The Frank Gehry retrospective on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art starts out magnificently modest. Visitors enter the Resnick Pavilion and walk through a gallery of recent contemporary artworks gifted to the museum. The architect’s name hangs in capital letters against a navy background and, for a moment, the exhibition signage resembles the work of another Los Angeles master, Ed Ruscha. That fleeting misperception leads to another: Is the title simply an honorific celebration of the 86-year-old Pritzker-winning designer, or is that Frank, frank—a curatorial pun referencing an honest, stripped down approach to architecture? Read More …
A vintage image of the Starship Enterprise enigmatically graces the poster advertising Alternative Histories, an exhibition chronicling the experimental, independent and activist art spaces in New York City since the 1960s. A pop icon, the starship carries with it the original Star Trek title narration, which haunts our collective cultural imagination with the phrase: “To boldly go where no man has gone before.” As installed in Exit Art’s gallery on the west side of Manhattan, the art show has little to do with the television show, but hung in the gallery, the Starship Enterprise, boldly floating in space, represents a pioneering mission and, perhaps, an unexpected case of boomer nostalgia. Read More …
In Chronic City, Jonathan Lethem’s 467-page, pot-fumed meditation on New York City’s Upper East Side, the author describes a fictional artwork by a fictional artist: Urban Fjord by Laird Noteless, a figure cut out of the same cloth as land artist Michael Heizer. A monumental earthwork, the piece taunts viewers into throwing all types of detritus into its gaping mouth. Curiously, New York’s Guggenheim Museum holds a similar sway. Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic design – the tantalising volume bounded by spiralling ramps – begs to be filled, but with what? Trees? Trampolines? Chocolate? Read More …
Kicking aside the Kone Dirt Devil flotsam, I pluck a plastic bottle from the oily surf. To cross the Palm by sunrise, I’ll need resources: water, anti-bacteria wipes, and ammo. The Avant Garde control the easternmost fronds and the Urban Gardeners’ Free Ranger Chickens patrol the west. In this archetypal battle—abstraction versus nature—my comrades and I fight for beauty.
This decade is our chance. At dawn, Burj Skeleton broadcasts the revolution. Its remaining infrastructure will vibrate with our adhan. Chengdu, listen.
The GeoEye satellite crests the horizon. It’s nearly time. My balaclava itches. Bottle tucked in my waistband, I run.