Re: [-empyre-] second posting from teddy cruz

[Christiane Robbins <cpr@mindspring.com>]

Teddy,

Thanks so much for these “brief statements” and summarizations as  
they are leading us into another terrific discussion on empyre.

I found your characterization of the architectural avant-garde begs  
specific definition, is an overgeneralization, yet is spot-on.   
Certainly , the question must be asked as to whom you are defining as  
the architectutural avant-garde, as it strikes me that you may be  
referencing “star-architects” such as Rem Koolhaas, Thom Mayne, Zaha  
Hadid, Diller/Scofidio, etc. in your allusion to the rush to Dubai  
and Beijin.  I’m uncertain if these architects are thought of as the  
avant-garde at this point in time, as the rather impressive monetary  
size of their commissions speak to their mainstream acceptance and  
support.

However, they do represent a discreet segment of those architects  
whose practice embraces more experimental and trans-disciplinary  
approaches during the past 25 years or so.  Often these architects  
have been thought of in the same way as are artists. And…this is a  
salient point. One could then logically infer and attribute a  
specific host of cultural-socio-economic structures in which they  
operate.  When you state they :  “become fully complicit with an  
international, neo-liberalist project of privatization and  
homogenization, by camouflaging gentrification with
a massive hyper aesthetic and formalist project.”

Is this any different from the current state of the market-based art  
world at this moment?  Do they not both speak to the surface  
renderings of an ornate class topiary? Architectural and Art  
practices remain beleaguered by charges of elitism, the biases  
embedded in class dynamics and the varying economic dynamics of a  
patronage system.

In stating “our institutions of architecture representation and  
display have lost their socio-political relevance and advocacy.”  .   
It’s necessary to also ask to what institutions of architectural  
representation and display are you referencing, as this could open up  
quite a relevant and challenging discussion.  Granted, Ground Zero is  
an astute example, however it is such an inimitable and loaded  
commission.  I’m certain that there others that you have in mind.   
Additionally, in the same breath, one could also reference and  
include the art world and academic institutions at this moment in time

And… of course … this leads us to your most incisive argument:    
“From me the notion of the critical (critical spatial practice)  
dwells in the capacity of our artistic practices to encroach into the  
rigidity of institutional thinking and the stupidity of their  
procedures. In my work it's been essential to critique the  
institutions of urban policy, (stupid zoning), economic power (greedy  
development) as well as the narrow mindedness of academia, where  
researchers are developing research only for other researches.

I couldn’t agree more with this statement but, of course, this is the  
conundrum in which we find ourselves.  A number of people  
participating on this list are operating within the narrow bandwidth  
of the academy.  As we know, that institutional infrastructure does  
not easily lend itself to more progressive advances.  In some cases,  
the academy views these advances as threats to its tradition, its  
conventionally perceived position in societies, and more so these  
days, to its all-to-important privatized funding base for many of the  
research projects to which you allude.

I agree that that challenge is to unpack  - to critically  
understand.  I would appreciate your further explication as to how to  
establish a critical proximity – to tactically enter these  
institutions in order to mobilize their resources and of logics of  
organization.  I can only surmise in your call to arms that your  
reference to “fake protest”  can easily draw one to an analogy of the  
contemporary artist and/or architect embracing the role of court jester.

The safety net of globalism and its economic and cultural tourism  
trajectories has engulfed a good deal of the architecture that is  
being constructed and the artistic practices which are being  
exhibited, performed, screened, installed, marketed and  
distributed.   Within that frame, as well as the contemporary fashion  
of re-inscribing and re-performing mid-late 20thc art historical  
legacies ( ie. Conceptualism,) we are presented with more or less a  
surface (re)play of issues.   One could easily consider that the role  
of the artist has now melded with that of the court jester in our  
privatized realms.  A compelling definition to consider is found on  
Wiki:  “The jester was a symbolic twin of the king.[1] All jesters  
and fools in those days were thought of as special cases whom God had  
touched with a childlike madness—a gift, or perhaps a curse. Mentally  
handicapped people sometimes found employment by capering and  
behaving in an amusing way. In the harsh world of medieval Europe,  
people who might not be able to survive any other way thus found a  
social niche.”

Of course the irony of this situation is that the very premises of  
the conceptualist practices upon which many of these current works  
are based were originally produced as antithetical to, and enacted in  
order to, undermine the very socio-economic system which this current  
crop of neo-conceptual and relational practices seeks to embrace … in  
rather sycophantic gestures to the overwhelming presence of  
privatization.  Perhaps this is simply a naive mechanism of survival  
for these times in which we find ourselves.

While other works, produced by practices which nod more to the social  
welfare tenets of community based efforts,  speak to an evolution of  
what was once referred to as identity politics in the 80’s in the  
USA.  These have now morphed into the global arena as have neo- 
colonial trade imperatives and capitalistic infra-structures, and  
taken on monikers of practice such as Public Space.  Could it be that  
the amorphous and shifting notions of public space is all that we are  
left with in our overarching realms of privatization?

Perhaps the more salient question here might revolve around the  
perception that Architectural and Art Practices may actually be  
considered SAFE by the powers that be.  They can be tolerated as play  
– nothing to be taken too seriously.  And if and when it does touch a  
serious nerve, well … we just ramp down the exposure … very easily.   
You see, I did program/curate Coco Fusco’s “Dolores” piece that was  
premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Finland which was also  
simultaneously seen at the Santa Monica Museum in LA.  It is a  
terrific piece that generated some excitement but didn’t have much of  
an exhibition afterlife …. It was a bit too incisive …. too  
threatening to any # of optional host institutions … and that is  
where the responsibilities of critical proximity might come into play  
( no pun intended.)

Again, thanks for leading us into such a crucial discussion .

Best,

Chris






On Sep 26, 2007, at 3:38 PM, Teddy Cruz wrote:

> From me the notion of the critical (critical spatial practice)
> dwells in the capacity of our artistic practices to encroach into the
> rigidity of institutional thinking and the stupidity of their
> procedures. In my work it's been essential to critique the
> institutions of urban policy, (stupid zoning), economic power (greedy
> development) as well as the narrow mindedness of academia, where
> researchers are developing research only for other researches.  Here
> the equation is clear: No advances in housing design, for example,
> can be achieved without advances in housing policy and mortgage
> structuresŠ so the challenge is how can we also design political and
> economic frameworks that can yield particular social densities, modes
> of affordability and so onŠ how can research reach the community
> activist working on the trenchesŠ policy, design and activism can
> approximateŠ

Christiane Robbins


- JETZTZEIT -
... the space between zero and one  ...
Walter Benjamin


LOS ANGELES    I    SAN FRANCISCO


The present age prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to  
the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence for in  
these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane.

Ludwig Feuerbach, 1804-1872,



http://www.jetztzeit.net