reproductions as a creative principle

Sorting through ancient unread emails, I came across a listing for an artist presentation and discussion on February 21st at Location One: "Artists and images: reproduction as a creative principle" with Pierre-Lin Renié and Allan McCollum. Darn, sorry I missed it. It would have fit with my reading of Benjamin's essay on The work of art in an age of mechanical reproduction.

ode to nina and rick

* synthetic mastery, or, potorg gigi - post-cannibalism
* Sable Island - roll cloud, only occurs in two places, "morning glory"
* parthenogenesis and the Blessed Virgin Mary
* "my ego was bruised by a semiotician"
* whistling languages
* the pillow won't come dry
* Pierre Fauchard
* LaMonte Young - recording ocean waves in the Hamptons
* bird mimickry - British Library website
* Murmurs of earth - songs set to words by Jimmy Carter - probes to outer space
* amphibrach - emphasis on the middle syllable

= on the occasion of a performance by Nina Katchadourian and Rick Moody at Proteus Gowanus, they sang, he talked, they sang, she talked, they sang, he or she talked, challenging each other with a word or a phrase. Maybe you had to be there.

2+2 & steven holl

When you're looking for someone's contact information, it can be very frustrating when the staff list for an organization is totally behind firewalls or the information is so general that you can't get an email or mail address. At the same time, none of us needs any more spam and I guess the crawlers can get addresses from easily available sites. I was looking at the webpage of the Faculty of Theology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and they ask a simple question and then you get a helpful profile of affiliates. The simple question stops the crawlers but not those who know what 2 + 2 is. Go to http://organigram.kuleuven.be/8/50000102.htm and click on one of the names. The page will ask you to give a simple sum (last night, 2 + 2; this morning, 7 + 7) before it gives you any profile page. You only have to do it once, per session.

Wednesday's Times had a paean by Nicolai Ouroussoff to the Bloch Building. It's the new wing of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. When we were there for VRA in March, it was possible to visit the library even though the rest of the building wasn't ready for the public yet. The Bloch Building, designed by Steven Holl, has now opened. To get to the library, you went through some of the main circulation space and it was magnificent: layers of building and space, light, angles. The picture in the Times looks magical with the building glowing and being reflected in the pool along with the original neoclassical building. http://www.nelson-atkins.org/

And then yesterday's paper had an article on Philip Johnson's Glass House (complex) in New Canaan which opens this month. Most of the article is comments from art world folks. I went there on an SAH tour in the early 1980s and it is surprising even if you've seen a million pictures of it. I guess that's the genius loci.

back from the swiss circuit

Mac and I had a good trip to Switzerland, making a circuit from Zurich (3 nights) to Sankt Gallen (2) to Chur (1) to Lugano (3) to Basel (4) and back to Zurich (1). Architectural highlights: villas all around (especially Zurich and Sankt Gallen); Shavian pile on Zurich lakefront; Stiftskirche and Stiftsbibliothek in Sankt Gallen (one of the great mss sites of the early Middle Ages so just being there was exciting); Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein in Vaduz; the Castello in Lugano (have to check and see if it's by the Coppedè; my Coppedè book is in the Alfred annex); the ex-Casa del Fascio by Giuseppe Terragni in Como; the cathedral in Como; Kunstmuseum Basel; Le Corbusier's Maison Blanche for his parents; Schaulager Basel by Herzog + de Meuron; Vitra Design Museum and complex. Lots of interesting art too. The mountains are, of course, spectacular. We took the Bernina Express from Chur to Lugano (train from Chur to Tirano and post bus on to Lugano). Not many stamps in the passport even though I was in four countries over the two weeks (the Liechtenstein stamp is 2 CHF at the tourist stand). Only the Italians stamped the passport when we got to Tirano. Languages lots of fun: we passed from German to French to German to French between Basel and La Chaux-de-Fonds. I'll be working on a travelogue as soon as the email pile gets a bit smaller.