News for the ‘When Art History Goes Bad’ Category

Damien Hirst Sunday #10

It’s been a long time since I’ve had one of these. And it’s a shame, too, because there’s been a huge development in the world of Damien Hirst. He has recently announced that no more animals will die so that he can sell their formaldehyde pickled remains for millions of dollars. And not only that, he’s also going to phase out the ridiculous dot paintings and spin paintings that have made him so ridiculously wealthy. Good for the art world and the world of good taste in general, right?
Well… there’s more. Hirst has resolved to become a real painter. No, really, a good, talented, bodaciously brilliant painter who the world will remember for centuries as one who made historical advances in the use of light and shadow. One who will display a complete knowledge of classical iconography in his timeless works. One of the great prophets of civilization, in fact! Woohoo!
It will probably be more efficacious just to quote Hirst himself. He has recently said, “Anyone can be like Rembrandt. I don’t think a painter like Rembrandt is a genius. It’s about freedom and guts. It’s about looking. It can be learnt. That’s the great thing about art. Anybody can do it if you just believe. With practice you can make great paintings.”

In case you were raised by scientists in an isolation booth, this is what a Rembrandt looks like. Can you tell where the light is coming from? Left? Right? Behind? Don’t wear yourself out- it’s one of the mysteries of the ages.

Another amazing thing about the greatest Northern European painter of all time was the way he painted women. While large bellies and thighs have not always been considered undesirable in a woman, the same cannot be said for cellulite and varicose veins. But Rembrandt van Rijn didn’t give a shit. And have you ever seen an Artemis quite like this one?
According to Damien Hirst, anyone can paint like this- including you and, of course, he. And for what is possibly the first time in his career he plans on working hard not at aggressively marketing himself but at becoming a better artist. He is even approaching the endeavor with a slight dose of humility, admitting that “I definitely think it’s early days for me painting. I don’t think I’ve arrived.”

I have to admit that I sort of admire this position that he is taking. Hell, if he really says he thinks he can, why not give him a chance? Let’s not forget that before his days of producing bad art and good self-promotion he was a classically trained painter who attended both the Leeds College of Art and Design and Goldsmiths College. But what is this self-help crap about how “anybody can do it if you just believe”? Yes, there are certain obstacles that can be overcome. I like to think of myself as living proof that high-functioning autism isn’t necessarily a death sentence for a normal life. But if you’re a midget with spina bifida and an IQ of 70 then no matter how hard you believe in yourself you’ll never become President of the United States. Sorry. And if you naturally suck as a painter then you’ll never be able to paint like Rembrandt. Back in art school I knew several students who were determined to be painters. And those students worked harder than anyone else up to the day they flunked out because they just weren’t good enough. The same goes for those who are just born to be engineers in spite of being pretty bad at math and science.
Others in the field agree. Dr. Julian Stallabrass of the Courtauld Institute cited Cézanne as an example of an artist whose work improved vastly over several decades, but also noted that “If you spend a lot of time drawing you will certainly improve. But that does not necessarily mean you’ll succeed. There have always been many more artists than famous artists, and this is true all the more these days. There are a lot of art students working very hard, but not many of them will became well known.” Amen.
Last October Hirst gave us a taste of what was to come with No Love Lost, an exhibition of twenty-five paintings at the Wallace Collection in London. Here are a few highlights:


Ooo, look at that wallpaper though! It was commissioned from Marie Antoinette’s preferred manufacturers and paid for by Damien Hirst, who spent nearly a quarter of a million pounds from his own notoriously deep pockets getting the gallery ready for his big foray into serious painting.
Seriously, though, if these pictures were for a CD cover they wouldn’t be bad. But they’re not. They’re somebody’s first baby step towards becoming Rembrandt. And while my own opinion is probably too obvious to even mention, the critical reviews were atrocious. The London Times said this: “Hirst appears to hope that his heavy handed memento mori will make him part of the line-up of art historical tradition. But the artist who has made his reputation with shock now produces works that are shockingly bad.” Yep.
But again, I say we should give him a chance. At the very least we’ll have plenty more fodder for future Damien Hirst Sundays.

Kazimir Malevich

In the early twentieth century, the manifesto began to become very popular in organized art history movements. Manifestos were once the domain of philosophical and political movements, but now artists were writing ‘em too. This heralded the birth of what we can call the “artist philosopher” (that’s my own term), which is basically a painter whose work may be deep and meaningful but isn’t something you’d want to hang on your wall.
For eight hundred years the Russians really didn’t have anything to show us artwise except Candyland-looking basilicas and heavily gilded, sleepy-eyed icons. But that changed shortly before the Bolshevik Revolution with the coming of two new movements in Russian art, Suprematism and Constructivism. The lithographed red and black posters with lots of backwards “N”s and “R”s and the big solid statues of well-built women holding sickles that may come to your mind when you think of Soviet art belonged to the Constructivist movement. But its harbinger, Suprematism, was far less interesting. The movement’s creator, Kazimir Malevich, is notable for his ability to crank out hundreds of paintings in a short period of time that basically all looked the same.

Kazimir Malevich, Red Square. 1915, oil on canvas.

Kazimir Malevich, Black Square. 1913, oil on canvas.
Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition White on White. 1918, oil on canvas.
If you’re somewhat afraid that you’re missing something, or if you feel a tad ignorant because you just don’t “get” it, never fear. Take the advice from someone who’s more than a bit knowledgeable concerning this sort of thing and just don’t read too much into it. They’re squares. That’s all. Just fucking squares. And if you ever got a chuckle from any of those eighties movies where some culture snob looks at a painting of a square and snobbishly remarks on how brilliant and thrilling it is while all the cool kids laugh about how he’s really just an idiot, you have Malevich to thank.
But just for the sake of it, let’s get to the topic of Malevich as a philosopher. To really strip it down to the bones, here’s what a Suprematist thinks:
  1. Nothing is more important (or “supreme”) than feeling.
  2. You cannot use art to produce feelings if your art is actually of something that exists in real life. Only master forms can produce feeling.
  3. The square is the ultimate master form.

See, that’s pretty simple, huh? What sort of “feelings” do Malevich’s paintings invoke for you? Yep, I’m drawing a blank too.

All of this talk about art producing “feelings” and how you can’t paint a rose or a bunch of guys in a boat and produce these “feelings” because only lines and squiggles can do that may remind you of the artistic philosophy of another artist, who was also a Russian by birth (but a German by all other definitions).
Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII. 1913, oil on canvas.
Now THIS is what a non-objective painting should look like. Not only did it probably take more than fifteen minutes to complete, but it really does invoke feelings in the viewer. I feel a surge of creativity and inspiration when I look at it, but you may feel frustration, anger or indignation. That’s the idea, y’know?
In my humble opinion (and that’s the only one that matters here), we shouldn’t even compare this Malevich dumbass to the Bauhaus color theorist and legendary art educator Josef Albers, who painted a whole series of “homages to the square.”
Josef Albers, Homage to the Square. 1965, acrylic on canvas.
This may be an homage to the ultimate master form, yes, but it’s all about color, not form. And yes, you could go to Michael’s and buy a pre-stretched canvas and a few fifty cent bottles of Delta Ceramcoat acrylic and do one of these yourself- but depending on your decor it might look quite striking over your sofa.
Although he usually chose not to, Malevich could actually paint quite well. He painted many very good portraits and objective paintings before and after he founded the Suprematist movement. Of course, as far as the “after” part goes he really didn’t have much choice; the Stalinist regime forbid all forms of nonrepresentational art, arguing that they were bourgeois. But he signed all of these paintings with a black square. And when he died in Leningrad in 1935 his body was displayed beneath his beloved black square. (Hmph… now I feel a little guilty for slagging him so badly. He must have really loved his squares.)

Epic Michelangelo-Destroying Fail

A word to the wise: If you plan on doing something extremely stupid, and you want to have a good insanity case when you make it to court, just scream “I AM JESUS CHRIST!” while you’re doing it.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, La Pietà. 1499, marble.

Pietà is a generic term for a Madonna holding and weeping over her deceased son. Rogier Van Der Weyden, El Greco, and others have also painted and sculpted this scene. In fact, it forms the thirteenth Station of the Cross. But much like almost every other common subject Michelangelo has ever taken on, his is the most recognizable. It even has the distinction of being the only piece of his that was signed; he later regretted the pride involved in carving “Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made it” across her sash. While we know that Michelangelo made this one, there are seven authorized replicas out there, including two in the United States (in Saint Louis and Spring Lake, Michigan).
This hasn’t been the luckiest sculpture; in 1736 four of the Virgin’s fingers were restored after being broken off in a move. But it met its most unfortunate moment in 1972, on Pentecost Sunday, when a Hungarian geologist named Lazlo Toth managed to sneak a sledgehammer into Saint Peter’s. People who knew Toth described him as looking like a poet (longish hair, goatee, et al.), said that he was always reading his Bible, and claimed that the only reason why he was in Rome in the first place was to speak publicly about the secrets of the Fatima prophecy (the Pope had promised to reveal them that year, but did not).
Possessing delusions of grandeur as well as the most Hungarian name possible, the disturbed geologist went for her face and arm while screaming that he was indeed the deceased man in the sculpture, risen from the dead. Due to his apparent insanity, he was never charged with the crime, but his deed did earn him a couple of years in an Italian psychiatric hospital. After his stay he was deported to Australia, where he had been living before the attack. (The extensive time he had spent studying in the remote Australian Outback might have been a contributor to his obvious insanity.)
The Virgin’s arm, eyelid and nose were chipped off with Toth’s sledgehammer. Some unfamiliar with the details of the attack were under the impression that she had been completely destroyed, with little chance of being restored to her original beauty. Well, seeing that the picture above was taken in 2005, those reports were exaggerated. Of course, just for safety’s sake, the Virgin and her Son can only be seen behind bullet-proof acrylic today. (If only they could employ some sort of security precaution involving hammers in Saint Peter’s, eh?)
And whatever happened to Lazlo Toth? Don Novello (best known for his portrayal of Father Guido on Saturday Night Live) published a book of bogus letters to celebrities and CEOs under the pseudonym Lazlo Toth. (It just sounds like a made-up name, doesn’t it?) But the real Lazlo, who would be sixty-nine years old today if he is still alive, is believed to reside in Melbourne. One person who claims to have met him describes him as being very intelligent but was “a victim of knowledge and beliefs that he did not need” and says he lived like a hermit in the Bluemountains of New South Wales before suffering from a stroke that left him mostly paralyzed. No one knows for sure, of course, and that hasn’t stopped dozens of Australians from facing accusations of being the real Lazlo Toth.

John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent, Self Portrait. 1906, oil on canvas.

I have been writing one of my papers on John Singer Sargent, and I have grown to really like him. Possibly the best portrait painter since Velázquez (whom he modeled himself after), Sargent painted over 900 portraits in his lifetime, including far and away the greatest official portrait of a United States President. (And what is very interesting is that, to put it short, he and Teddy did NOT get along.)
Sargent came from a very old American family- his ancestors were Puritans who arrived shortly after the Mayflower did, and his family was extremely proud of their heritage. While they were not hideously wealthy, his parents had the means to spend their lives roaming around Europe without having to worry about working. So Sargent was born in Florence, spent most of his childhood in Italy and France, and did not set foot on American soil until he was 21. As an adult his main base of operations was in London, though he spent ample time in Paris and Venice as well; in spite of having major commissions in Washington, DC and Boston, he never lived in the United States. But he never considered himself to be anything except an American. Toward the end of his life he even turned down the opportunity to be knighted, as that would have involved forgoing his American citizenship. An American spirit has no geographic boundaries.
Now the rant begins. Part of being an historian of any sort involves picking and poking at stuff that’s really none of your business. Sargent never married, although as a man of high society he probably could have had his pick of the available dames. He also had no romantic relationships of note and was very private about his personal life. And even though he was a guy, he was not afraid to paint male nudes, some of which were rather sensuous.
John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Thomas E. McKellar. 1917, oil on canvas. This painting also has the distinction of being one of the very few nude paintings of a black man from this time period.
John Singer Sargent, Tommies Bathing. 1918, watercolor and graphite on paper.
For this reason plenty of scholars have pretty much assumed that he was a homosexual. No one seems to even notice that he painted similarly sensual female nudes:
John Singer Sargent, Egyptian Girl. 1917, oil on canvas.
The French painter Jacques-Émile Blanche once said about Sargent that his sex life was “notorious in Paris, and positively scandalous in Venice… he was a frenzied bugger.” I’m no expert on antiquated dirty words, so I still haven’t gotten the best handle on the meaning of the word “bugger.” I am fairly certain that it involves anal sex, but whether it specifically denotes dude-on-dude action is unclear to me.
I don’t think it’s even worth mentioning that there’s nothing wrong with being gay or that a large percentage of history’s most brilliant artists were openly gay; everyone knows that. But whether Sargent was or wasn’t was a matter that he apparently wished to take to the grave. It did not influence the majority of his work- so why do art historians seem to find any importance in it at all? Did Sargent speak with an effeminate voice? Did he buy matching wallets and belts? Did he wave his hand in a flippant gesture and refer to Teddy Roosevelt and his other sitters as “Miss Thang”? Who honestly gives a shit?
Disrespect for the dead is not acceptable in art history. Especially when it’s a dead person who, as I have mentioned earlier, is someone I have really grown to like.

What Are the World’s Most Expensive Paintings… And Why?

Once in my younger years I recall looking through some old Look and Saturday Evening Post magazines that I had found in a trunk in my grandparents’ basement. One article mentioned a painting by Diego Velázquez that had recently sold for $2.4 million. At the time (I believe this was the early 1970s) it was the most expensive painting ever purchased.
Today, that’s laughable. Now don’t get me wrong- I once rode high for a year after someone paid $600 for one of my own canvases- but even when adjusted for inflation $2.4 million for a great painting is a pittance. And a Velázquez to boot!
What makes determining the most valuable painting in the world difficult is that most extremely high-end paintings (such as the Old Masters’ or icons such as Guernica) are not for sale. In 1962 The Mona Lisa was insured for $100 million, which with inflation figured in makes it worth about $670 million today. But no matter what you’re willing to pay for it, it will probably never be yours.
But here are the ten most expensive paintings ever purchased by individuals or foundations at auctions or private sales- along with a brief explanation why each might have sold for so much. One thing that is interesting to note is that, although all prices are adjusted for inflation, nine of the ten were purchased in the past twenty years, with four (including all of the top three) purchased in 2006. This may insinuate that our appetites for spending have become a little less satiable in recent years (hey, look at the credit crisis!). I will also add that these figures are truthful as of September 16, 2009; while the number one spot on our list has retained its title for nearly three years, its predecessor kept it for only five months.
10. Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait de l’artiste sans barbe. 1889. Sold 1998, $94.6 million (adjusted, as are all prices here).
Why So Much? Well, it’s a self-portrait by Van Gogh. And he doesn’t have a beard. Come ON now.
In my personal opinion, Van Gogh’s work is somewhat overrated. But this is one artist whose legend cannot be separated from his work. Whom else do you think of when you correlate the words “brilliant” and “tortured”? He went mad from eating chrome yellow paint. He cut off his earlobe (not his entire ear) and mailed it to a prostitute whom he was in love with (although he was also a closet homosexual… hmmm). He painted nearly eight hundred paintings in his lifetime and sold only one. He offed himself at the age of 37- about ten years before he would become one of the most influential artists of his time. Oh, what a sad man. And sad men are the ones who are often taken the most seriously as artists.
Van Gogh’s self-portraits are rare- while he painted many, only a fraction survive- so they command a huge price. This one, however, has garnered the highest sum.
9. Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait of Joseph Roulin. 1889. Sold 1989, $100.8 million.

Why So Much? Generally a loner who didn’t have very many friends, Van Gogh was very close to the Roulin family when he lived in Paris Arles (thank you Nico), painting dozens of portraits of Joseph (usually in his postmaster uniform), his wife, and their three children. This particular one was not among the most recognizable nor the most impressive (although that wallpaper sure is fancy). So let’s just file this one under “who the hell knows.”

8. Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar au Chat. 1941. Sold 2006, $101.8 million.

Why So Much? Picasso holds a Guinness Book record as the most prolific artist of all time; over his eight decade career he produced over a million works. Before you accuse me of shitting you, at least half of these were prints from editions; nonetheless, he was still known to produce as many as six paintings a day. So why would a painting by someone who obviously has so much work floating around be worth this much? Well, influence wise Picasso was the greatest artist of the twentieth century, and this is one of the paintings that make us see why.

It’s a rare three quarter pose of Dora Maar (his most mysterious mistress; I have discussed her before) and it has a dramatic, almost sculptural quality in its line and shape. Even by Picasso’s standards, this is simply a good painting. If Les Demoiselles d’Avignon showed us everything Cubism could be, this painting embodied what it became. (I’m sorry- but I like it.)

So who owns it? No one knows for sure- although rumor has it that it’s Georgian mining magnate Boris Ivanishvili, who sold a bank that he owned in Moscow for about half a billion dollars a week before the auction and has since then sort of kept to himself.

7. Vincent Van Gogh, Irises. 1889. Sold 1987, $102.3 million.

Why So Much? It’s quite possibly the most famous painting in the top ten; there’s a good possibility that you’ve owned an umbrella or ceramic mug printed with it. And Van Gogh painted it while in an asylum, for crying out loud. He referred to this painting as “the lightning conductor for my illness,” meaning that painting it was all that kept him from going insane.
6. Pablo Picasso, Garçon à la Pipe. 1905. Sold 2004, $118.9 million.

Why So Much? This was one of the finest example of Picasso’s Rose Period, which immediately preceded his invention of Cubism; but its sale at such a high price has still been a quandary to many. Said Picasso expert Pepe Karmel, “I’m stunned that a pleasant, minor painting could command a price appropriate to a real masterwork by Picasso. This just shows how much the marketplace is divorced from the true values of art.” Uh… damn.
5. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Bal du moulin de la Galette. 1876. Sold 1990, $128.8 million.

Why So Much? The oldest painting on the list, this rather well known and optimistic snapshot of Impressionist life was sold to Ryoei Saito, the honorary chairman of Japan’s Daishowa Paper. And he must have been enamored with it- he announced that when he died he planned on being cremated along with it. After an enormous public outcry to this statement he claimed he was only joking. That was probably bullshit, but hopefully we’ll never know, as when Saito experienced a little financial difficulty he had to hand it over to a Swiss bank as collateral on a loan.

4. Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait of Dr. Gachet. 1890. Sold 1990, $136.1 million.

Why So Much? What do we know about the subject of the painting? His name was Dr. Paul Gachet, he was a Parisian physician who worked with mental patients (including Van Gogh), and in Van Gogh’s opinion he really wasn’t that good at what he did. In fact, Vinnie once said of his doctor, “[He's] sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much.” It is interesting that Van Gogh painted his doctor in the same style as Delacroix’s paintings of Torquato Tasso in the madhouse.

This painting passed hands with about eight owners, including Herman Goering (of course, in his case it was more along the lines of theft). Ultimately, this was another purchase by Ryoei Saito, which was also destined to join him in the crematorium before his creditors stepped in.

3. Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. 1907. Sold 2006, $144.4 million.

Why So Much? Now even for Klimt that is a lot of damn gold. He spent three years working on this piece, putting it amongst the finest of his oeuvre without a doubt. The wife of a wealthy Jewish industrialist, Adele left this painting and others that she had commissioned to the Austrian State Gallery in her will. They never made it there though; after the Nazi occupation of Austria, her family was forced to flee to Switzerland and their art collection was looted. After the war, a huge legal battle began between the Austrian government and Adele’s nephews and nieces, including Maria Altmann. Many years and millions of dollars in court fees later, the painting was Altmann’s, and she was free to sell it to cosmetics tycoon Ronald Lauder for an obscene amount of money.
Lauder bought it to display in his Neue Gallerie, though it made its debut in his ownership at MoMA, where visitors were charged $50 for tickets just to see it. It may sound exorbitant just to see one painting, but hey, I’d fork it out. Well, as long as I got to touch it. Look at all that gold. It’s begging for my greasy fingerprints…
2. Willem de Kooning, Woman III. 1953. Sold 2006, $147 million.

Why So Much? It’s super abstract, mildly misogynist, revolutionary for its time, and your kid could probably do it, right? There was a friendly battle going on for many years between de Kooning and Jasper Johns over who was going to be the world’s most expensive living artist. In 1997 de Kooning had to bow out when he ceased to be a living artist.
Formerly in the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Iran, it was removed after the revolution; it wasn’t to Khomeini’s taste. It somehow ended up in David Geffen’s ownership, who went on to sold it to hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen, who’s also the owner of history’s most expensive dead shark (you know the one). Since Cohen apparently has little actual taste, his motive in spending so much on this piece was probably to show the world how rich he is.
And now for the most expensive painting of all time… by the artist who, according to de Kooning, “has broken the ice for us.”
Ready?
Drumroll, please…
1. Jackson Pollock, No. 5, 1948. 1948. Sold 2006, $149.6 million.

Why So Much? Look kids, I know you’re disappointed, and I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do about it; if I had about $150 million more than I have I’d go take Dora Maar au Chat off the hands of that Georgian guy. Then I wouldn’t have to list this ketchup and mustard- looking thing as the most expensive painting in the world.
Okay, now to be a little more serious. Believe it or not, Jackson Pollock didn’t paint that much. He died at the age of 44; his struggles with alcoholism and mental illness kept him from being as productive as he could have been. His trademark style of “action painting” accounted for a small percentage of his overall works- believe it or not, he couldn’t whip out several of these a day. If you ever see a video of him painting (there’s a good one here) then you will see that his work was not as random as you might think; every brush stroke was carefully thought. As few paintings as he actually did, even fewer are still around. Collectors expect his work to only rise in value as the years go by.
And after all, he was the one to break the ice.

How Far Down Does the Rabbit Hole Go? All the Way to Siena

Ever wondered what would happen if Tim Burton hopped on a time machine, entered a Renaissance-era Romanesque/Gothic cathedral, and just exploded? Well, wonder no longer.




Oh, the humanity! Really, not a whole lot can be said about this other than it is just ugly. On second thought I guess you could also call it tacky and misappropriated. (And just to clarify things, we are not talking about the ceiling, the pulpit, or the floor- they’re actually okay. We are talking about those hideous black and white columns.) Things that come to mind are old-timey prison uniforms, Marilyn Manson hosiery, the Mackenzie & Childs catalog, and the stomach-turning juxtaposition of licorice and marshmallow fluff.

Believe it or not, however, there’s actually a very noble and justifiable reason for this hideousness. The building shown above is the Duomo (cathedral church) in Siena, Italy. Begun in the 1100s and completed in 1380 (it takes a long time to build a church like this), it is one of Europe’s finest examples of Romanesque architecture.
When one thinks of the Italian Renaissance, cities that come to mind include Rome, Florence, Milan, and Venice, but rarely Siena. Located in Tuscany about a third of the way between Florence and Rome, Siena claims a history as old as Rome’s; according to legend, Siena was founded by and named for Senius, the son of Remus and nephew of Romulus (the latter two being the twins who founded Rome). Also according to legend, a she-wolf led Senius to Siena on a trip where he was protected by a black cloud during the day and a white one at night. For this reason the symbol of Siena is a she-wolf, and its coat of arms features two simple horizontal bands of white and black.
And that is how black and white bands (of the brain-numbing repetitive variety) set in the marble of the area are common in Sienese architecture, particularly in the Duomo. Although most historians stick with the story of the Etruscans and the tribe known as the Saina.

Minoru Yamasaki

If you’ve never heard of Minoru Yamasaki, then it’s probably because you’re not much of a Modernist architecture buff. Shame on you.
Yamasaki was born in Seattle to Japanese-American parents in 1912. After getting a Bachelor’s degree in architecture from Washington University he moved to New York, getting a job with Shreve, Lamb and Harmon (who designed the Empire State Building). He started his own partnership in 1949, after which he designed his best known works.
While his love of traditional Japanese design showed up in some of his works (San Francisco’s Japan Center stands out), Yamasaki was best known for his Modernist buildings. Judging by the general body of his work, this was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s man through and through.

Minoru Yamasaki, Torre Picasso (Picasso Tower). Madrid, Spain, 1988.

Minoru Yamasaki, One M&T Plaza. Buffalo, New York, 1966.
Minoru Yamasaki, Pruitt-Igoe public housing project (demolition). St. Louis, Missouri, built 1955, demolished 1972.
Yes, Yamasaki built one super avant-garde housing project. And the sad, sad tale of Pruitt-Igoe is as much one for the sociology and economics books as for the architecture annals. The mayor of St. Louis wanted to gut the city’s slums and start over, giving the poor of the city a nice, clean and affordable place to live- in the form of a Modernist set of thirty-three eleven story buildings.
Ah, but the devil fools with the best laid plans. Apparently the low-incomers of St. Louis wanted a habitation that they could trash. (This is definitely not speaking for all low-income people, mind you- just those of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project). Eventually Pruitt-Igoe became a monumental symbol of everything that sucks about being poor. To put it in perspective, here’s a picture of Yamasaki’s vision for Pruitt-Igoe:
And here’s how it looked right before being demolished:
And so it came down less than twenty years after it was completed. The saddest thing about it all? The whole Pruitt-Igoe fiasco led to the re-evaluation of Modernism in the 1970s and later to the Post-Modernist movement (ugh!). Some said its failure was based on Modernist architects’ inability to accommodate social conditions. Charles Jencks even went as far as to call its demolition “the death of Modernist architecture.”
Yamasaki, who died in 1986 at the age of 73, was alive to see his Pruitt-Igoe building be destroyed. I’m not sure how he felt about it, but I imagine he felt a little remorse for having not designed a building that met its occupants’ needs better. There’s no denying that his intentions were good. But he designed another no longer extant work that was destroyed in a similarly theatrical fashion fifteen years after he died (and eight years ago today).

Minoru Yamasaki, World Trade Center Towers I and II. New York, New York. Completed 1970, destroyed by terrorist attack 2001.
I think the rest of this blog will be more difficult to write than I had thought it would. I am not a sentimental person nor a particularly patriotic one, and I’m fighting back tears as we speak. We all remember what happened, and we all have our own personal stories about what we were doing when it happened, so there’s no need to wax poetic about it. The attack that destroyed it resulted in the deaths of at least 2,750 people, including several artists who rented studio space there.
It is interesting that no one has mourned for Yamasaki’s masterwork. The buildings survived a three-alarm fire in 1975 and later a basement bombing in 1993. They provided ten million square feet of office space, taking only a tiny footprint on one 16 acre superblock. Thinking about the building occupants’ safety he sheathed its facades in an aluminum alloy ; thinking of their personal security he built narrow windows (he was a tad afraid of heights himself). And anyone who’s been to New York before 2001 will tell you that you couldn’t get a better view of Manhattan than from the WTC’s observation tower.
So thank you, Minoru Yamasaki. They were good buildings.

Damien Hirst Sunday #5


Damien Hirst, For the Love of God. 2007, diamonds, platinum and human teeth.

It had been a long time before this piece was created since any work of art had drawn such attention- even before it was made. Hirst financed its creation himself, and to reiterate to the point of redundancy exactly how rich he really is, he claimed that he couldn’t recall if it cost him £15 million or £20 million. (The actual estimated cost was £14 million, which is still nothing to sneeze at.)
What went into this piece? 8,601 flawless pave-laid diamonds (with a total weight of 1,106 carats), a rare pink diamond center stone with a weight of 52.4 carats, four and a half pounds of platinum, and the skull of an 18th century Englishman that the artist picked up in a London shop. (The original teeth were retained.) Hirst made an effort to ensure that all diamonds were ethically sourced, which I must give him props for; the fact that no African children lost their hands for it makes it a little less horrible.
Nonetheless, can we not safely say that the pure decadence of this piece is sickeningly tasteless? The same effect could have been achieved using sterling silver and cubic zirconias at a far lighter expense. But no, that’s not how this motherfucker rolls. If you’re one of millions who’s lost their job in the past couple of years due to the recession (as I am), or if you’re one of the thirty million people worldwide who died from hunger last year, then the fact that people are still making this sort of stuff ought to make you sick.
Artist John LeKay, a close personal friend of Hirst’s (whose work is eerily similar- somebody stole some ideas from somebody), produced this lower budget piece fourteen years earlier. He claims that in this case Hirst stole the idea from him. According to LeKay, “I felt like I was being punched in the gut.”
John LeKay, Spiritus Callidus #2 (Crystal Skull). 1993, paradichlorobenzene. Do you see a similarity? To me, this looks a little more like something they’ll be using as a prop when Shia LeBoeuf finally gets to play the son of Indiana Jones again. But For the Love of God- now, that’s decadent. More like something a gangsta rapper might display on top of the refrigerator where he keeps his Cristal.
Although experts have estimated the true value of Hirst’s skull at between £7 and £10 million (less than it cost to make… weird), he placed it on sale at London’s White Cube Gallery for a cool £50 million. If it sold for that price, it would be the most expensive work in history by a living artist, and by a rather large margin. But has it sold? Even THAT is a matter of dispute.
Cristina Ruiz, editor of The Art Newspaper, reported that Hirst had failed to find a buyer for this piece and had lowered his asking price to £38 million. Hirst took great offense, and made a statement that an anonymous consortium (which he happened to be a part of) had purchased it in cash, leaving no paper trail. If the piece had been sold, he would be responsible for about £8.5 million in taxes, which he obviously never paid; it is widely understood in the art community that this was more than likely a publicity stunt to drum up attention and further escalate the price of his other works.
But hey- businessmen have been doing the same thing for centuries.

Worst Intentional Treatment of a Giant Statue. Ever.

(This post also could have been titled “Worst Use of Concrete. Ever.”)
I think there are very few people who are as endeared to their hometowns as I am. Especially considering that my hometown is Birmingham, Alabama. Say what you like- I could live wherever I want, and I have lived in other cities, but I know how it feels to really feel like your city is your best friend. When I’m lonely, I take a walk- and the cracks in the sidewalks seem to say to me, “It’s okay, Nicole. I understand.” (Okay, I know that sounded extremely saccharine. Sorry.)
But Birmingham is far from a utopia. For the most part our residents aren’t racist, or ignorant, or culturally inept, and visitors to this city seem to be surprised to realize that. (Now go about fifty miles outside of the city limits, and you may find otherwise.) Just because the stereotypes are largely unfounded doesn’t mean that this is a town capable of electing a mayor who isn’t schizophrenic; and the worst thing I can say about this town is that it seems to have contempt for itself. I have noticed this since I was very young, when I first walked around the downtown area and wondered why no one would fix up its beautiful old Art Deco buildings that had fallen into disuse.
Birmingham is a relatively young city, founded in 1871. Built on the only spot in the entire world where iron, coal, and limestone are all mined within a thirty mile radius, it received its name from Birmingham, England, another steel city. In a mere fifty years Birmingham would become the Southeast United States’ most progressive city; its rapid growth earned it the nickname “The Magic City.” Alas, the 1960s brought church bombings, legendary police brutality, and for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a few stints in the Birmingham City Jail; the city’s reputation was struck forever (and no one on the outside seems to notice the great progress in tolerance that the last forty years have brought).
Back to the whole “city that has contempt for itself” thing, there’s no better reflection of that than the tedious treatment of our city’s symbol, the statue of Vulcan. The largest cast iron statue in the world (and the seventh largest free-standing statue period), the 56-foot Iron Man has overlooked Red Mountain for as long as I personally remember.
Giuseppe Moretti, Vulcan. 1904, cast iron. Uh, yeah, I know. But surprisingly, this notoriously puritanical city loves its nudity. Here’s a statue of Electra that sits atop the Alabama Power building in downtown Birmingham:
Anyway. This statue was commissioned by the Commercial Club of Birmingham for the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. The statue was of Vulcan, Roman consort of Hephaestus, the Greek god of the forge. This was an appropriate subject for a city that was probably more than any other built around the metallurgical industry. Giuseppe Moretti, an Italian (woohoo!) who had immigrated to Philadephia, was hired to design it. The statue itself was forged in the foundries of Birmingham.
Vulcan was the hit of the 1904 World’s Fair, winning the Grand Prize in its “Mine and Metallurgy” exhibit. Then Vulcan was dismantled and put on a train back to Birmingham. Somewhere along the way someone decided they didn’t want to pay the freight bills. So his pieces were taken off the train and left on the sides of the tracks, where they remained for about two years. (Ironically, the statue had been so popular at the fair that St. Louis, San Francisco and Portland all wanted to purchase it.)
Here’s a picture of Vulcan’s head, somewhere between here and St. Louis, with some kids playing on it.
Somewhere down the way they finally decided to come back for him, and he was re-erected at the Alabama State Fairgrounds in Birmingham. They didn’t really do that good a job- as the above picture shows, he appears to have a positively devilish case of carpal tunnel.
Since they couldn’t find the spear that he was holding originally (again, floating somewhere between here and St. Louis) he had nothing to do with his hands- so they decided to use him to advertise things. Here he is plugging Heinz pickles. Sometimes you’d see him holding a giant Coke or ice cream cone. They even once painted blue overalls on him.
In 1929 the Birmingham Kiwanis Club were the first to realize that this was just wrong. And in 1939 something was finally done about it. A sandstone pedestal was erected atop Birmingham’s Red Mountain (at the foot of the Appalachians) where Vulcan would proudly overlook the city that had clearly forsaken him for the past four decades. But what would be the best way to anchor such a large statue to said pedestal? According to Birmingham’s brightest minds in the civil engineering field, that would be filling him to the chest with concrete, of course. (In case you didn’t know, concrete tends to expand; in 1990 it was determined that he would need a major renovation else he would collapse. He did eventually receive the renovation that he needed.)
As for Moretti, he was largely a marble sculptor and moved to Alabama permanently in 1916 (returning to Italy before his death) to take advantage of the state’s fine marble quarries, many of which he invested in. He was so disappointed and insulted by the way his masterwork was treated at the fairgrounds that in 1935 he said, “I almost wish I’d never made him.” If he were alive today I believe he would be a little more proud; in 1976 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. I’m quite fond of this statue myself. From where I live I can see it from my front yard.