The presidential debate between McCain and Obama may not happen but you can rest assured that there is no force so powerful as to deter the panelists convening on Friday at the Arlington Arts Center: Arlington County public art curator Welmoed Laanstra, University of Maryland art history and theory professor Josh Shannon, and myself. Topics (from the press release):
What's the difference between political expression out in the world and inside the gallery environment? Is political speech in the gallery protected? Does it have teeth, or does it exist simply to be consumed or marginalized? How does contemporary art speak to pop culture and to the media—and vice-versa?The three of us will be joined by Rex Weil, curator of "Picturing Politics 2008", artists from the show, and moderator/Arlington Arts Center exhibitions director Jeffry Cudlin. But not John McCain.
Tyler Green discusses Dia's proposed buffer zone along the beach of the Great Salt Lake. Dia really ought to consider buying property inland, too. One of the things that Pearl Montana did not clarify in its lease application is how materials would be transported. As I recall during my reporting on the Pearl Montana bid, for various reasons it was highly unlikely that the company would ship materials on a path that passed by the Jetty. (A glance at a map will confirm as much.) But if drilling were successful, you might expect much, much more development along the promontory.
Perhaps Dia would buy out enough oil-lease acreage in the Great Salt Lake expanding outward from the Jetty that no other company would have a lease close enough to the promontory to make development or staging operations a very likely option there. Maybe, but that's a lot of acreage: Pearl Montana was about 5 miles out from Rozel Point and planned to build its staging base on the promontory. There just doesn't seem to be any other land access to the populated side of the lake except for the promontory.
Jose Ruiz, Placemakers.
This is a goofy conceit for a show. Sure, you might attribute design in the second half of the twentieth century to Cold War competition. Or you might also say that the world's two superpowers wound up designing a lot of the great design in the second half of the twentieth century. To prove that the Cold War prompted a design arms race, you need to identify an ideological component, communist or capitalist. One is especially evident on the Soviet side in the first half of the twentieth century and sort of evident on the Western side in the second half of the twentieth century, but not strongly or simultaneously evident at any point. Only the space race really counts toward this thesis, and how many of the objects manufactured by the space race do you count as design alongside an Eero Aarnio chair? Sputnik—fine. What else?
Meanwhile, this exhibit was to follow "Postmodernism" at the Corcoran, for a design hat trick ("Modernism," "Postmodernism," and "Cold War Modern"). As I'm told, plans for that show are dead in the water.
UPDATE: The Corcoran's press director Kristin Guiter writes in to say that the museum never had plans to show "Cold War Modernism." (My source says that at one point this plan was in the works.) Guiter also notes that I have not interviewed curator Sarah Newman or Corcoran officials about "Postmodernism." (That is correct. I am told that plans for that show are frustrated. The Corcoran's Web site reads: "Currently, Newman is working on an exhibition of contemporary British painting as well as a major exhibition on Postmodernism, scheduled for 2011.")
I reported in my April American Prospect feature on oil drilling in the Great Salt Lake near Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty that the viewing experience at the site ("viewshed") dominated the list of concerns in letters, e-mail, and phone calls receive by the state of Utah. Complaints about the impact on Smithson's earth artwork outpaced by far parallel concerns about the impact on the local environment—the unique native brine shrimp population and pelican hatchery being the main features—as well as the greater impact on the Great Salt Lake. Tyler Green confirms as much in his Spiral Jetty week feature.
But the status of the Pearl Montana drilling application today has nothing to do with Jetty or art. It has much more to do with environmental impact than concerns about viewshed. While the state has heard a lot from people who are concerned about art—enough so that they pushed back the deadline for community feedback on the application—the application itself has yet to even reach the stage where those concerns might come into play.
Green writes:
Mostly as a result of a blogs-driven, international 'Save the Jetty!' outcry that resulted in Utah officials receiving over 3,000 emails, Pearl Montana's application was delayed. On August 7 state officials rejected it. Thanks substantially to blog readers, art won.It would be more accurate to say that Pearl Montana defeated themselves. According to Jim Springer, spokesman for the Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining for the state of Utah, the Division returned application paperwork to Pearl Montana two weeks ago. Several times prior to September, the Division had asked Pearl Montana for clarification and further information about the transportation of materials to and from the drilling site. (I've spoken several times with Springer since April, and every time, he's said that the Division is waiting for Pearl Montana to provide more information.)
About the application, Green has more:
Eight months later it's clear that Pearl Montana's initial application to explore and drill for oil just west of Spiral Jetty won't be industry's last attempt to treat the Jetty's neighborhood as a commercial resource. It's also clear that drilling is just one of many threats to the Great Salt Lake and to the Jetty. Conservationists are confident that Pearl Montana will be back with a revised application soon, that the company is waiting for the initial 'save the Jetty' fervor to die down.Now, I believe Green that conservationists (Friends of the Great Salt Lake) are pressing this argument—but there's not much to it by my reporting. Pearl Montana is required to file a detailed planning document; what they instead gave Utah was general, even vague. So the Division asked for more information, and Pearl Montana never responded. Then the Division returned the application. At any point until January 2009, Pearl Montana could simply fill in the gaps and restart the application process. Then the public outcry over the Jetty might come into play—or it might not. And if Pearl Montana waits until after January 2009, it still owns the lease. So if it chooses, it can just apply again. Of course, it may be harder to apply and win by that point, since the Great Salt Lake is experiencing a record decline in water levels and rising mercury levels, and new regulation may account for these changes and provide protections for the Lake.
The time is now, in other words, for Pearl Montana—and Pearl Montana isn't interested. I asked Springer how often the Division waits, after requesting further clarification, before they return the application. "Normally we don't have to," he said.
And neither has any other company submitted an application to exercise a lease in West Rozel. The thing that's worth remembering is that Salt Lake crude is in many respects like Canadian shale. It costs a great deal to extract, transport, and refine. Salt Lake's oil has a high sulfur content that renders it most useful as a road base; moreover, Utah refineries aren't set up to refine Salt Lake crude into conventional gasoline. As with Canadian shale, there is a global oil price point at which it becomes worthwhile to get involved in high-cost extraction. The lack of interest in GSL oil—industry has never successfully extracted GSL oil—would suggest that we're not there yet.
If and when Pearl Montana or a similar company does come knocking, the state of Utah is going to continue to pay attention to things like environmental impact. I haven't yet seen at what point viewshed enters into the state's viewfinder—whatever impact the art world has had hasn't come into play yet. Fortunately, we may not have to test that out.
UPDATE: Added image. Also, more chatter here.
Hassan can watch, aghast, as databanks at NASDAQ
graph hard data and chart a NASDAQ crash—a sharp
fall that alarms staff at a Manhattan bank. Hassan
acts fast, ransacks cashbags at a mad dash, and grabs
what bank drafts a bank branch at Casablanca can
cash: marks, rands and bahts. Hassan asks that an
adman draft a want ad that can hawk what canvas
art Hassan has (a Cranach, a Cassatt and a Chagall).
Hassan can fast-talk a chap at a watchstand and
pawn a small watch that has, as a watchglass, a star
padparadschah (half a grand, a carat). A shah can
pack a bag, flag a cab and scram, catch-as-catch-can.
—Christian Bök, from Eunoia, 2001
Ed Ruscha, Five Past Eleven, 1989.
Of course it's self promotion that prods me to dust the cobwebs off the weblog. But I'd hate to fail to mention that I'm giving a little gallery talk at the Hirshhorn Museum about this Ed Ruscha painting tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. Marginally employed types and art enthusiasts and everyone else are encouraged to attend! I pledged extra credit for any of my Terps grad students who show up.
So long as I've got the window (mirror?) open, I'll mention that I have reviews and news in current and newsstand-bound issues of Art Papers, Sculpture, Art Lies, Art Voices, The Onion, and Art in America. Buy subscriptions of and place advertisements in these publications!
I know this post is beyond grating, but one more note: My band Gestures is playing Comet Ping-Pong on Saturday night. We won't require you to read anything.
The British press have been reporting heavily on a story about a British couple accused of having sex in public in Dubai, a crime with serious penalties—I'm sure you've heard about it. But the story that they're continuing to push has changed in significant ways. Instead of a story about a British couple committing a felony abroad that would barely merit a misdemeanor at home, in headlines and ledes papers like the Guardian broadcast that a British woman, singular, has been arrested for having sex. Vince Acors, the man who is associated with the accusation (that is, the other person having sex in that spot on the beach), is only ever introduced several grafs into the article—and in such a way that the reader would be forgiven for guessing that the woman will be convicted while the man will be vindicated by circumstances as a hapless accomplice. Acors, described as the "co-accused," appears only in the fourth graf of this Times story, which features a profile picture of the sultry Jezebel.
Of course, this whole thing is a crying shame—but the British press can hardly say so. By focusing on Palmer, by peddling the subtext that the real sensation here is that a slut had sex in public, British editors are basically knowingly toeing the Islamofascist line.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude spoke at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on Saturday, sort of. In fact they did a Q&A after a screening of Running Fence, a cinéma vérité docu on C&J-C's Running Fence—which American Art recently acquired. Sort of. The fence itself was, of course, ephemeral, existing for only two weeks in 1976, and its component parts belong to the ranchers on whose land the 24-mile fence stretched. What American Art received was an archive of the preparatory drawings and research materials associated with the project.
I'd already seen the film, so I knew that much going in. Although the Q&A was nearly derailed by a guy with one of those lengthy-essays-posed-as-a-question, the couple was every bit as charming as they're famed to be. I didn't know that the couple were friends with Charles Schultz, but that explains Wrapped Snoopy House.
One thing I didn't get: They didn't talk about the archive. At all. The acquisition was never brought up. I think I have an idea of what's coming to the museum, but I haven't seen much of it. The movie, while a really good introduction to the piece from 1972–76 didn't give any indication of the preparatory drawings and so forth that the artists sell to pay for their projects.
Instead, the artists spent some time describing their upcoming project for the Arkansas River in Colorado, Over the River—doing a nice little favor for the Phillips Collection, which is exhibiting C&J-C stuff for that project next month.
Note: I am a former contributor to Eye Level, the American Art Museum blog.
Did anyone know that Leo Villareal spoke at the National Gallery on Saturday? I didn't, because his commission was announced only two days prior. Again, good on the National Gallery for letting the New York Times dictate its schedule to them. Sure, it's no good for getting word to local press about an important talk at the museum or in any other way making sure that people attend or even know about it, but hey, you got 250 words from Carol Vogel on page E24!
While Tyler Green was working on a story for the Washingtonian on the National Gallery of Art and looking to include information on the upcoming Leo Villareal show, I was working on a story about the Leo Villareal show for a contemporary art magazine—and I, too, could not get the National Gallery of Art to confirm the show. For the same reason: The National Gallery of Art, like many art institutions, pledges news items exclusively to the New York Times, or else those institutions can't be guaranteed coverage.
The National Gallery must feel some real pressure from the Grey Lady to pledge exclusivity: otherwise, while the museum might not shop the story around, it would at least answer other journalists' questions. Is the pressure so great on institutions that it prompts museum press to lie to journalists? Though I explained that I was not writing as a blogger, though I was clear about where and when the piece would appear, and though I was emphatic that I knew the show was happening, the National Gallery of Art press office told me repeatedly that it was not. (This was some time ago and on several occasions.)
Today, Carol Vogel for the NYT breaks the news in the third of three 300-word-ish bullets. The story comes months after the actual news, because the Times has a queer interest in ensuring that no art news runs over the summer.
While it annoys me when press offices lie to me, it puzzles me that anyone would lie for this: an also-ran blurb in the Friday roundup. Is the National Gallery pledging the NYT the exclusive merely for coverage—any coverage? Are fingers in PR always crossed that the NYT will give them some value in return? Other publications that reach similar (if certainly smaller) audiences would give this story much more prominent play. Some still will, but losing on the exclusive is enough to make some editors lose interest.
Today Spencer leaves for Afghanistan to report for the Washington Independent. Again for the Indy, Laura McGann is in Alaska doing the vice-presidential vetting that John McCain never did. Yglesias has a rebuttal in the Washington Post to a Matt Continetti op-ed. Phoebe Connelly has a pair of book reviews on the long history of newly fashionable agribusiness reform and the "dwindling disease" roots of colony collapse disorder in Bookforum. (Bees need labor protections! Who knew?) Megan McArdle has written possibly the most irritating Palinalysis to date. And Jeffry Cudlin's review of Martin Puryear at the National Gallery is handsome and thoroughly researched, hitting high notes on the contrast with Picasso.
I call all these writers friends so I feel a twinge of namedroppingly nepotistic guilt for advertising them together, but these are all among the more interesting things I'm reading this week.
Wasting time today, I stumbled across the Sarah Palin vlog, which is funny, but not nearly so funny as the Sarah Palin blog, which you want to be reading daily, since the band of friends behind it the future vice president works quite hard on it. From the vlog I skipped over to comedienne Sara Benincasa's MTV page, which isn't funny at all, and furthermore suffers from stilted, low production values that makes Slate video look like it was made at Skywalker Ranch. It did remind me, however, that MTV used to be cool—kind of unbelievably cool, impossibly archly cool, for a medium geared toward a mass audience. Defamer wrote a much-deserved eulogy for MTV that had me shaking my head, more in sadness than in anger. Rest in piece, Kabel font.
I'm not sure why tonight's speech by Palin is guaranteed to be the barn-burner that people like Marc Ambinder say it will be, because the speech needs to be a rousing dogwhistle duet that will appeal to both environment-friendly, pro-choice moderate women and the evangelical Christian, social conservative Republican base alike, and near as I can tell that's impossible.
