Learning from Las Vegas was a real watershed moment— or maybe I should say a real Waterloo moment— in architectural history. This book was the first, fully-formulated backlash against the dictates of Modernist architecture, however polite in its tone. Running contrary to every last tenet of the International Style, the polemic warmly extolled the symbol and ornament, fun and dysfunction, the ugly and ordinary, the redundant and duck-shaped— and nearly everything else that had been shaved from the severe, honest, and “functional” forms of the era.

The book itself was the result of a 1968 architectural study by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Stephen Izenour, and several of their students at the Yale School of Architecture. For months, the group studied and documented the commercial vernacular of Las Vegas, as symbols-in-space taking precedence over forms-in-space. Architecture, they insisted, always has and always will communicate. Architecture always blends meaning and form. Even the proponents of Modernism, who purportedly banished the symbolic, were like it or not, still communicating with an end-of-the-century industrial vocabulary. So Las Vegas wasn’t novel in this regard, but it was, in all its flash and distraction, “the phenomenon at its purest and most intense.”

The group thunk and studied and documented the Las Vegas Strip, trying to discover the “system behind flamboyance.” They studied signage, motels, diners, casinos, parking configurations, void-to-fill ratios, and funny photomontages resembling Mexican bingo cards; trying all the while to absorb its lessons with a fairly Pop disinterest of its baser aims.

Considerable evidence from this study is now housed in a satellite of the MOCA that sits in the shadow of César Pelli’s blue-glass leviathan, the Pacific Design Center. The exhibition itself offers little new to readers of Learning from Las Vegas, aside from the films playing on the back wall and a few other knick-knacks. The exhibit is pretty much the book made life-size in gallery form. I paid a visit nevertheless, along with fellow Philadelphian transplant, Jesse Moynihan, more as a gesture of sympathy than anything else. Venturi and Brown are Philadelphians, as you may know, and their Eastern engagement with Southwestern architecture mirrors my own recent experiences within the Angeleno landscape.

Which makes sense. Los Angeles and Las Vegas are of a piece. Venturi and Brown were themselves contiguous with much of the Pop theorizing going on then in Los Angeles— that attempt to make sense of a young, new, exploding American Baroque. Ed Ruscha had already, in 1965, created long photomontages of the entire Sunset Strip with a camera strapped to the back of a truck. Venturi and Brown borrowed this “autoscape” documentation to grab the rhythms and hidden order of the Strip and city in Las Vegas, and you can see these on display at the MOCA exhibit.

When you wander around Los Angeles, you still see plenty of those mid-century, much-denigrated styles like “Googie” and “programmatic” architecture. Googie architecture— or “populuxe” as it’s supposedly also known— is a style that you all recognize: that semi-Jetsonian space-age aesthetic of atoms, boomerangs, and French-curvy blobs that springs to mind when you mention “Californian diner.” It’s here on every corner. Even loopier though less prevalent are the vestiges of programmatic, or novelty, architecture where the entire building will serve as a sign. Venturi famously classified this as a “duck,” in honor of the duck-shaped Long Island Duckling. Here in Los Angeles, we’ve got no ducks, but we got donuts, hot dogs, derbies, giant globes, and countless smaller examples of sculpture overtaking honest form.

Norm's googie diner near the Pacific Design Center

Angeleno architecture is studded with mythic elements, though many belong to an American mythos generated by Hollywood and television. And thanks to the weather, even funny, little details like lettering and paintjobs still remind us of sixty years back. The California we always pictured before we ever came. This is the prime virtue that ought to be pushed, the phantasmagoria— only in the rich, self-conscious way it is in Learning from Las Vegas.

I get the sense, however, that our mythic shapes are endangered in Los Angeles. In later press, Venturi and Brown mention often how the Las Vegas of their polemic no longer exists, for numerous reasons. Unlike the works of canonical architecture, the subjects of their study were seen purely as commercial fixtures and thereby doomed by innovation to the Neon Boneyard. Sadly, this was the fate of many of the landmarks of googie and programmatic architecture everywhere; torn down as businesses went belly-up.

In Los Angeles, as in most places, I see a once-exaggerated jukebox vernacular succumbing to that committee-approved look we’ve come to expect from the commercial sector and the Land of Beige. This signals an end. As Venturi and Brown put it “Commissions produce mediocrity and a deadened urb. What will happen to the strip when the tastemakers take over?” What has happened is that the American commercial vernacular has run through a kind of dialectic. Once a source of inspiration against the strictures of Modernist theory, it has now formed its own “tastemaking” strictures, its own bland internationalism, and even seems destined to undo all its former doings.

Take the Hollywood sign. Venturi and Brown claimed that the Roman triumphal arch was the forerunner of modern signage, and nowhere is this more evident than with the Hollywood sign. It not only welcomes us, it is the very icon of the American dream factory. Despite all this though, the sign is endangered by the very forces that put it up there in the first place. Originally, it was nothing more than a real estate advertisement reading “HOLLYWOODLAND”— an article of pure enterprise. Only with time and mythologization did it become what it truly is. Now, after some recent real estate dealings, wouldn’t you know it: the land around the sign is once again being considered for the development of luxury homes that would obstruct the view of the sign, but offer a breathtaking view of the city.

These kind of shenanigans are enough to challenge Venturi and Brown’s hope for a true “architecture of inclusion.” Or at least, they force the question of how we might retain the essential boldness we see in both Mies Van Der Rohe and mid-century Las Vegas.

If the word chemistry provokes a reaction somewhere between boredom and fear, think again. The Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) at 3rd and Chesnut has opened a new museum designed, as they put it, for adults who don’t remember or understand chemistry. They’ve done a smashing job! The museum will also appeal to serious younger visitors, but unlike the playground atmosphere that’s the Franklin Institute, this is filled with loads of information and lots of artifacts. The permanent exhibition Making Modernity addresses the contributions of chemical and molecular innovations to paint colors, Bakelight jewelry, nylon stockings and sex hormones as well as nanotechnology, genomics and many other areas of life as we know it. Philadelphia has a great new museum and admission’s free!

A view of the main gallery of the new Chemical Heritage Foundation museum.

The most spectacular display, a few feet in the door, is a large video projection designed by Theodore Gray. Conceptually the heir of the Eames’ multi-monitor display for the 1964 World’s Fair, it illustrates the periodic table, element by element and is as visually dazzling as it is didactically effective.

Kaleidoscope image of bakelite, one of the chemical contributions displayed in the new museum. Kaleidoscopic wallpapers and screen savers are available at the CHS website.

The museum is in an Italianate bank building renovated with great taste by Daget-Saylor Architects; they’ve created an 8,000 square foot open space for the museum that sparkles with glass and light. The permanent exhibition, occupying the bulk of the space, was designed by Ralph Applebaum Associates, the country’s premier museum designers. A smaller gallery at the back is for changing exhibitions.

Ed Ruscha Standard Station. A version is used in Molecules that Matter to illustrate isooctane, a crucial component of gasoline.

I went to the CHF because I’d run into Diane Burko who said that an exhibition had opened there, Molecules That Matter, organized by the Tang Museum at Skidmore College, her alma mater. It includes artwork in its exploration of ten significant molecules discovered or synthesized in the Twentieth century including aspirin, DNA, polyethylene and Prozac. Diane was surprised that I knew anything about chemistry; well I know a little.

Roxy Paine SCUlpture MAChine extruding her SCUMAK pieces.

The element that distinguishes all living things is carbon which bonds with other elements in three-dimensional structures, so that organic chemists need to conceptualize in three dimensions as do sculptors. I assumed that the artists might have done something related to chemical structure, but the use of the art was less conceptual and more illustrative. The section on aspirin, the first mass-marketed pill, includes Fred Tomaselli’s 13,000 (1996) created from columns of aspirin tablets on a black background encased in acrylic. To illustrate nylon Susie Brandt used old stockings to weave a large, plaid wall hanging that recall’s potholders made in crafts classes; she called it After Albers (1995-9) for Anni Albers, the Bauhaus textile designer. I enjoyed the discussion of nylon; apparently after World War II there were shopping riots when nylon hosiery first appeared, and 64 million pairs of stockings sold in four days.

The display on polyethylene includes four of Roxy Paine’s SCUMAK pieces, created with the use of a SCUlpture MAKing machine which extrudes polyethylene mixed with pigment; these were all black and looked like goth versions of Linda Benglis’ work. Behind the Paines a bench by Dan Peterman, made from recycled post-consumer plastic, fit so seamlessly into the display that I thought it was gallery furniture.

As part of the lecture series planned around Molecules that Matter, artist Chrissy Conant will be speaking about her Chrissy Caviar project on October 21 at 6pm. The galleries open an hour before the lecture.

As soon as I saw Ed Ruscha’s Industrial Strength Sleep tapestry at the Fabric Workshop and Museum, this piece by Mexican artist Gabriel Kuri popped into my mind. I had seen it last year at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, in an exhibit of work from Mexico (post here).

Kuri’s Trinity is a faithful reproduction of a computer-register receipt with the color copies. And it’s handwoven in Mexico, which of course raises issues of the values of hand work vs. computer-generated stuff. At this moment of financial meltdown, it’s a nice reminder of the need to get back to what’s real, all you high-flying wizards of tricky Enron computations and smoke-and-mirrors financial instruments.

Ruscha’s terrific work is a computer-generated copy of something that was hand-made, an acrylic painting of his from 1989 (Roberta’s post here).

This is just a brief observation about what’s going on that I find interesting–the confluence of the hand-made and the computer and the weaving together of meanings– plus deadpan humor.

There are other people working in tapestry at the juncture where computers and hand-work meet. I’m thinking of Lia Cook, who seems to come from a fiber methodology starting point. ( posts here and here)

I was not thinking about Kehinde Wiley‘s ultra-hip tapestry, from Cerealart, which also was digitally produced (in France), but I happened to stumble on it when I put “tapestry” in artblog’s Google search engine. The computer used in Wiley’s weaving process seems to be outside the discussion in that piece, just an artifact of how it got made. Nor was I thinking about the wonderful hand-woven William Kentridge pieces recently shown at the PMA–no computer involved. Those both seem to me to be something else entirely.

Ed Ruscha at the Fabric Workshop last Friday night

Ed Ruscha was looking like a little leprachaun in front of a packed audience at the Fabric Workshop’s new space last Friday.  The 2nd floor gallery space — which makes a great lecture hall — was certified for only 200 people with a live feed downstairs for the big spillover crowd.  

Ruscha and his slide of the Barnyard Rembrandt

According to Ruscha, who was showing slides of his influences and a few of his own work, Barnyard Rembrandt Chuck Byers (sic–it’s really Clark Byers, see obit) said, “‘I never passed up a good roof.’”

Ruscha went on to say of Byers’ work, “It reminds me of those wraparound videos on buildings today”  (referring to moving billboards and the moving news ticker around Times Square).

We had a great time laughing at Ruscha’s wry humor.  He was full of notable quips including:

Jasper John‘s Flag was my atomic bomb.

Muhammed Ali. My hero, he was outrageous in almost every way.  He’s worth getting choked up about.

Harold Edgerton‘s photos are frozen still lives.

Renato Bertelli‘s endless [Head of] Mussolini.  That’s my Mona Lisa.  It says everything about our time.

I like the ambiguity of monosyllabic words.

Maybe I’ll live in a Standard [gas] station.  Park the car and just go in.

Accidental Ed Ruscha. Outside the FWM on Arch Street.

This light box on Arch St. caught our friend Susan‘s eye.  She immediately dubbed it an “Ed Ruscha.”

Jamie Dillon’s Monomelon at Copy

We heard it moaning like a beached whale before we saw it–Jamie Dillon‘s Monomelon at Copy Gallery.  It’s a sound installation following up his sound installation last month at Vox.   People loved this melon.  They were hanging out trying to hear what the oracle had to say next.

Trevor Reese, installation at Space 1026, has audio and video and plants!

Space 1026 has a terrific show by two artists, Trevor Reese of Brooklyn and Sighn (aka Matthew) of Chicago.  Words, wood, plants and video.  It’s one of the best shows we’ve seen there in a while — unexpected and provocative.  Fun, too.

Sighn at Space 1026. 

Sighn’s “ITSOK” wall.  Hand-cut bass wood.  1,000 pieces, cut with a jigsaw, which explains Sighn’s aching back.  Individual units of ITSOK in bamboo or bass wood available for $20!

Marisa Olson’s video at Vox Populi

We made a video of Marisa Olson’s video at Vox to try to give you a sense of the action in the subtle piece.  Well, YouTube rejected our video as “content inappropriate.”  So here’s a photo. The action is:  this woman is tied with pink strings.  She’s wiggling to get out of her predicament.  Over time you see she’s got a razor in her hands.

Xiang Yang’s installation at Vox Populi.

Xiang Yang was at the opening, showing a new body of work — deconstructed chairs.  He scavenged the chairs from the streets of New York where he lives and lovingly sanded them to new abstract beauty.  Zhang also has an installation opening Oct. 17 at the Liao Collection piece –a room filled with Chinese furniture.  It reminds us of Mari Shaw‘s encounter with some Chinese art in Germany.  

Gossip

William Pym, former gallery director at Fleisher-Ollman Gallery,  is now living at Jersey City with his girlfriend and writing for Village Voice and Artforum. We got this from John Ollman, who told us while juggling a glass of wine and a copy of the PMA’s hot-off-the-presses James Castle catalog. Fleisher-Ollman’s upcoming Castle show is running in conjunction with the upcoming PMA exhibit. Ollman, by the way, is featured in the Castle documentary movie that’s part of the PMA’s exhibit.

Anthony Campuzano is having a solo show at ICA’s project space, opening Jan. 16. We heard this from Ollman and then ran into Anthony at Vox and he confirmed. He seemed calmer than us. We’re very excited about this. He’s working with ICA’s new curatorial assistant Kate Kraczon. Anthony told us another Philly art star, video and clay animation virtuoso Josh Mosley, will be in the large upstairs gallery at the same time.

Pepon Osorio told us he’s in a great-sounding group show opening October 19 at PS I in New York. NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith is co-organized by The Menil Collection Many of the artists in the show we’ve followed for years and love — including Philadelphia artist Terry Adkins. Here’s who else is in the exhibit:

Janine Antoni, Radcliffe Bailey, José Bedia, Rebecca Belmore, Sanford Biggers, Tania Bruguera, James Lee Byars, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, William Cordova, Jimmie Durham, Regina José Galindo, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Hammons, Michael Joo, Brian Jungen, Kcho, Marepe, Ana Mendieta, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Adrian Piper, Ernesto Pujol, Dario Robleto, Betye Saar, Gary Simmons, George Smith, Michael Tracy, Nari Ward

Last June the Fabric Workshop and Museum was bounced from its home at 1315 Cherry Street when its building was demolished to make way for the Convention Center expansion. In order to keep showing art, the Museum took up residence at an interim space at 1222 Arch Street while waiting for a new permanent home to be retrofitted.

The new space, a six-story Victorian building located down the block from their temporary home, opened a few weeks ago. The inaugural show—the first solo exhibition in Philadelphia by L.A. artist Ed Ruscha—showcases what the FWM is known for: collaborating with an artist to create work using materials the artist has never used before. In this case, Ruscha and the FWM created a huge, digitally produced tapestry based on his 1989 acrylic painting Industrial Strength Sleep.

Ruscha’s work is challenging. His paintings bear cryptic phrases, often in bold uppercase letters and on backgrounds that evoke the sublime in all its threat and beauty. At the FWM the new tapestry (produced in Belgium at Flanders Tapestries) is surrounded by works by the artist dating from the same time—including the large painting on which the tapestry is based. All the paintings and drawings are darkling works with white letters on black and white backgrounds that depict an ominous film noir sky. Fiber-Optic Suburbs , Something or Other, Amusing Alloys and Ye … are more of the word offerings in works that combine to create a kind of 2-D nocturne.

Ed Ruscha
Hell Heaven, 1988
Acrylic on paper
40 x 60 inches (101.6 x 152.4 cm)
Collection of Jacqueline Burckhardt, Zurich
Photo: Lutz Hartmann

Thomas Crow’s wonderful and insightful essay in the show’s catalog tells of Ruscha’s love of movies and film noir. Raymond Chandler and especially The Big Sleep are context for Ruscha’s Industrial Strength Sleep, which surely doesn’t refer to a baby’s nap but something more like Chandler’s notion of the one big sleep we all take in the end.

Ruscha, though, has tweaked the concept by inserting the pop culture phrase “industrial strength,” often used ironically to refer to something that’s nonindustrial but strong (“industrial strength coffee,” for example). The 9-by-23-foot tapestry, made by use of industrial-strength weaving machines, is itself a great stroke of wordplay.

Made from a low-resolution image of the painting, the tapestry softens the work through sheer material transformation and tames its chilly edge without making it lose its awesome impact. The weaving is both warmer (black threads create deep, seductive velvety passages) and more abstract (on close inspection the work becomes a series of thread lines of various lengths and shades of gray) than the painting. It’s curious to see the two pieces side by side.

Curated by Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s Paul Schimmel, the exhibit runs through Oct. 25. Not to be missed: The artist will give a free lecture at FWM on Oct. 3. There’s no reserved seating so get there early.

On the horizon, the museum will install a large show from the collection. Their holiday party, traditionally one of the big art events of the winter season, will be in early December. And look for continued programming in the interim space, which now has a window display by up-and-coming artist Hank Willis Thomas.

With two sparkling new galleries, airy work spaces, state-of-the-art lighting, heating and cooling systems, specially made mahogany-framed windows and new elevators, the gypsy institution is finally in a more secure place.

Ed Ruscha: “Industrial Strength.”
Through Oct. 25.
Fabric Workshop and Museum,
1214 Arch St.
215.561.8888.