Building ˙H˙ ruining Espacio Escultórico’s horizon ˙2016˙
(4) [2016: 06: 05] Plans for Espacio Escúltorico were put forward by Federico Silva in ˙1977˙. Then a year or so ago, Mexico’s National Autonomous University (U’N’A’M’) began the construction of a building (Building ˙H˙) on the far edge of the reserve that Espacio Escultórico had been on. Anish Kapoor said, “All the great works of land art ~ horizon is how they function” • Now a lot of people think Building ˙H˙ has ruined Espacio Escultórico’s horizon • If they and Anish Kapoor are right, then Espacio Escultórico doesn’t work anymore. They want to knock the building down to make the Space like it used to be.
(4.1) The functions of other things have been disrupted, but still work: Sainte~Chapelle was designed for reaching God in Heaven. That was how it primarily used to work • But everyone looks for God on Earth, now • So, Sainte~Chapelle no longer works • But people still go (for a reason or reasons, which is to say a “purpose or purposes”, which is to say “to fulfill a function or functions”) • So, Sainte~Chapelle must still work, somehow • It is not working in its main way • So, a secondary way or ways of working must’ve kept going since it’s making, despite the main way of working being gone. Or, a new way of working is there. Or, both are the case. Does Espacio Escultórico still work somehow, or will it? Were people to go still, it may.
Sainte~Chapelle ˙1248˙
(4.2) The Medieval and the Modern were against each other, such that the Modern being there meant the Medieval being gone • Sainte~Chapelle is Medieval and the Modern is there • So, Sainte~Chapelle is gone. The Chapel is gone because the Modern is there • So, Sainte~Chapelle would be there were the Modern gone. But, the Modern being gone means that all things that have the predicate “Modern” are also gone. Modern Paris is Paris (because, that’s how we think of Paris when someone says “Paris”), although Medieval Paris is called “Paris”, too • The Modern not being there means Modern things not being there • The Modern not being there means Paris is not there. Paris was new creation relative to Sainte~Chapelle • Building ˙H˙ is new creation relative to Espacio Escultórico • Paris and Building ˙H˙ are alike. Paris is a major work in the history of civilization • Building ˙H˙ is not a major work in the history of civilization • Paris and Building ˙H˙ are not alike. Had there been Modern buildings in Paris that were not major works in the history of civilization, but were significant in the development of Paris, which is a major work in the history of civilization? If so, Building ˙H˙ could be like that • Things that are alike respond similarly and the not alike respond differently • Building ˙H˙ may respond the same as the possible non~major architectural work in Paris that contributed to the major work. That is, Paris itself. We don’t know, though, because Espacio Escultórico and Sainte~Chapelle are alike and not alike: the building of Building ˙H˙ could be a participant in the making of some great thing ~ there’s no way to tell. Should we knock down every new creation that competed with some old creation, nothing new would ever be. The future is unknown. Protecting an old creation by stopping a new one from being is ultimately a destructive act.
(4.3) Every morning before work or school I would smoke a cigarette and drink coffee, and think about nothing for a few minutes. This one morning in Winter a few years ago a guy came at me to fight because I was staring at him. I thought I was staring at nothing because I was thinking about nothing, but with open eyes you’re pretty much always staring at something. I crossed into this guy’s line of site and depth of field (and~or he into mine), without realizing it. Had I done something wrong? • Building ˙H˙ crossed into Espacio Escultórico’s line of sight and depth of field, staring at the Space without realizing it • Did Building ˙H˙ do something wrong, or the builders that made it? Some people (like Pollock and the tureen below) cross into each other’s line of sight and depth of field; they don’t try to knock each other down, but cooperate or even sometimes dance • Espacio Escultórico does not because it only wants to dance with the horizon and is jealous of the horizon’s potential relationship with other things.
Pollock and Tureen, Arranged by
M’r and M’s’s Burton Tremaine, Connecticut
Louise Lawler ˙1984˙
One summer I was attacked on Saint Mark’s and Jeff through the guy down the stairs. I was also attacked in Newark a few winters later, just before Christmas, and I fought the attackers until my face was bloody. When Summer came, I was attacked from behind on the Six Train. I went to counterattack! but then realized I wasn’t being attacked at all ~ the guy on the train just got too close. Everyone on the train thought I was a real psychopath.
Me at my most punk~rock ˙2013˙ Winter
Some people, like schizophrenics and the post~traumatically~stressed, exhibit extreme demands for personal space • We call them “sick” because of the symptoms they exhibit • Can art be sick too? No one is wrong for being sick, but that doesn’t mean we give into all of a sick person’s demands. A lot of great works of art go in ease on the stream of time. Some yield results we had never hoped for, like in the Lawler photo. Land art and site specific works have more trouble: they stubbornly resist any strange thing being around. Infinite space and resources on the planet (which we Modern people know there is not) might make fair the great needs of giant site~specific works, but, with limited space and resources, the task of keeping site~specific works working is a great chore. Art is infinitely worthy but also infinitely less worthy than people. Many of us are in the habit of ignoring the cries of the sick, though. If we cast something infinitely more worthy than anything else away, can we honestly expect to have the needed compassion to care after a soulless object? You can knock Building ˙H˙ down, but you can’t stop time. Building ˙I˙ is just around the corner.
(4.4) Everyone has known about existential isolation for a long time ~ Ancient, Classical and Medieval peoples. Charles Taylor described these people as “porous”. Meanwhile, Modern people are “buffered” ~ each person is the only person there is to themself; they cannot rise above their subjectivity to get at some greater world • Life goes on, civilization persists • So, people don’t need to get at some greater world to keep on living.* Where once objectivity made up the ground with which people dealt with reality, most people have found within themselves enough to go on, albeit subjective and isolated.
Petitioners have less reason for confidence about Espacio Escultórico’s insides than we might about people, though, which could be why they want to knock Building ˙H˙ down: from an aerial view, Espacio Escultorico is two concentric rings (inner and outer) surrounding an inner circle. If I look…
(a) … inward from the outer ring at the inner ring and inner circle, I also look past the circle at the horizon; or…
(b) … outward from the inner ring, I’m looking at the horizon, or inward from the inner ring at the inner circle, I’m still looking at the horizon beyond the circle; or…
(c) … outward from the inner circle I’m looking at the horizon past the inner and outer ring.
I could just stand on the inner ring and look downward in on the inner circle, but, “All the great works of land art ~ horizon is how they function”, Anish Kapoor said. Looking inward only at the inner circle not only ignores how the work works, it’s also pretty hard: the circular way the work is shaped makes the ways of looking at the horizon easy and many. The inner circle (which makes up the work’s insides) would make as good a sight as the outer ring had the sculpture more flexibility. No one really thinks it does make as good a sight, though ~ we just need the horizon.
All things need strength to keep going on • Strength comes from outsides or insides, or both at once or either • All things get needed strength outside or inside, or both. People get strength from either outside or inside, or both • The outside collapsed • People got their needed strength inside. Espacio Escultórico got strength from outside only • The outside collapsed • Espacio Escultórico did not get the needed strength inside. People are strong because they keep going on without an external reality although they once depended on it, as art would be should it do the same. Espacio Escultórico does not; Espacio Escultórico is weak. Weak art is unsustainable, even if it’s good.
* For now.
Joe Syverson ˙2016: 07: 16˙
(3) …
(2) …
(2) …
(1) [2016: 04: 10] Ladrón Gallery is an old home of fine pedigree.
Down an alley of a neighborhood far from the city center is a doorway leading to grounds secluded even from the community they’re found in. By the time I got there, I had already had the feeling that I was to going to see something I ought to not.
The place is white with a strong pink glow. The light is not the Mexican pastel we’re used to spotting neighborhoods across the country, nor the fleshy hue of private parts, but electric like the sunset outside. Differently from the sunset, though, it comes without the purples and orange that normally moderate the dusk. At the far end of the showroom, buried in the pink, a parade of animal masks mix in the frantic machine of bisexual love. We the viewers are excluded from the drama and asked instead to look on as voyeurs through a window cut out like a painting (or photo), hanging on the wall.
My deja vu had as much to do with approaching the show as actually viewing it, and I’m Bill again, at that mansion out in the dark country.
Down an alley of a neighborhood far from the city center is a doorway leading to grounds secluded even from the community they’re found in. By the time I got there, I had already had the feeling that I was to going to see something I ought to not.
The place is white with a strong pink glow. The light is not the Mexican pastel we’re used to spotting neighborhoods across the country, nor the fleshy hue of private parts, but electric like the sunset outside. Differently from the sunset, though, it comes without the purples and orange that normally moderate the dusk. At the far end of the showroom, buried in the pink, a parade of animal masks mix in the frantic machine of bisexual love. We the viewers are excluded from the drama and asked instead to look on as voyeurs through a window cut out like a painting (or photo), hanging on the wall.
Garden [installation view]
Gabriel López ˙2016˙
My deja vu had as much to do with approaching the show as actually viewing it, and I’m Bill again, at that mansion out in the dark country.
Bill's night at the Mansion
Still from Eyes Wide Shut ˙1996˙ Stanley Kubrick
Garden [installation and performance]
Gabriel López ˙2016˙
Joe Syverson ˙2016: 05: 01˙