the real thing, would they be
inspired to immediately jump on the next space vehicle and become our first
extra-mundane tourists? </div>
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But what if we were to send out art works that displayed the
more dismal aspects of life on our planet. For many years, political artists
here on earth have used projections as a type of powerful urban guerilla
tactic. I’m thinking, for instance, of Krzysztof Wodiczko, who since the
1980s has used ephemeral images, projected onto public buildings and monuments,
as a means of highlighting social and political problems. Such projections
could probably travel far into space via the new laser technology.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigyrYpUuj5RhyphenhyphenpZeeMql7sc5Vh4H6jquY3PvCxtbKQy9z-UvPItd4VwaJuP7Rv7IajvRv85Xiq7i35jtY6GJGHXeuIVHKV2r4RjNoh3VXGGbVEOURrL2qCilHpfpD6YrE0FRav26HWSEI/s1600/wodiczko-arch-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigyrYpUuj5RhyphenhyphenpZeeMql7sc5Vh4H6jquY3PvCxtbKQy9z-UvPItd4VwaJuP7Rv7IajvRv85Xiq7i35jtY6GJGHXeuIVHKV2r4RjNoh3VXGGbVEOURrL2qCilHpfpD6YrE0FRav26HWSEI/s320/wodiczko-arch-001.jpg" height="224" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Krzysztof Wodiczko: Public Projection on Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C., 1988</td></tr>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And perhaps it would
even be useful to send S.O.S. messages about our political stalemates and
social distresses to other worlds. How marvelous if someone out there, on the
shoulder of Orion or in some black galaxy gazillions of miles away, looking
down on our poor, tormented earth and perceiving our woes-- our perpetual wars,
our unending international conflicts, our mindless culture of violence, our
starving millions, our looming climate crises, our terrible inequalities of
wealth, privilege and opportunity-- perhaps some stranger out there will know
how to solve our seemingly insoluble problems, know better than we, caught up
in our troubles, seem able to know for ourselves. </span></span><br />
<br />
exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-46167397548533767092013-01-13T16:02:00.000-05:002014-09-26T16:17:34.473-04:00From Dr. Johnson to Un Ballo in Maschera<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAuzuAywWOkwyWkGPhxjlIRwP-fSc7VDKSXRdYxVCauF0dbAmW-GwYwhPanSNPUrjVcF91MDb_hGWI37RsZOh2qBX06-pixjFx69TQYNn-nhfmIaiM05c4jLyhX0lfaWT0kJbpq1FmqVU/s1600/528px-Fall_of_Icarus_Blondel_decoration_Louvre_INV2624.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAuzuAywWOkwyWkGPhxjlIRwP-fSc7VDKSXRdYxVCauF0dbAmW-GwYwhPanSNPUrjVcF91MDb_hGWI37RsZOh2qBX06-pixjFx69TQYNn-nhfmIaiM05c4jLyhX0lfaWT0kJbpq1FmqVU/s320/528px-Fall_of_Icarus_Blondel_decoration_Louvre_INV2624.jpg" height="320" width="281" /></a></div>
<span id="goog_609515312"></span><span id="goog_609515313"></span>I’ve always liked works that dare to blend disparate elements and/or styles. It’s remotely possible that my interest in “discordia concors” grows out of some irregular childhood experience, but I rather think it dates back to my years in grad school when I fell in love with Metaphysical poetry. Samuel Johnson’s famous description of those works (“the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together”) was not meant kindly, but did capture a quality of the poetry. What Johnson failed to recognize was that, in the best of them, in the works, for example, of Donne, Marvell or Herbert, that violent yoking produced thrilling effects.<br />
<br />
The danger, of course, is that a reckless heterogeneity, whether in poetry or prose, will result in an incoherent mess. But when the mix succeeds, it’s exciting. Take David Mitchell’s <i>Cloud Atlas</i>, a brilliant instance of “discordia concors.” Mitchell’s novel boldly combines six disparate narratives set in different historical periods, ranging from the nineteenth century to the post-apocalyptic future. The genre of each story is different, each has a unique voice, and each breaks off at a cliff-hanging point, only to be completed in reverse order in the novel’s second half. There are subtle links between tales-- a repeated name, a reference to a previous character. The novel’s ascending-descending structure is its major oddity, but that complicated structure is precisely what functions to unify the dissimilar elements.<br />
<br />
Recently, I saw David Alden’s surreal production of Verdi’s <i>Un Ballo in Maschera</i> at the Metropolitan Opera. It was an eye-opening, if not entirely satisfactory, instance of operatic “discordia concors.” Alden describes the opera as a “bizarre combination of serious political material, high Italian melodrama based around the hackneyed stuff of marital infidelity, and an almost operetta-like lightness of being.” He thinks of it as “experimental and dislocated” and unlike Verdi’s other masterpieces.<br />
<br />
The dislocations are built into the libretto. On the one hand, there's lyric romance involving a feckless, love-obsessed monarch, a guilty wife, a brazen fortune-teller and an irate cuckold. This story is awkwardly joined to an unrelated, long-simmering royal assassination plot. The tale’s sinister finale occurs not in deep darkness, but at a frivolous masked ball. And not only the story line is disjunctive. Verdi’s heterogeneous score is unsettled and unsettling. It combines haunting, grand-opera love-arias, duets and a superb quintet with stinging passages of coloratura mockery and frisky scenes of operetta-like farce.<br />
<br />
In Alden’s production, Verdi’s musical discordances are underlined rather than glided over. They are made more salient by the production’s taut film noir ambience, its ambiguous and incongruous costumes, and a curious minimalist set-- the latter dominated by a huge reproduction of the Louvre's ceiling painting of Merry-Joseph Blondel’s <i>The Fall of Icarus</i>.
All this “discordia” takes its toll. The night I saw the performance, much of the singing was good, some even splendid. Yet the emotional impact of Verdi’s magnificent music felt somewhat vitiated, as was the power of the opera’s tragic ending. At the end, I came away less than moved, though I was nevertheless delighted, amused, and pleased by Alden’s fresh approach.
exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-16933896736269863462012-03-18T18:39:00.018-04:002012-03-19T14:52:03.864-04:00Electioneering French Style: the Red, the Rose and the BlackI periodically like to take a ramble through the French on-line press. Lately the coverage seems to be all presidential election news all the time, which, since DSK was eliminated, can be almost as boring as the American Republican Primary campaign. Sometimes, though, an interesting item or two will pop up. Today I came across a story about candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, operating in full-throated electoral mode.<br /><br />It seems that last Thursday, about 200 metal workers from a company called ArcelorMittal came to Paris to meet with the President. But instead of a welcome mat, they were greeted in front of his campaign headquarters by "an accueil musclé"-- i.e., they were blasted with tear gas. Outraged, the metal workers marched on to the Eiffel Tower, intending to post a banner identifying the tower's steel as from their own region. You'd imagine that a sensitive candidate might want to apologize for such an ugly incident. But when questioned about it by a TV journalist, Sarkozy was his typically irascible and vulgar self. He responded (this is a loose translation): "What do you want me to say-- you think I give a damn?" He followed this remark by turning on the journalist, calling him a "couillon," and then attempting to make a lame joke about it. In the French <span style="font-style: italic;">Le Huffington Post</span> article at <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2012/03/15/sarkozy-couillon-journaliste-arcelor_n_1347623.html?ref=fr-nicolas-sarkozy">this link</a>, you can see a video of the exchange. Note the astonished looks of those around the reporter.<br /><br />Meanwhile today, elsewhere in Paris, there was a large, cheery march from the Place de la Nation to the Bastille in support of the Front de Gauche party and their candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkg23ga9p0KFvljev8zHsdkR7axJJaLgo-sTssSr7R6bWaX_zZ13oCd3hn7H3W-ViI6Bqc7i8yd3bQvZTQgPYdo6uZsFDnPS8OyCz2vZzJLoTNNaGb4w6Wb2FGNGcR1uZzV7-yOLMjG9E/s1600/slide_215734_791473_splash.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721674879920229362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkg23ga9p0KFvljev8zHsdkR7axJJaLgo-sTssSr7R6bWaX_zZ13oCd3hn7H3W-ViI6Bqc7i8yd3bQvZTQgPYdo6uZsFDnPS8OyCz2vZzJLoTNNaGb4w6Wb2FGNGcR1uZzV7-yOLMjG9E/s400/slide_215734_791473_splash.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 160px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br /><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Melenchon and backers of the Front de Gauche on their way to the Bastille/photo Bastien Hugues sur Twitter</span></div><br />The crowd-- estimated at about 100,000-- carried various quotable banners. The one I liked best: "Mettez à la mode la couleur rouge!" I suppose Mélenchon has as much chance of becoming President of France as Ron Paul has of winning the Republican nod. But Mélenchon's campaign has lately been gaining a surprising amount of enthusiasm. If he gets the approximately 10 per cent of the vote that pollsters consider likely, he could make a serious dent in the turnout for the Socialist party candidate, François Hollande. Consequently, there's been a bit of snarky chatter in the media about the purposes of the Front de Gauche campaign. Cynics ask: Is Mélenchon, a radical leftist, actually a "coqueluche" of the arch-conservative Sarkozy?exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-13070389245871689642012-03-07T15:30:00.015-05:002012-03-08T08:44:39.875-05:00Hubert and Jan van Eyck: Extremely Close and Incredibly Beautiful<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5h90h5v8sP6k3RzoRorkNs3jmeBver8SzVrBZnmObEgM5N-TyoKSP4jAFySI4jHOR-acK_DT_YyweF3pkP76olo-rum8YNjhhGBOG2frBC8q9trCkhSPEDIOZMdgAIoDvUWGjrArzh0Q/s1600/ghent1%25281%2529.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 291px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5h90h5v8sP6k3RzoRorkNs3jmeBver8SzVrBZnmObEgM5N-TyoKSP4jAFySI4jHOR-acK_DT_YyweF3pkP76olo-rum8YNjhhGBOG2frBC8q9trCkhSPEDIOZMdgAIoDvUWGjrArzh0Q/s400/ghent1%25281%2529.jpg" border="0" http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifalt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717291294471900690" /></a><br />Thanks to a grant from the Getty Foundation, anyone can now examine in stunning detail-- up close and at astonishing magnification-- the splendid Ghent Altarpiece. The high-definition digital images of Hubert and Jan van Eyck's masterpiece, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Mystic Lamb</span> (1432), have been made freely available at a newly established interactive <a href="http://closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be">website</a>.<br /><br />As reported by Melissa Abraham (February 24, 2012, getty.edu), the Ghent Altarpiece recently underwent emergency conservation at the Villa Chapel in St. Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. At that time, the polyptych was removed from its glass-enclosed setting and dismantled, an unusual event which provided an extraordinary opportunity for scholars to study and document the altarpiece and for professional photographers to produce high-resolution images of the work's individual panels. Subsequently, the photographs were stitched together to create the digital images now available on the interactive website. That site is said to contain 100 billion pixels. <br /><br />Further details about the images, the team who developed the website, and the decision to use an open-source approach are available in Abraham's report as well as at the site itself.exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-10066321833375148922012-03-07T10:30:00.007-05:002012-03-07T11:39:57.377-05:00Super-Vapid TuesdayThe <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Times</span> today (the morning after so-called "Super Tuesday") had an excellent editorial on the depressing Republican primary and the obnoxious positions taken by the candidates. Here are a few excerpts: <br /><br />"Long before Super Tuesday, the Republican Party had cemented itself on the distant right of American politics, with a primary campaign that has been relentlessly nasty, divisive and vapid.... This country has serious economic problems and profound national security challenges. But the Republican candidates are so deep in the trenches of cultural and religious warfare that they aren’t offering any solutions....There are differences [between Romney and Santorum]. Mr. Santorum is usually more extreme in his statements than Mr. Romney, especially in his intolerance of gay and lesbian Americans and his belief that religion — his religion — should define policy and politics. Mr. Santorum’s remark about wanting to vomit when he reread John F. Kennedy’s remarkable speech in 1960 about the separation of church and state is one of the lowest points of modern-day electoral politics....<br />Mr. Romney has been slightly more temperate. But, in his desperation to prove himself to the ultraright, he has joined in the attacks on same-sex marriage, abortion and even birth control. He has never called Mr. Santorum on his more bigoted rants. Neither politician is offering hard-hit American workers anything beyond long discredited trickle-down economics, more tax cuts for the rich, a weakening of the social safety net and more of the deregulation that nearly crashed the system in 2008."<br /><br />The editorial goes on to berate the candidates for their mindless and vicious attacks on Obama and for their potentially explosive position on Israel and Iran:<br /><br />"There is also no space between Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum in the way they distort reality to attack Mr. Obama for everything he says, no matter how sensible, and oppose everything he wants, no matter how necessary.... They also have peddled the canard that the president is weak on foreign policy. Mr. Romney on Tuesday called President Obama 'America’s most feckless president since Carter.' Never mind that Mr. Obama ordered the successful raid to kill Osama bin Laden and has pummeled Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders, all without the Republicans’ noxious dead-or-alive swagger. Now, for the sake of scoring political points, Mr. Romney, Mr. Santorum and Newt Gingrich, who is hanging on only thanks to one backer’s millions, seem determined to push Israel toward a reckless attack on Iran."<br /><br />The entire editorial should be widely read. One wonders how relatively sane Republicans (are there any left?) have been responding to this despicable primary campaign. If such temperate right-wingers do still exist, perhaps they will demonstrate their sanity at the ballot box in November.exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-82730895577743184732012-02-27T22:42:00.026-05:002012-03-06T17:02:52.417-05:00The Business of CoincidenceCoincidentally, in the recent past I've run across a number of references to the subject of coincidence in fact and fiction. But perhaps it's no coincidence. I'm probably extra-sensitive to the issue because of my own use of the device in a novel I'm currently writing. Here are some of the comments I've seen:<br /><br />The narrator in Raul Ruiz's film <span style="font-style:italic;">Mysteries of Lisbon</span> observes that "in life, there are events and coincidences of such extravagance that no novelist would ever dare to invent them." Ruiz (or, one should say, the novelist who wrote the book on which Ruiz's movie is based) does of course dare to invent precisely such extravagant coincidences.<br /><br />W.G Sebald, in an interview at Queens College in 2001, wondered about the function of coincidence-- how he/we use it to make sense out of nonsense:<br /> <br /> "I think it's this whole business of coincidence, which is very prominent in my writing. I hope it's not obtrusive. But, you know, it does come up in the first book, in "Vertigo," a good deal. I don't particularly hold with parapsychological explanations of one kind or another, or Jungian theories about the subject. I find those rather tedious. But it seemed to me an instance that illustrates that we somehow need to make sense of our nonsensical existence. You meet somebody who has the same birthday as you—the odds are one in three hundred and sixty-five, not actually all that amazing. But if you like the person then immediately this takes on more . . . and so we build on it, and I think all our philosophical systems, all our systems of our creed, all constructions, even the technological worlds, are built in that way, in order to make some sort of sense, when there isn't, as we all know." (from <span style="font-style:italic;">The New Yorker</span>, August 30, 2001)<br /><br />Julian Barnes is not averse to using coincidence in his fiction. Or to wryly commenting on it. Geoffrey Braithwaite, the narrator of <span style="font-style:italic;">Flaubert's Parrot</span> may or may not speak for Barnes. Braithwaite, who is full of snap opinions about life and literature, "doesn't much care for coincidences" in either. "There's something spooky about them; you sense momentarily what it must be like to live in an ordered, God-run universe, with Himself looking over your shoulder and helpfully dropping coarse hints about a cosmic plan... I prefer to feel that things are chaotic..." But what snappish Braithwaite finds particularly annoying is that "in the more bookish areas of English middle-class society, whenever a coincidence occurs there is usually someone at hand to comment, 'It's just like Anthony Powell.'"<br /><br />As for coincidences in books, Braithwaite calls them a lazy stratagem. "There's something cheap and sentimental about the device; it can't help always seeming aesthetically gimcrack." Examples he cites: the troubador who passes by just in time to rescue the girl from a hedgerow scuffle; the sudden but convenient Dickensian benefactors; the neat shipwreck on a foreign shore which reunites siblings and lovers-- in other words, all the staples of old romance fiction. <br /><br />But, as Braithwaite does not mention, coincidence is also central to the even older traditional kinship reunion plot-- what some critics have called the most powerful use of coincidence, as in the Oedipus story.<br /><br />For modernists, and post-modernists, Braithwaite does have a way of making coincidences acceptable: call them ironies, he says. The modern mode. In that form, who could be against it? "And yet," he continues, "I wonder if the wittiest, most resonant irony isn't just a well-brushed, well-educated coincidence." Which is presumably Barnes's own ironic opinion on the subject.exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-76327510225068078222012-02-25T23:43:00.024-05:002012-02-26T17:02:04.890-05:00China Mieville: Evading the Boundaries of GenreThe genre of China Miéville's <span style="font-style: italic;">The City and the City</span> is not easy to pin down. Though the novel can be read as a dark, quasi-realist police procedural, it can also be viewed as a dystopic urban fantasy. I prefer to see it as both simultaneously. Or, better yet, as a terrific instance of the Genre sans Frontières movement. Miéville himself has said that he considers his book to be, above all, a "crime novel," yet he does not abjure the sci-fi side of his fiction, nor will the reader be likely to ignore the fantastical elements of the narrative.<br /><br />The novel's hero, Tyador Borlu, is a not unfamiliar noir figure-- a downbeat detective, burdened by moral issues, personal failings and the frustrations of trying to operate effectively under the oppressive tyranny of an amoral and dangerous bureaucracy. Borlu's homicide case presents unusual difficulties-- primarily that the detective works in a strangely divided world. The setting is an urban area split into two overlapping yet distinctly separate cities-- Beszel and Ui Qoma. At one level, this separateness can be seen as an analogue of the familiar income and/or ethnic-based divisions common to urban existence. And Breach, the Big Brother-like institution that enforces the geographic and psychological separation of the two cities, could be interpreted as the over-arching police power of a totalitarian state. But the city divisions are uncanny and Breach's powers seem to operate in a fantastical milieu rather than a neo-realist world. The overlapping area between the two cities-- Breach's home base, as it were-- is an opaque region of the magical. And when Borlu, late in the story, is absorbed into that region, the novel turns echt-sci-fi.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The City and the City</span>'s ambiguous genre and its multiple uses of doubling have inspired some to refer to the book's "interstitiality." Miéville seems a bit uncomfortable with that fashionable characterization. "Interstitiality is a tremendous buzzword," he says. It's a theme that is "simultaneously genuinely interesting and potentially quite useful, and also a terrible cliché, so if you're going to use it, it helps to be at least respectfully skeptical about the wilder claims of some of its theoretical partisans..." Rather, he likes the idea of a "shared terrain" between the fantastic and the realistic noir.<br /><br />Which may simply be another way of saying that his fiction thrives within the non-category of the Genre sans Frontières....exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-8157750120983467372011-07-20T14:32:00.005-04:002011-07-20T15:34:26.962-04:00Opera Starved: The Berlusconi EffectI've just read Alex Ross's downbeat report on the "lean season" of opera performances this summer in Berlusconi's Italy (<span style="font-style: italic;">The New Yorker</span>, July 25, 2011). Ross laments the Italian government's "indifference, if not outright contempt, toward opera and other traditional genres." Apparently the sharp slash in government funding is having a visibly depressing effect on productions throughout the country and creating a widespread sense of insecurity in the Italian opera world. Sad, sad news, ameliorated only by Ross's nice account of Ricardo Muti's protest at La Scala, a modest success story that should be widely read.<br /><br />Of all the performances Ross attended, only Monteverdi's <span style="font-style: italic;">L'Incoronazione di Poppea</span> at Florence's Maggio Musicale seemed to impress him. The production had a "well-fed look" and "a degree of international glamour missing from other events." This he attributes to the participation of Susan Graham and "a lustrous cast," but also to the members of Alan Curtis's ensemble Il Complesso Barocco. What especially delighted me was the parenthetical aside in which Ross gives a tip of the hat to Donna Leon, the best-selling writer of Guido Brunetti mysteries. For years, she has been the generous patron of what Ross calls "Curtis's high-class Baroque ventures." Thus, in a season of starvation, a crime writer's royalties came to the rescue. Brava for Leon!<br /><br />Ross's comments on the Monteverdi opera reminded me of the memorable Jonathan Miller production of <span style="font-style: italic;">Poppea</span> that I saw at Glimmerglass in the summer of 1994. Though Glimmerglass provides none of the "historical resonances" Ross experienced while seeing the opera in Florence, the Cooperstown setting and country opera house had their own unique, if ahistorical, pleasures for me. As for the production itself, the counter-tenors David Daniels (as Nero) and Brian Asawa (as Ottone) both gave stunning performances, as did the brilliant original instrument orchestra, led by the energetic Jane Glover.exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-76937942692836691302010-03-20T15:46:00.002-04:002010-03-20T16:54:38.753-04:00Partenope Redux?This spring, Handel's extraordinary <span style="font-style: italic;">Partenope</span> will once again be performed at the New York City Opera. My question is: which version? I know that Francisco Negrin, the talented director, has staged at least two different versions of the opera. The first, which debuted at Glimmerglass in July 1998, was an impressive and revelatory production that subsequently traveled to the NYCO in September of that year. But in the fall of 2008, Negrin directed another rather different version for the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen. Exegette was fortunate enough to see (and enjoy) both the Glimmerglass and the Danish productions (and was impelled to write a few enthusiastic words about the marvelous Copenhagen staging in a blog entry that year). So one wonders whether this year's NYCO production will be <span style="font-style: italic;">Partenope I</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">Partenope II.</span> Or has the imaginative Negrin prepared yet another version for NYCO's audience this time around-- a <span style="font-style: italic;">Partenope III</span>?exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-17921357094349793732009-12-09T14:19:00.005-05:002009-12-09T15:04:27.104-05:00What's Doubly Wrong With Pinchuk's Prize?I can't resist including in my own blog a link to the following excellent post by Judith H. Dobrzynski in her ArtsJournal blog Real Clear Arts:<br /><a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2009/12/pinchuk-prize.html">What's Wrong With This New Prize? A Lot. - Real Clear Arts</a><br /><br />I, too, am dismayed that no women seem to be included in the advisory panel that will help Victor Pinchuk select winners for his extravagant new prize for young artists. But I'm perhaps even more depressed by the sorry group of "older generation" male artists selected as "mentors" for the younger generation. (For details, see Carol Vogel's column in the Dec. 7th issue of the <span style="font-style: italic;">NY Times</span>.)<br /><a href="http://sharethis.com/"><br /></a>exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-87721675992445389362009-07-22T23:15:00.021-04:002009-07-26T17:13:26.628-04:00From Gansevoort to Istanbul: Architecture on ViewI've just had two great architecture experiences! First, a marvelous walk on New York's own Promenade Plantée-- the new High Line. Ambling along the recently opened section from Gansevoort Street, in the Meatpacking district, to West 20th Street in Chelsea, I kept an eye on my copy of Justin Davidson's handy illustrated tour of the architectural surroundings (it appeared in the June 15-22 issue of <span style="font-style: italic;">New Y</span><span style="font-style: italic;">ork</span> magazine). I already knew, of course, that the formerly bleak, far-west section of Manhattan was rapidly being developed, but I was nevertheless surprised by how many sleek new towers have recently come up and/or are still in the process of being built.<br /><br />From the excellent vantage point of the High Line, the city seems fresh and flourishing. Yet New York's history hasn't completely vanished. The elevated view offers exciting contrasts between the new buildings, with their glittering panes of glass and steel, and rusty remnants of the industrial past. The latter consist of atmospheric, desolate shells of deserted structures and the remains of the old elevated track. The worn railroad ties have been made newly elegant with wonderful plantings based on those that had actually sprung up there over years of desuetude. As for the bright new buildings, naturally they vary in quality. To me, the most innovative and exciting so far are Frank Gehry's <a href="http://www.iacbuilding.com/">IAC B</a><a href="http://www.iacbuilding.com/">uilding</a> and two in-the-works structures, Jean Nouvel's <a href="http://www.nouvelchelsea.com/">100 Eleventh Avenue</a> and Neil Denari's <a href="http://www.hl23.com/">HL23</a>.<br /><br />The second experience was virtual-- its source the striking settings of Tom Tykwer's movie <span style="font-style: italic;">The International</span>. In a feature included with the DVD version, Tykwer makes an unusual claim: he conceived of architecture as a character in his film. And, in fact, after the intensity of Clive Owens's performance and the dizzying switches in geographic locations, the film's array of architectural backgrounds may be its most interesting aspect. Here are some of them:<br /><br />1) Gunter Henn's Volkswagen Customer Center at the Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Germany. As the headquarters of ICCB, the villainous bank that is the central subject of the film, Tykwer <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm4zjB-t1IOKhKhv6CeyYxdiQNHrAFJtVqjicKr1nkeCK7sqD28kn1vwZOo27Eqce76PG2LsJYk29hCXpDebWaME-wmxnk2OUvdViTre265sUKdI9wmv8V5lUcFeM9cxDCGrMAplUQXnQ/s1600-h/autostadt.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 79px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm4zjB-t1IOKhKhv6CeyYxdiQNHrAFJtVqjicKr1nkeCK7sqD28kn1vwZOo27Eqce76PG2LsJYk29hCXpDebWaME-wmxnk2OUvdViTre265sUKdI9wmv8V5lUcFeM9cxDCGrMAplUQXnQ/s400/autostadt.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361753662350490594" border="0" /></a>and his production manager Uli Hanisch wanted a huge ultramodern structure-- a building that in its size would seem to reduce to insignificance the Interpol agent (played by Owens) who tries unsuccessfully to bring the bank down. They convinced the VW corporation to allow them to shoot the movie in the giant rectangular building that sits on a hill and dominates the Autostadt. Tykwer liked the building's "fake transparency"-- all that glass, with its suggestion of openness, but sinister stuff going on inside that nobody knows about!<br /><br />2) Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan. The museum is the am<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg95sC-Xmo2GA7wn7cFhQA1pIKIMCUM0g6hIO4lq0gT4EwudDH6N6i6fYGr_oXzT0lAdz2JoCCt7KYCJv96cjn1hOKy6-0mVPhmsHlEq-07Q0cWA4ZSMVl3F2-l4aqULr9TBsHiUhvOjT0/s1600-h/guggenheim.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 143px; height: 107px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg95sC-Xmo2GA7wn7cFhQA1pIKIMCUM0g6hIO4lq0gT4EwudDH6N6i6fYGr_oXzT0lAdz2JoCCt7KYCJv96cjn1hOKy6-0mVPhmsHlEq-07Q0cWA4ZSMVl3F2-l4aqULr9TBsHiUhvOjT0/s320/guggenheim.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361753238429068994" border="0" /></a>azing setting for a murderous, let-all-hell-break-loose chase and shoot-out. Obviously Tykwer and crew couldn't decimate the real Guggenheim, so they created a convincing replica in an unused factory site in Babelsburg. They even "installed" a video exhibition (by the artist Julian Rosefeldt) to add to the lifelike quality of the museum's interior.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU7Jk1msSNDYKLu70xmhUgcQqEFP_ufbxUA3a855WsxA5Alt2qPzlqpcB8XTuf7cuMep5gwcrGWYeVYZ8NoDuWW8jdalHK2OxLYrThM39WACjMu6MarvT9RDzHr5ZgbSsdhrn5L38Edg8/s1600-h/pirelli.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 90px; height: 135px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU7Jk1msSNDYKLu70xmhUgcQqEFP_ufbxUA3a855WsxA5Alt2qPzlqpcB8XTuf7cuMep5gwcrGWYeVYZ8NoDuWW8jdalHK2OxLYrThM39WACjMu6MarvT9RDzHr5ZgbSsdhrn5L38Edg8/s400/pirelli.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361755776160656850" border="0" /></a>3) Gio Ponti's Pirelli Tower in Milan. The classic modern building is juxtaposed against the Neo-Classicism of the city's monstrous Mussolini-period Main Station. A political rally unfolds in the open square between the two buildings. The campaigner, who is also head of "Calvini Defense," is assassinated by a sharp-shooter positioned in the Tower.<br /><br />4) Zaha Hadid's Phaeno Science Center. This curved concrete building, raised above the<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8X3eLQ4SuESwKo5KSHXu3_ovoFkrrOsOmcsHgbZsYL3-hkcs5L0tuWSoUcnVrqHBrs0FWM8FRpy5b_YVaF6FdCDXRJGwmmZW-8FyE_Fr37yFxORShf0iC499TY6vPAq1vUEIlDyG1Er0/s1600-h/hadid.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 57px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8X3eLQ4SuESwKo5KSHXu3_ovoFkrrOsOmcsHgbZsYL3-hkcs5L0tuWSoUcnVrqHBrs0FWM8FRpy5b_YVaF6FdCDXRJGwmmZW-8FyE_Fr37yFxORShf0iC499TY6vPAq1vUEIlDyG1Er0/s320/hadid.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361763059604250274" border="0" /></a> ground on a series of cone-like stilts, is actually another structure from the Wolfsburg Autostadt. It was magically transposed by the filmmakers to a lovely lakeside site in the Lago Iseo, Italy. There it functions as the headquarters for the above-mentioned Calvini Defense corporation, and becomes the site for a cat-and-mouse chase.<br /><br />5) Berlin architecture provides a host of new versus old opp<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ3YEwl8a_c2BtP5DJReejp9Y40e2UkGAIp_hgRHifwWtXQ6tT3s6cLEYHjYQo5k5IR6fY_IAJ2u-4TAR6IZEBSXLp1AY2w2G4wNQ6Oz3Ca3bsODbqwoqUP8-pVvF1AfH8kd7_8fXwWlg/s1600-h/300px-AlteNationalgalerie_1a.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ3YEwl8a_c2BtP5DJReejp9Y40e2UkGAIp_hgRHifwWtXQ6tT3s6cLEYHjYQo5k5IR6fY_IAJ2u-4TAR6IZEBSXLp1AY2w2G4wNQ6Oz3Ca3bsODbqwoqUP8-pVvF1AfH8kd7_8fXwWlg/s320/300px-AlteNationalgalerie_1a.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362075494866740402" border="0" /></a>ositions, a theme the director likes. The film's first scene and first murder take place in front of the city's sparkling new Hauptbahnhof. Not long thereafter, the Central Station's modernity is contrasted with Berlin's venerable Alte Nationalgalerie. Inside the museum, in one of its placid galleries, ICCB's assassin is quietly given his next business-like assignment in murder.<br /><br />6) Istanbul's ancient Grand Bazaar is <span style="font-style: italic;">The International</span>'s final locale, and the site of its nihilistic conclusion. First, though, there is another chase-- this one through the crowded and colorful marketplace. Then, up on the roof of the Bazaar, a tense mano a mano between Louis Salinger, our Interpol hero, and Jonas Skarssen, the elusive head of the evil bank. It's in this dramatic setting that Skarssen is finally trapped and murdered. But, alas-- as we and Salinger know-- that death, though cinematically inevitable, is futile. Any number of other equally pragmatic bankers are eagerly waiting in the wings, ready to take Skarssen's place. The ICCB goes on...exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-13537769304639008652009-07-17T20:56:00.011-04:002009-07-17T23:45:20.792-04:00Parricide and the Flapper from Hell: Part 2After writing about Claude Chabrol's ambiguous portrayal of Violette Noziere (see Part 1, my previous post), I found it revelatory to compare the filmmaker's treatment with the Surrealist group's ardent defense of the real-life parricide. It was Peter Read's interesting review of Jonathan Eburne's <span style="font-style: italic;">Surrealism and the Art of Crime</span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">TLS</span>, July 3, 2009) that drew my attention to the Surrealists' view of Noziere, and all quotes below are from Read's article.<br /><br />Chabrol's film, appearing 45 years after the crime, satirized the self-righteous moralism of the press and the blatant sensationalizing of the case, but also coolly depicted French reactions to Noziere as divided and diverse. The Surrealists, on the other hand, reacting in the heat of the event, perceived the venomous public reaction as a unified assault on a pathetic victim of a corrupt social order. The press and commentators of every political position had seemingly all joined together in their hostility to Noziere. The entire French public regarded her as a threat to family, society and church; they attacked her as "the woman who had killed her father and then sullied his memory." Her act of poisoning was thus "a double parricide, committed by a heartless hedonist seeking a premature inheritance, a 'flapper from hell' who had destroyed a unionized railway worker."<br /><br />For their part, the Surrealists were outraged by French society's condemnation of Violette. They saw her crime as hypocritically juxtaposed against some idealized bourgeois notion of family life, whereas the young woman had actually come from a dysfunctional family, one within which she had been oppressed, abused and raped. The Surrealists presented their defense in a collective publication containing work by eight writers (Breton, Peret, Char and Eluard among them) and nine artists (Arp, Bellmer, Dali, Ernst, Giacometti, Magritte, Man Ray and Tanguy). They cited suppressed evidence in the case (a sperm-soaked rag and the father's pornographic drawings) and denounced the legal judgement against Violette as "a patriarchal conspiracy masquerading as justice." The pamphlet was published in 1933 in Belgium and promptly thereafter banned in France, where it was considered almost as scandalous as the parricide itself.<br /><br />The Surrealists exploited the subjects of crime and criminals, and their representation in the media, as a means of addressing social and aesthetic problems. Noziere was only one of a group of murderers who elicited their interest and sympathy. Others were Henri Desire Landru, the notorious serial killer who displayed a "witty insolence" in court (and was, incidentally, the subject of ano<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUguYbn5q_K6onD3GSaYL42try8aW3BhxKhbSOaIKJKRUPwCFdJA8AZto9mGiT-npQUhbYR8B2NqridppNXGlbqZzxzlhnDhcz8_iNmVBUr5i6n3MUWmjZ_31VieiHioIY3t5FHeWs0SE/s1600-h/henri-landru.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 315px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUguYbn5q_K6onD3GSaYL42try8aW3BhxKhbSOaIKJKRUPwCFdJA8AZto9mGiT-npQUhbYR8B2NqridppNXGlbqZzxzlhnDhcz8_iNmVBUr5i6n3MUWmjZ_31VieiHioIY3t5FHeWs0SE/s320/henri-landru.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359636517619158370" border="0" /></a>ther Chabrol film); Germaine Berton, the militant anarchist who murdered the anti-Semitic royalist Marius Plateau of the reactionary Action francaise (though she'd planned to assassinate either Charles Maurras or Leon Daudet); the Papin sisters, oppressed domestic servants who blinded and murdered their employer and her daughter (and inspired Jean Genet's play <span style="font-style: italic;">The Maids</span>).<br /><br />In mock-serious defense of the killer Landru, Surrealist Benjamin Peret solemnly asserted that criminals should be judged according to the degree of their creativity, the amount of imagination they deployed, the "artfulness" of their crimes. Those displaying sufficient subtlety and sophistication, as opposed to "everyday barbarity," were the kind that deserved approval. Read characterizes Peret's argument as "ostensibly irresponsible" but "perversely subversive in its opposition to the predominant journalistic modes of voyeuristic sensationalism and moralism."<br /><br />Less ironically, the Surrealists defended certain crimes as powerful psychological reactions against a corrupt social order and bourgeois hypocrisy. Noziere's poisoning of a father who had molested her since she was twelve years old was an explicable outburst of rage against abuse-- and a legitimate form of self-defense. But cases like Noziere's also revealed "a deeply oppressive social malady," dark underground fissures in society's fabric; Noziere's crime, along with others, thus had political as well as psychological ramifications. Such anti-social acts were already (in the late 1920s and early 1930s) seen by the Surrealists as critiques of the mores of fascism. The underlying social conditions they revealed were predictive of events to come, incipient symptoms of disease that would later fully mature "when the Vichy regime enacted its own vicious version of normative, anti-Semitic and patriarchal values."<br /><br />Enlarging on this idea, Read suggests a broader political context for the Surrealist attitude towards criminals and crime. His essay begins and ends with seemingly inapposite but in fact relevant references to an important event in turn-of-the-century French history-- the Dreyfus Affair. He finds that harrowing case relevant here because of its long-lasting aftereffect. The wrongly condemned Dreyfus was, of course, finally freed and "justice was served, but the affair left the reputation of the French judiciary and other institutions seriously damaged." French society after Dreyfus remained "split down the middle." On one side, the patriotic, conservative anti-Dreyfusards, who represented rigid, anti-Semitic, patriarchal standards. On the other side were those disaffected members of society, among them French intellectuals and the Surrealists, who had a growing sympathy for "anarchists, renegades and outlaws" and who were inclined to systematically reverse society's judgements. "It would then be more apparent," concludes Read, "that the Vichy regime, whose values the Surrealists were already contesting in the 1920s and 30s, constituted a return to power of the anti-Dreyfusards, who during the Occupation achieved a late and effective revenge over their historic adversaries."<br /><br />Chabrol does not make that political leap between Violette's case and the Vichy regime's morality, but he does make explicit reference to perverted Petainist values in a subsequent film, the 1988 <span style="font-style: italic;">Une Affaire des Femmes</span>, in which Isabelle Huppert is again his heroine-- this time not as a parricide, but as an illegal abortionist who is guillotined for her "crimes" against family, church and state.exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-34907767704583083222009-07-14T21:16:00.007-04:002009-07-15T11:38:48.374-04:00Parricide and the Flapper from Hell: Part 1Having just the other day seen Claude Chabrol's 1978 film <span style="font-style: italic;">Violette</span> (via DVD and the wonderful Netflix), I was surprised and amused last night to read an account of the defense mounted by Andre Breton and his Surrealist cohorts of the real-life parricide Violette Noziere, the French woman whose crimes in the early 1930s were the inspiration for Chabrol's movie. I came upon it in the most recent issue of <span style="font-style: italic;">TLS</span> to reach me-- part of a review by Peter Read of Jonathan P. Eburne's <span style="font-style: italic;">Surrealism and the Art of Crime</span>. I was tickled by the coincidence, and reminded of how the Surrealists themselves loved the haphazard, the contingent, the fortuitous.<br /><br />So, herewith, in Part 1, some random comments on Chabrol's film. In my next post, Part 2, the Surrealists on the Noziere case and other crimes.<br /><br />Part 1. Chabrol's Violette, portrayed brilliantly by Isabelle Huppert, is several years younger than the actual Noziere, who was eighteen at the time of her crime. Though Chabrol embroiders and enhances the Noziere story, and adds to it an elusive atmosphere of ambiguity, he generally follows fairly closely the facts of the case.<br /><br />The teenage daughter of a proper lower middle-class couple, Violette lives a cramped existence in a tiny claustrophobic tenement. At home, she is well-behaved and virginal-- a typical though somewhat dour and buttoned-up schoolgirl, always busy with homework. But in fact she has been leading a do<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihcodTcsads4k8NqxYQxt1NNfqcymz7mCSWiqcGAVkMw4NmEZdMpPHAeC-qVV_XdGATMYSzzqvSI9F1GcTmuWf-09l2daWA-ufo57YhUGOGaFVVOhEk_PDq6hS0jWkxGgC6pDJCKVEuAY/s1600-h/Violette.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihcodTcsads4k8NqxYQxt1NNfqcymz7mCSWiqcGAVkMw4NmEZdMpPHAeC-qVV_XdGATMYSzzqvSI9F1GcTmuWf-09l2daWA-ufo57YhUGOGaFVVOhEk_PDq6hS0jWkxGgC6pDJCKVEuAY/s320/Violette.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358711201346328322" border="0" /></a>uble life as a quasi-prostitute. After her parents are asleep, she slips out of her bedroom, changes into flashy clothes, puts on heavy makeup, and goes into seedy neighborhoods in search of romance, i.e., of men with whom to bed.<br /><br />Two events interrupt this pattern-- first, Violette discovers that she has syphilis. Frightened that her parents will learn the truth, she pressures her doctor to tell them the disease is inherited-- one of them must be the carrier-- and that she is still a virgin. The second development is Violette's fateful encounter with Jean Dabin, a good-looking scoundrel with whom she falls hopelessly in love. Dabin turns out to be a leech. To meet his constant demands for money and to keep him in style, Violette uses her earnings as a prostitute. She also begins to steal petty amounts from her parents without their knowledge.<br /><br />As Dabin's requirements increase, Violette seeks other sources of money. She tries unsuccessfully to break into her parents' cache of savings, stored under lock and key in the apartment. When it is clear that Dabin will leave her if she can't come up with more cash, Violette plots to murder both her mother and father. The syphilis story conveniently provides a method. Violette forges a letter from her doctor indicating that the whole family should take the syphilis medication. The parents, humiliated by the possibility that they are the source of Violette's infection, agree to take the medicine and are promptly fed poisonous powders by their daughter. To finish off the job and disguise the cause of death, Violette turns on the gas in the apartment and leaves.<br /><br />Her plan, however, goes awry. Though Violette's father dies immediately, her mother survives, recovers, and provides testimony against her daughter. Meanwhile, Violette has gone into hiding. When she is inevitably caught and arrested, she has her defense ready. She claims that she was a victim of her father's abuse, that he had regularly raped her, and that the only reason she tried to kill her mother was to spare her the shame of knowing about her husband's guilt.<br /><br />The case is sensational and widely exploited by the press. Screaming headlines pop up everywhere. The public is fascinated and divided. Partisan groups form for and against the parricide. Conflicting theses for the crime are expounded in public forums. Noziere becomes a <span style="font-style: italic;">cause celebre</span> for feminists and the Surrealists. When the case comes to trial, Violette's mother, changing her position, begs that her daughter be spared. Violette is nevertheless condemned to death. We learn from the film's coda that the sentence for the real-life Noziere was subsequently changed to life imprisonment, then shortened. Years later she was pardoned and set free earlier than expected. She married the son of an official at the prison where she had been incarcerated, had five children, and was even reconciled with her mother.<br /><br />Both visually and in its use of a broken narrative line, Chabrol's treatment of Violette's story is uneasy and equivocal. It's never apparent whether he wishes us to admire or condemn his icy heroine. Perhaps we are meant to do neither, or to do both simultaneously. Violette's sexual escapades, in deep blacks and dull greys, are sometimes viewed as glamorous, but also as shabby and distasteful. Her life on the streets is pathetic as well as a means of escaping her dreary, cluttered and oppressive family existence. Like the Surrealists, Chabrol seems to appreciate the liberationist role of romantic desire in Violette's life. But if he approves of Violette's flouting of the norms of bourgeois respectability, he also knows the frightening downside. Her entanglement with Dabin is seen with no less complexity. If the young woman desperately in love provokes our sympathy, she also seems an utter fool for submitting with such passivity to her lover's extortionist demands.<br /><br />The film's discontinuous method accentuates all these dualities. Certain key events are seen in flashbacks that suddenly interrupt the present action. Sometimes hazy and thus shrouded in indeterminacy, they may represent Violette's romanticization and/or distortion of the past. But perhaps-- it's hard to tell-- they represent actual events in the young woman's life, like a scene which reveals (without definitive justification) Violette's painful feeling in childhood that she has been neglected by her mother.<br /><br />As for the crime itself, here Chabrol also deals in ambiguity. Though the depiction of the murder is blunt and unsparing, as are Violette's mercenary motives for it, there are still uncertainties surrounding the event. We know that Violette is a habitual liar, and so must doubt her claim that she'd been regularly molested by her father. Yet certain flashbacks possibly provide supporting evidence. In one, the teenage Violette, boldly naked, stands at a sink and washes herself while her father is nearby, trying to talk to her. He is either engaged in lasciviously eyeing his daughter's body or-- again, it's difficult to tell-- he is carefully looking the other way. At an earlier time, Violette's father is seen vigorously bouncing the young teenager on his lap. Both appear to like the fun, but Violette's mother furiously pulls her daughter away. A mother's jealousy or a father's incestuous lust? As elsewhere, Isabelle Huppert's cool impassivity encompasses all these possibilities.exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-6786613522229836442008-11-18T11:17:00.000-05:002008-11-18T15:55:36.875-05:00Copenhagen Pleasures: Part Two<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV4bvDTWXWZp4IlVXl5ypvj3lf5IXB0bsrTxYOertBVDJ0UwyXObNkFKcGdXtqPxH3QJ1nEJeBPCvWqKf_MGZHjKnWdnCVkEO7KE6ptMTEVCUBA2pRg2KbUwZVIdNF17mcgmSbt_AJMAM/s1600-h/Det-kongelige-teater-2004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV4bvDTWXWZp4IlVXl5ypvj3lf5IXB0bsrTxYOertBVDJ0UwyXObNkFKcGdXtqPxH3QJ1nEJeBPCvWqKf_MGZHjKnWdnCVkEO7KE6ptMTEVCUBA2pRg2KbUwZVIdNF17mcgmSbt_AJMAM/s200/Det-kongelige-teater-2004.jpg" /></a>Before leaving for Denmark, I'd taken the precaution of ordering tickets online for two tempting events-- a new staging of <i>Giselle</i> at the Royal Danish Ballet and a new production of Handel's <i>Partenope</i> at the Royal Danish Opera. Both were scheduled at the "Gamle Scene"-- the handsome old opera house in the square named Kongens Nytorv. And both, for reasons I'll explain below, were especially newsworthy. I suspected-- quite rightly-- that tickets might be difficult to get on the spot.<br />
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On October 25th, shortly after our arrival in Copenhagen, we attended <i>Giselle</i>. It was a lovely introduction to the Danish cultural scene, but also exciting because this production was Nicolaj Hubbe's first project in his interesting new job as director of the RDB. Though I hadn't seen Hubbe dance very recently, I knew him-- and his reputation-- as a splendid principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. I expected his history with the NYCB to shape what he'd do as director in Copenhagen-- especially in this important initial production. I guess I was looking forward to an edgy, Balanchine-inspired evening, rather than the conventional romantic version of <i>Giselle</i> that he did mount. Conventional, but beautiful! And beautifully danced by the long-legged, elegant Silja Schandorff and Nehemiah Kish, her Canadian Albrecht. I've since read that Hubbe dedicated this production to Henning Kronstan (an earlier dancer, ballet-master and director at the RDB) in whose staging he himself apparently danced his first Albrecht. I also heard that the second cast (we saw the first), with Mads Blangstrup and Gudrun Bojesen, had a very different feel. When I asked an usher about it, she gushed "Oh Mads-- he's <i>so</i> gorgeous!" Kish may not have been as dramatically compelling as his Danish colleague, but he was no slouch in the role. At any rate, the audience was ecstatic. Since this was the last night for <i>Giselle</i>, the applause went on and on. No one wanted to let the dancers go home.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVC7QOuR7OfRCXA7jdPsJDKQ5xB-AoBtZqYp0HEdBAoMhQEgATw1pILDXoJrLQKWvMJKjVtFzOZVAvtz71c_C_J3oaIxWfkhKXOKNlB7mjGJKd6_Ra8bCjEmL-XhQcnA3AvxiZ8ElTOjE/s1600-h/800px-Copenhagen_Opera_corner_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVC7QOuR7OfRCXA7jdPsJDKQ5xB-AoBtZqYp0HEdBAoMhQEgATw1pILDXoJrLQKWvMJKjVtFzOZVAvtz71c_C_J3oaIxWfkhKXOKNlB7mjGJKd6_Ra8bCjEmL-XhQcnA3AvxiZ8ElTOjE/s200/800px-Copenhagen_Opera_corner_1.jpg" /></a>Our opera experience a few days later was even more thrilling. But first I must write about our pre-opera cab ride with an articulate and intelligent driver (not at all unusual in Copenhagen!). When he learned that we were going to the venerable "Old Stage," and that we were a bit early, he offered to turn off his meter and take us for a short tour of the city. He particularly wanted us to see the Operaen-- Copenhagen's modern new opera house, which had opened in 2005. Parking at the edge of the Inderhavnen Canal, he pointed across the harbor to the striking, Henning Larsen-designed building, blazing with lights, on Holmen Island. As we looked across the water and nodded admiringly, the cabbie told us about Maersk McKinney Moeller, the Danish tycoon who had commissioned and paid for the entire cost of the expensive new structure. Moeller, whose family owns a vast container ship company, was for years considered to be Denmark's wealthiest citizen. (Lately, he's been replaced in that stratospheric niche by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the head of Lego.) We had a lively discussion about the pros and cons of such beneficence. Only a day later, we would hear again about this prominent billionaire. Invited to pay a visit to new friends in Charlottenlund, up the coast from Copenhagen, we were given explicit instructions for approaching their house. It was accessible only from one end of their street, since the street was awkwardly divided in half midway by a barrier built to protect a wealthy neighbor-- this same Moeller.<br />
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But back to the opera. Again, we were present at the final night of a sold-out production. The lobby of the Gamle Scene was packed, the audience buzzing with anticipation as we all waited impatiently for the doors to open. This was not my first <i>Partenope</i>. In fact, I'd seen a glorious production of it by the same director-- Francisco Negrin-- at Glimmerglass in 1998. I rather doubted that many in the Copenhagen audience had caught that one. But they probably had seen, or certainly knew about, the RDO's 2005 <i>Giulio Cesare</i>, also directed by Negrin and with much of the same cast. It received rave reviews in Copenhagen as well as enthusiastic attention elsewhere when it came out on DVD.<br />
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Which explains why there was proleptic excitement for this new <i>Partenope</i>. Like Negrin's <i>Giulio Cesare</i>, it was a modern dress version-- witty and lively, full of humorous quirks and comic absurdities, but its modernity unblemished by "Eurotrash." Handel's music and its glorious lyricism, it goes without saying, is magnificent. I still remembered the terrific performances of it at Glimmerglass by counter-tenors David Daniels and David Walker. The RDO, on this last night, was equally memorable. Andreas Scholl, as Arsace, started out slightly wan, but quickly picked up strength and ended the evening singing powerfully and beautifully. Christophe Dumaux, a counter-tenor new to me, was a sweet-voiced, tender Armindo. I especially liked Tuva Semmingsen's peformance in the pants role of Rosmira. Only Inger Dam-Jensen, in the title role, seemed slightly outclassed. The orchestra-- the original instrument band Concerto Copenhagen led by Lars Ulrik Mortensen-- was outstanding and vigorously cheered by the audience. But so was the entire cast. Bravos, bravissimos, whistles and rhythmic clapping went on forever! In sum-- a wonderful Copenhagen evening.exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-15358653179461106102008-11-17T13:20:00.001-05:002008-11-20T17:19:22.095-05:00Copenhagen Pleasures: Part OneI always like to travel in autumn, rather than in the summer months. The cool weather is better for touring, the colors richer, the crowds smaller, and cities are alive, humming with fall events. This year my husband and I decided to go to Copenhagen. Why? One reason was that we'd never been there. Yet, sight unseen, I already had an agreeable impression of Denmark. I liked the country's reputation for taking care of its citizens, for the relative smallness of the disparity between rich and poor, the supposed modesty of Danish lifestyles. Also appealing was the Danish history of innovative design, not to mention the Michelin stars recently awarded to several Copenhagen restaurants. On a map of Europe, I even liked Denmark's precarious position, its disparate parts jutting up energetically from the mainland towards Norway and Sweden.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-pXJjDaU7r-Zo7uT4kaZaBBD4qcB4gF_xEIbhmjdYq-rULBi0awOQiIeNFHkX8ziSPSxcWDEIxul3XbMYmnhH8DTc8f31F5EFz69-dGS-poXQCS8BNRlYmUug0o5ASrW5eoK4wIY0Js/s1600-h/brid2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-pXJjDaU7r-Zo7uT4kaZaBBD4qcB4gF_xEIbhmjdYq-rULBi0awOQiIeNFHkX8ziSPSxcWDEIxul3XbMYmnhH8DTc8f31F5EFz69-dGS-poXQCS8BNRlYmUug0o5ASrW5eoK4wIY0Js/s200/brid2.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYOjt2BcgVMVz4GwkBV1rmbb_eFhsPZL1OV7mYiwv0buVMpjwFi1HOuNEl7cgUvCKvAyaQ332hXCBSGtRcxSR6hFRjYhQDOnQBGd6ZQeEUx8rCyHmYXV3CjYvi3mGqqq3JJNrsSPiBtY/s1600-h/brid1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYOjt2BcgVMVz4GwkBV1rmbb_eFhsPZL1OV7mYiwv0buVMpjwFi1HOuNEl7cgUvCKvAyaQ332hXCBSGtRcxSR6hFRjYhQDOnQBGd6ZQeEUx8rCyHmYXV3CjYvi3mGqqq3JJNrsSPiBtY/s200/brid1.jpg" /></a>Scandinavia wasn't totally virgin territory for me. I had been to Helsinki and loved that visit. But that was many years ago-- a work-trip to cover the opening of the then-new Kiasma contemporary art museum, designed by Steven Holl. Oddly enough, while we were in Denmark, Steven Holl's name cropped up again. His architectural firm had just won an international competition for a major Copenhagen commission-- a new and dramatic gateway to the city. To be sited at the Copenhagen harbor, Holl's so-called "LM Project" looks to be a stunner. (See pics at left for night and day views.) It will consist of two eccentric high-rise office towers set on opposing banks of the waterway and connected by pedestrian bridges 65 meters above the harbor. In these worrisome economic times, and in keeping with Denmark's commitment to alternative energy, it's notable that the buildings' public spaces will be constantly lit ("always glowing," in the words of the project statement) by electricity generated from wind turbines lining the bridges.<br />
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If my experience this fall was typical, the turbines should work fine. I can testify that there's no shortage of wind-power in Copenhagen. Or rain. Since, at least in autumn, the two often occur together, a hood on your waterproof parka turns out to be far more practical here than an umbrella. Umbrellas have a terrible tendency to collapse. Or to catch the breeze and make you fear that you'll momentarily be airborne above the Tivoli Gardens or the Stroget, Copenhagen's long pedestrian shopping street. Or perhaps you'll be dangerously blown about while trying to rush directly across one of those wide ten-traffic-lane avenues that are commonplace in this city. And what good is an umbrella when you're on a bike, which is how multitudes of Danes get from here to there, rain or shine.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8MiMwoC6dHgJx68NidG9PThLBK1q3PqAF7GGetRhJ-CPEK1poWhUmkljYUnVq-G2FNo6-VuVVrrKCXXIIsLwH7MZQeH9JraDoc0crTpzNgsuWx2drGglYXhctdG9iuYGzir7l9H6cG74/s1600-h/021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8MiMwoC6dHgJx68NidG9PThLBK1q3PqAF7GGetRhJ-CPEK1poWhUmkljYUnVq-G2FNo6-VuVVrrKCXXIIsLwH7MZQeH9JraDoc0crTpzNgsuWx2drGglYXhctdG9iuYGzir7l9H6cG74/s200/021.JPG" /></a>I could see some of those never-ending streams of bicyclists from the wide picture window in our comfortable 15th floor hotel room at the Radisson SAS Royal. The expansive view-- onto the busy Vesterbrogade, Tivoli, and way out over the cityscape towards the Oresund Bridge to Sweden-- was marvelous. So, too, the good-natured, cheerful service from everyone at the hotel. And not only the hotel. The service people I met everywhere in Copenhagen-- in shops, supermarkets, restaurants, theaters-- all seemed to be amazingly tall, blond, good-loking, amiable and eager to be of help. And surprisingly fluent in English. Equally kind were those Copenhageners I boldly accosted on the street or in train stations or at bus stops to ask for assistance finding my way. Citizens on public transportation were generous with help, translating impenetrable (to me) announcements about delayed trains, arranging for bus drivers to indicate my correct stop, etc.-- all without being asked. (Danish public signage, on the other hand, was often peculiarly misleading...) Was I just lucky, mostly moving about in the right (i.e., upscale) parts of town, or was I in a country totally without spleen?<br />
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Well-- not entirely. In spite of Denmark's high standard of living and strict immigration policies, migrant issue are not unknown here. And neighborhoods, of course, vary. In Copenhagen newspapers (several have on-line English-language editions) I did read about the darker side of the city-- e.g., shootings and biker-immigrant clashes in the Norrebro area; violence, fires and destruction of squats in Christiania. And walking back to the hotel late one night through back streets beyond the rail station, I saw a lineup of obviously poor immigrants waiting to get into a shelter. So-- perhaps life is less good for those workers from Turkey, Somalia, Lebanon, Iraq.<br />
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For a tourist, in the center of the city, those problems seemed distant. More pressing was how to have enough time to see everything we wanted to see-- the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, the "Black Diamond," the Danish Design Center, the Caillebotte show in Ordrupgaard, Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, the Louisiana Museum, the new theater, the art galleries, the shops, the palaces, the university, etc., etc., etc.<br />
Next installment-- two terrific events we did see...exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-5194847047894033452008-07-12T12:48:00.000-04:002008-07-12T13:12:47.714-04:00Calling for MondegreensThe New Yorker's delightful blog, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books">The Book Bench</a>, informs us today that Merriam-Webster, in its online community <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/newwords08.htm">here</a>, is asking readers to submit their favorite mondegreens. They're accepting entries until Friday, July 25, 2008, and will reveal the ones they like best on July 28. Should be great fun to read!exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8924468703483518488.post-88870913500847237292008-07-05T12:06:00.000-04:002008-07-05T13:39:32.673-04:00The Gumshoe as SurvivorHard to believe, but it's 27 years since detective Arkady Renko first surfaced in <span style="font-style:italic;">Gorky Park</span>. Gumshoes are rarely immortal. Case solved, throw-away-thriller disposed of, and the fictional detective vanishes from memory and the bookshelf. A few are luckier-- Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, for example. Or Chandler's Marlowe, Hugo's Police Inspector Javert, Simenon's Commissaire Maigret. Absorbed into the history of Western popular culture, quasi-iconic figures, they've become points of reference. For some theorists (see Tzvetan Todorov) the stories in which these characters appear have provided fertile subject matter for the structural analysis of narrative itself. Will some recent standout detectives like the poetic Inspector Dalgliesh also prove to have staying power? Too soon to tell.<br /><br />The rough-edged, cynical Arkady Renko of <span style="font-style:italic;">Gorky Park</span> had all the makings of a survivor, and Martin Cruz Smith has now kept him going through five subsequent novels. In the four following the first, however, Renko seemed to lose some of his allure. So it's good to find that, in <span style="font-style:italic;">Stalin's Ghost</span>, Arkady has come alive again. Alive, but (as one would expect) seriously threatened. His current environment-- the not-so-fictional country called "The New Russia"-- is filled with nascent fascists, aggressive ultra-nationalists, greedy capitalists, murder-prone police, mafia hit-men, squalid neighborhoods, and deluded elderly citizens longing for Stalin's return. When a false spring softens Moscow's ice, physical reminders of the grim past also appear-- Turkish workers digging beneath the basement cafeteria of the Russian Supreme Court uncover skeletal remains of the victims of Stalinist purges.<br /><br />Arkady is of course older now, if not necessarily more judicious about the crimes he chooses to investigate. Nor is he less personally tormented. The changed political system has scarcely improved his working conditions. At the prosecutor's office, his treacherous boss Zurin is still as likely to stab him in the back as commend him for a job well done. At home, his love-life is in disrepair. His lover Eva is about to desert him, it seems, for Nikolai Isakov, Arkady's new colleague in the Moscow police department. A much-vaunted Black Beret hero of the dirty Chechen wars, Isakov has a dark past, reactionary political aspirations, and an infuriating ability to charm crowds as well as the susceptible Eva. He may also be a cold-blooded murderer who would kill to conceal past crimes committed in Chechnya.<br /><br />Arkady has been warned off by Isakov's pals, even physically threatened. He knows that investigation of his rival is both fraught with danger and tainted by personal motives. Moreover, he's been assigned by Zurin to another case. Thus the stage is set for the intertwined, thrillerish events which follow-- many suspenseful, many violent, many revelatory of political corruption.<br /><br />Yet the heart of Smith's novel, and the reason for our sustained interest in Arkady, may be elsewhere. If Renko does seem alive, it's not solely because of his adventures but because we come to know him intimately: his disconsolate self-deprecation, his outraged morality, his difficult relationship with Eva, his desire to examine "the etiquette of cuckoldry." We appreciate his acerbic insights. We understand his painful, paternal concern for Zhenya, the erratic homeless boy he's adopted. And then there's what we learn about Arkady's past. We've always known that Arkady's father was a close friend of Stalin and an important general in the Soviet army, but have never witnessed his extreme cruelty to both his young son and his wife. Midway through <span style="font-style:italic;">Stalin's Ghost</span>, the narrative takes a surreal turn. Arkady, critically wounded, is confined to a hospital bed. Hovering between life and death, in a dream-like, brain-damaged state, he relives scenes with his sadistic father, scenes from his childhood in which Arkady is abused and his mother driven to suicide. Those childhood experiences neither sum up Arkady's nature nor determine his later actions, but they evoke, as it were, the ghosts of Stalin that haunt Renko's own past-- a melancholy shadow that paradoxically helps to flesh out his character.exegettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566288007619471444noreply@blogger.com0