Art+Books

Neo-Arcadia
Faux-natural wonders
By Sue Spaid Wednesday, Feb 10 1999

In 1919, the German architect Bruno Taut organized the Crystal Chain,
a correspondence linking about a dozen utopian architects who
delighted in naturally occurring forms such as thrusting geological
formations, spirals, billowing clouds of air, cresting waves and mist-
producing crystal ca v erns. (Crystals offered a metaphor for the unity
of the material and immaterial.) Only a few years later, the anti-utopic
"machine aesthetic" that occasioned the Bau haus School’s
establishment would eclipse Taut’s coterie. Despite Bauhaus-founder
Wal ter Gropius’ claim that one should build in one’s imagination,
"unconcerned about technical difficulty," the Bauhaus led the more
pragmatic march toward functionalism and away from a spiritual
architecture that paradoxically required (and inspired) miraculous
technological developments.

Paradise-scapes proposed by architects associated with the Crystal

Chain were all but forgotten until contemporary ar chitects started
disrupting "the box." Extravagant wonders like Frank Gehry’s
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Nationale-Nederlanden office building
in Prague attest to technological innovations that have once again
sparked architectural imagination. However, as recently as 20 years
ago, French architect Claude Parent abandoned his utopic principles
due to the "overwhelming difficulty of building an oblique habitat."
Parent, whose Woog I proposal from the late ’60s bears an uncanny
resemblance to several recent Gehry works, stands as one of the first
architects to upend the steady box and then actually build it (Villa
Drusche,Versailles, 1962-63).

Local polyglot Chloé Ziegler has assembled a diverse array of

Parent’s drawings, which span his most productive decades, the ’60s
through the ’80s. It is doubtful that Parent knew about the Crystal
Chain when he produced these drawings, yet both generations seem
ensconced in similar ventures, due in part to their pivotal role as
bookends to Modernist architecture (immediate ancestors and heirs to
’20s and ’30s ideals). Although Parent once described his architecture
as "menacing in appearance," his drawings engender joyful jogs that
certify his imaginative prowess. Recurring motifs such as elongated
waves, spiraling ivy and oblique chunks (reminiscent of crystals)
rekindle the potential marvel and dynamism that architecture once
sought.

Now, along comes New York–based artist Stephen Hendee, whose

Shadow Proxy (1999) fills a 30-foot-square space. Once inside, one
imagines what it would be like to visit a molecule, a futuristic hub or
some precipice suspended deep in the cosmos. This otherworldly
interior, at least his sixth massive "cyberbau" in two years, was
constructed from hundreds of obliquely cut and taped foam-core
splices, whose translucent skin glows pink or green. Floating shadows,
generated by a rotating disco ball and gyrating mechanisms (similar in
effect to a faux fire’s flicker) positioned above the glowing cave,
energize and mesmerize participants below. Despite the shell’s
futuristic appeal, Hendee apparently shares Parent’s interest in built
environments that encase and protect interior activities; this warm
carapace beats and breathes like a live hive. Whether one is seeking
communion with fellow hubmates or protection from the outer
elements, harmony seems sustainable here. One may wonder whether
uto pic ventures and futuristic fantasies skip a generation: Hendee is
45 years younger than Parent, who was only 43 years young er than
Taut.

In contrast to Hendee’s human-scale endeavor, Maura Bendett’s

equally habitable wallworks (at Post earlier this month) transform
enchanting reveries into spark ling fairyscapes. "–456° Fahrenheit,"
the exhibit’s title, refers to the temperature at which molecules no
longer move. While the title evokes a frozen world, dangling droplets,
dripping icicles, springy limbs and wiry antennae ensure a movable
feast. Bendett’s aesthetic exploration of budding, branching nodules
began in 1997 when she built a 21-foot-high papier-mâché stalk for
Post’s elevator shaft. Since then, seemingly related cuttings have
sprouted up all over town. Having explored the cartoonish, she’s now
approaching the elegance of glass art. When We Were Young (all works
1998-99), the exhibit’s larg est treescape, suggests a succulent
nursery
replete with nests, breasts, grape clusters, pink clumps, melting icicles,
’60s chandeliers and yellow tear-drop pears. Del Mar’s world includes
sea anemone– like tentacles and the alien/insect antennae that have
graced Bendett’s work for years. Torrun contains a creature whose
head, a colorless resin globe, alludes to crystal-clear thoughts. Just
standing beside these microcosms musters fantasies about landing
down on their idyllic sites.

At Sandroni Rey in Venice are three other nature-inspired life-size

architechtonic installations. Carrie Ungerman’s Vine Structure(1999),
a veritable winter anomaly, is a sprawling tree teeming with colored
plastic-clip leaves that offer cover, but not fresh air. Kim Lee Kahn’s A
Trace Below(1999) features sinuous reliefs crawling along walls, as if
varicose veins or worms were wiggling beneath its surface. While this
piece appears eerie, its super-smooth white surface connotes
tranquility, though it’s perhaps the calm before the storm. Mara Lonner
placed Proposal D to the Los Angeles Department of Building and
Safety for Improved Construction Regulations (1999), a carved-plaster
wallwork, and several drawings of ordinary wood joints atop Allowable
Span, an intimate installation of ornamental patterns stenciled on the
wall with powdered carbon.

Here, Lonner links the ornament and function of architectural motifs to

the natural world (itself a vast storehouse for ornamental devices). To
its credit, Proposal Ditself seems like the net effect of some missing
regulation. But what’s truly curious about this show is the prospect
that Kahn and Lonner have exchanged aesthetic
prac tices and concerns! Throughout the ’90s, Kahn’s work has mostly
explored emergency joints (crutches, Band-Aids, Ace bandages and
string), and about a year ago Lonner plastered an exhibition space with
white ornamental molding. Nonetheless, each artist’s approach to her
switched practice remains entirely her own — Kahn cares more about
function, while Lonner focuses more on form.

Just at the moment when the popular press seems eager to accept
painting’s return, artists are still branching out to envelop the body
and arouse the brain. The trick is to comprehend nature’s variegation,
so as to avoid repetition, which dominates today’s super-square retro-
minimal ity. All kidding aside, the trend toward arcadia thrives on
individuality!