Scaffolding around an architectural masterpiece is one thing, but what about a giant ad for the Quantum of Solace? For the first time in history, the Grand Canal and St Mark’s Square are displaying huge advertisements. (via.) “The law allows the scaffolding on public buildings under restoration to carry advertising so long as the superintendent considers that it does not “detract from the appearance, decorum or public enjoyment of the building”. While the existing ads in Venice have aroused local and international protest, Venice superintendent Renata Codello insists that she has been very discriminating: ‘I have turned down masses of proposals, including one with the entire Italian football team dressed only in their shorts,’ she told the Association of Private Committees for Venice last month.”
Cristo’s Gates exhibit is said to have generated $254 million and 4 million visitors. Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls generated an estimated $69 million and about 1.4 million visitors. “Some experts question those numbers, saying they seem a little extreme. But the city says they involve a complex methodology.” (via.)
Rules for an American Fantasy Road Trip
The Wall Street Journal’s list of 50 things we can blame on high gas prices was all over the blogs this week. Strangely missing from it is the fact that cross-country roadtripping, the quintessential American experience, is becoming obsolete. This summer we should all be so lucky to weave in and out of little backwater and dirt road towns, where the people stare as they would at aliens, look at the young city persons with their skinny jeans and asymmetric haircuts!
Of course, the best way to roadtrip, as films would have it, is to go it alone. Then you are more likely to come across an attractive stranger, with whom you will exchange sidelong glances — sometimes through the rearview mirror. At the first rest stop, you will have the chance to evaluate whether or not the mysterious stranger is height/weight proportionate and not crazy-seeming (well, maybe a little crazy,) but this is still not the time to proceed with anything.
Several states later, another rest stop, and you exchange a faint “Hey,” and maybe a nod. Then you get gas someplace else toward the end of the day and have a deep conversation over a cup of terrible coffee about the terrible things that have happened to you in the past, like some uncle who used to beat you in the woodshed or something, carefully neglecting to mention your hometown, name, occupation, or age.
At some point in the conversation, one will ask the other, “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” with a shrug, is the only appropriate response to this question.
No one asks where you are coming from.
Only at the 5th rest stop, and the third cup of terrible coffee and second or third vague conversation, is it appropriate to inquire, “So where are you staying tonight?” Illicit substances may or may not be procured at this point in the adventure. The next morning you must have breakfast at a diner, maybe a retrofitted train car, where a middle-aged frizzy haired waitress with an obsolete name like “Blanche” or “Mildred” serves rubbery omelette with white bread toast and margarine. Different kinds of pies and grapenut custard are displayed in a revolving glass case by the door.
Five Easy Pieces is my favorite road movie, pretty much because it’s my favorite movie. But Laurie Bird in Two-lane Blacktop is the consummate roadtrip lady friend. She’s credited as “the girl,” even though she appears in a quarter of all the scenes, she never gets a name. So yeah, no exchanging names on the road. You’re nothing more than “the girl,” with nothing more than a backpack to hold all of your possessions. That’s another rule.
Sadly, the beautifully wistful Laurie Bird killed herself when she was 25 in her boyfriend Art Garfunkel’s apartment — he who wrote the consummate roadtrip lyric, “Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike/ They’ve all gone to look for America.”
There’s that other roadtrip lyric, “Standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona,” which created a tourism platform in Winslow, Arizona out of necessity.
When Interstate 40 replaced Route 66, towns along 66 shuttered their diners and B&Bs. There were no more weary road travelers to feed. In the meantime, the Jackson Browne stomping ground capitalized on the song’s success by building a public space called “Standin’ on the Corner Park” complete with a totally heinous looking statue of someone “standin’ on the corner”:
A brief history of the town per Wikipedia:
The scene described in the song was replicated as a trompe-l’oeil mural painted on the side of a building in Standin’ on the Corner Park in Winslow. On October 18, 2004, a fire destroyed the building on which the mural was painted. The wall and the mural were preserved, but the park temporarily closed.
In November of 2006, the city of Winslow purchased the property where the building had stood. The wall with the mural was secured and the rest of the building torn down.
As of August 2007, the corner of the park, with the statue and the mural, is accessible again. Plans are underway to expand the mural to cover the remaining wall, and to expand the park onto both sides of the wall.
The town also posted a billboard on I-40 with the words: “Winslow, Arizona says ‘Take it easy’”.
Wikipedia also says the road movie, “has its roots in spoken and written tales of epic journeys, such as the Odyssey and the Aeneid. The road film is a standard plot employed by screenwriters. It is a kind of bildungsroman, a kind of story in which the hero changes, grows or improves over the course of the story. The modern “road picture” is to filmmakers what the heroic quest was to Medieval writers.” My then boyfriend, a few years ago, a very paranoid person who was nevertheless usually right about these things, always used to say “this is the last year we can roadtrip so we should do it now,” but at the time I thought going abroad would make the best escape.
Now it’s true. The roadtrip is already a forgotten concept like a drive-in movie. And there’s no other American experience that can take its place.
Images by Stephen Shore (except for the “Standin’ on the Corner”)
Previously:
Low-Tech Movement: Not Just Pedestrian Pride
Urban Safaris: Graffiti Sites Considered for Heritage Protection
Related links:
- Legends of America
- VQR: No Way Home
- Good news about $4 gas? Fewer traffic deaths, Eurekalert
- Out of the wilderness, The Economist, “People are shunning the great outdoors. Blame conservationists, not video games.”
- Martin’s Route 66 Gallery & Essay
- Goodbye to the Great American Road Trip, NYT
- Route 66 - The Land That Time Forgot, Dave Wyman
Urban Safaris: Graffiti Sites Considered for Heritage Protection
Simon at Ballardian says Melbourne is not quite as lovely as the Treehugger article I linked to suggests:
[The] Treehugger article only explores Melbourne’s inner city. The suburbs are a different matter. Perhaps the overseas versions might weed out the worrying strain of Mad Max style behaviour that sees cyclists as game to be hunted.
But then again, such behaviour inspired Mad Max itself, one of the finest films ever made.
Well, it may not be a “pedestrian paradise,” but Melbourne is in the middle of a debate that could lead to some curious developments in urban landscapes around the world. Australia’s National Trust and Heritage Victoria is considering graffiti for heritage protection (via.)
Scott Hilditch, chief executive of Graffiti Hurts Australia, says that protecting graffiti would effectively condone acts of vandalism and cost the Australian government over $260 million (U.S. $250 million) a year to clean up.
Some artists oppose the idea as well, protesting that it is contrary to the spirit of the art form itself. Melbourne curator and artist Andrew Mac says it would interfere with the natural process of street art: “The work is ephemeral. It’s not meant to last. It lasts purely as long as the weather and other graffiti artists allow it to last.” Mac also feels that the councils backing protection may have real estate motives in mind, such as promoting graffiti sites to fuel tourism.
The Banksy House
A London suburban Victorian terrace house tagged by Banksy famously went for bid at four hundred thousand dollars, “a buyer would receive the mural—with the house thrown in ‘for free.’” The house was later destroyed by “vandals” — nevertheless — maybe therein lies the answer to our national housing crisis.
We could send Swoon and Elbow-Toe to the poorest neighborhoods in Cleveland, Washington Dc, Detroit, and elsewhere. Why stop at the cities? We could tag barns in North Dakota too. 
I’d pay a lot to live in a Swoon-tagged house. And I’d certainly move in a neighborhood I’d never otherwise consider in order to do so. But bidding would be fierce. We could see these properties turning into hipster summer homes, for when the trust fund PBR drinkers want to rough it in the “Common People” sense.
Anyone can see street art, not just the people willing to step in a gallery. And that adds value. The more eyes on a work of art, (usually) the more valuable it becomes (although diminishing marginal returns plays here too.) This is why artists will often reduce the price of their work to display it in a museum rather than sell it to someone for his personal collection.
If art economics is difficult to understand, the economics of street art is unprecedented in its confusion. In England, Banksy is as famous as Damon Alburn and earl grey tea. His prints sell for millions. But this month, one of his pieces was whitewashed in Northern London.
Art critics know that street art and graffiti refer to very different things. As Hrag Vartanian put it, “What appears to differentiate street art from its graffiti predecessor are two things: the self-consciousness in its conversation with the city and its lack of the aggression and violence.” But city workers can’t be bothered to appreciate the difference, and maybe there is aesthetic merit to be gleaned from its aggressive older cousin.
I think the Australian preservationists are on to something, and one day we all will be thinking bigger. Maybe downtown Detroit will be heralded as an architecture splendor — an UNESCO site, the modern day Cesky Krumlov. Tourists in fannypacks and shorts will motorbus out to see it, and marvel at the public artwork as they would walking through Florence, Italy.
Already tourists enjoy the spectacle of poverty. When I was in South Africa a few years ago, i was shocked at the opportunities to visit the shantytowns (”Townships”) by bus tours. Brazil is notorious for its “Favela tours.” Here’s a good post on poverty tourism by Vagabondish, explaining how to minimize the exploitation of the people who live in these areas:
I think that if it’s managed by real, interested professionals, and sensible ground rules are set – don’t take photographs, don’t give money or candy away (donate through a suitable charity or organization instead), stay in small groups, and so on – then perhaps poverty tourism really does provide some benefits for the locals. And at this stage in its development, when it’s mostly undertaken by fairly seasoned travelers who are genuinely interested in understanding more about a country and its people, it seems that such tours can truly be managed in this way. My fear is that poverty tourism could become a more mainstream activity, and money-hungry travel agents will start sending in large air-conditioned buses full of ignorant tourists snapping hundreds of pictures, and then the rot will really set in.
Still, I can’t feel comfortable with the idea of the New Orleans disaster tours. Something about busing out to see a someone’s personal possessions strewn about, reduced to trash and chaos, bothers me more than seeing human faces of a tragedy.
Art by Elbow-Toe
Related links:
- The Very Public Life of Street Art by Hrag Vartanian in the Brooklyn Rail
- My Love for You interviews Elbow Toe
- Shadow Cities by Robert Neuwirth
- Graffiti artist Mike Baca (standing trial for seven years for graffiti vandalism and trespassing, which is twice the usual sentence in NY) Juxtapoz
What is the life of models /proposals /plans for projects that never get built /realized? Do these become art? Documentation of fictions? Narratives of the future? Yes, they become art. Art is, in general, nothing but failed or dysfunctional design - Art Lies interviews Boris Groys, author of Art Power (via.)
Bill Kauffman reviews “Inventing Niagara” by Ginger Strand for WSJ: “The last crippling blow to the city was leveled in the 1970s by the demolition-happy Niagara Falls Urban Renewal agency ..The shops and diners that had been the lifeblood of a funky downtown were stolen and then razed; a sterile Philip Johnson-designed convention center was the memento mori…It’s hard not to draw a lesson from the fall of Niagara: If government had never lifted a finger, either to ‘improve’ or ‘preserve,’ the waterfalls and the city would be in far better shape than they are now.” (via.)
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