The park...was conceived four decades ago. The visionary architect who designed it died in 1974. The site...remained a rubble heap while the project was left for dead. But in a city proud of its own impatience, perseverance sometimes pays off. — New York Times
6 Comments
"The symmetrical layout and extended vista also calls to mind the plaza at Kahn’s Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego and various pioneering examples of landscape sculpture in the American West by contemporaneous artists like Walter De Maria, Donald Judd and Michael Heizer."
I really doubt any connection between these artists and Kahn. M. Kimmelman is just stretching his point, typical of half-informed architecture reviewers.
Kahn's Salk Institute, as Alberto Bertoli once said, does makes one believe, again, in architecture
The reviewer clearly says that the Kahn piece "calls to mind" - to his/her mind - the work of these other artists, who happened to be practicing at the same time. The reviewer also clearly sets the terms for the comparison - symmetry and "extended vista" - you can find all that and more in the work by the artists mentioned. More than acceptable to my mind. Is it that you like Kahn a lot, don't care for the artists mentioned, or are trying to separate architecture from some 'abstract landscape sculpture' boogey man? Or is it something else?
VC yeah , 'calls to mind' is a review's shorthand for a visual homology, however non-connected. Happens all the time. i've done it. It's a bad analogy. Clearly attempting to compare, and align somewhat, Kahn with contemporary land art sculpture.
I think the transcendental aspect of the monument (if transcendental it is) has its roots somewhere else, not art. Perhaps a gestalt topology concept with earth and heaven in visual and conceptual dialog. Gestalt concepts applied to art history especially and architecture less were all the rage among European intellectuals in the 30and 40s.
maybe not profound on the writer's part - just doesn't strike me as that bad. I don't think the reviewer's trying to ground Kahn in art - I'd guess, though I shouldn't, that all the works 'coming to their mind' eventually point somewhere farther back for the reviewer as well.
and then suddenly we're all wrangling over what art is . . .
which could be fun
Freedom of speech and expression
Freedom of worship
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear
Monument to four freedoms whose existence lately is open for discussion. It is a 15% review that misses the real essence and meaning, the monument itself could question. The fact that it is a Kahn design does not relinquish any of these points in exchange for sculptural design concepts. In a more sober critique this is more so a monument to real failure of some values we badly need to question these days. Maybe a reminder monument..?
Norman Rockwell illustrated Roosevelt's THE FOUR FREEDOMS for the Saturday Evening post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms_%28Norman_Rockwell%29
As Orhan pointed out our basic freedoms are eroding and no amount of stone will preserve these freedoms without the political will it takes to regain them. Rockwell illustrations in retrospect look old and quaint - a picture of what is lost.
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