| | Michael writes:"I think you pretty much understand that somehow a remodling should be sensitive to theme/style/feeling of the house or building, no?", Yes, of course. However, even with these best intentions, there are not a high percentage of architects that could successfully pull off a major renovation of a Wright structure while still being true to its spirit. This is because much of what makes Wright's works so great, at least to most people - including most architects, are intangibles, and without a deep affinity for his approach, the new work doesn't integrate properly into the whole. And this results in the greatest crime of all, where the dynamic tension between the original and the new work destroys the serenity and repose.
And speaking of the Guggenheim Museum, it has been subjected to various controversial renovations over the years, but it has recently had a complete restoration. In the process there was a huge debate as to what color it should be painted. Wright had specified, and the museum was originally painted a warm buff (slightly yellowish) color but it had been changed to a cool off-white over the years by others. Now, anyone who knows anything about Wright would realize that he would be violently opposed to the white and would have gone down swinging, fighting for the proper color.* So what reason is given by the president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy for not restoring the intended color?"It’s more what people are used to now. I think it would be very startling to change the color of the Guggenheim right now." Michael, if you want to get pissed off at somebody, leave poor Ed alone and go after these !@#$%^! Oh, we wouldn't want to startle anyone. There might be a lawsuit! And while we're at it, let's get rid of that piece of crap they installed on the roof! And the streetlights too, damn it! Talk about philistines!
Getting back to the issue at hand, I see this discussion polarized by two issues: principle and passion. Regarding the first, it seems clear to me that Michael is strongly defending the integrity of the creative act as a matter of principle. And in principle, isn't this something that we all support? Michael is passionate in defending the idea of creativity precisely because it is so important to him and is such an integral part of his work. I cannot agree with Mike Erickson that passion, or what he calls "sensitivity", is inversely proportional to the inspirational quality of an individual's work. There may well be a lot of whining wanna-bees in the world, but that has nothing to do with true artists maintaining their passion for life and their work and being willing to defend it. (See the book recommendation below for a good example.)
Regarding passion, the intensity we feel towards things is certainly dependent upon their quality. Few people get riled up about people remodeling the house down the street because there is not much worth preserving in most of them to begin with. The same is true for a velvet painting. I might be an asshole for painting a flamingo on the painting (but thankfully, just "a bit" of an asshole! ;-)), but no more so than the fellow who paints their entire house robin's egg blue or sunflower yellow, to name but two in my neighborhood. These houses are an eyesore because they look like alien objects that have no relationship to their surroundings and are not just unresponsive to the site and landscape but stand in contradistinction to them. And yet, I'm much more offended by what has been done to the Guggenheim, 3,000 miles away than I am to these houses, because the Guggenheim is so much more worthy of my passion than these little pokes-in-the-eye down the street.
Michael, while I do get your message, I think you have overreacted a bit to Ed's efforts here. As others have said, I also see his endeavor (and Ed, correct me if I'm wrong) as more of an intellectual training exercise rather than as an attempt to appropriate the creative enterprise of another. If we are going to move into a new creative arena, we all must start somewhere. It is difficult, if not impossible, for most people to create tabula rasa. (I suspect that even Mozart required some initial training.) This is why new painters spend time in museums copying the works of great masters as they hone their skills in preparation for the time when they can approach a blank canvas on their own terms. Giving Ed the benefit of the doubt, which I think he deserves, I see nothing wrong with his attempts to begin with a poem by another and rework it. We can all independently judge his efforts on their own merit while the original work remains intact and undefaced. If he were so inclined to continue, projects like this might eventually lead to the production of wholly creative new works. However, the response received here is the sort of thing that causes most people to abandon their pursuits forever. There are a lot of good points being made in this discussion which would be considerably more instructive if we could dial down the rancor. (Said the guy who is swearing at the New York Landmarks Conservancy. :-))
Regards,
--
Jeff
* If you want an interesting read and would like to get some insight into Wright's passion and his struggle for the integrity of his work, I can highly recommend the book The Guggenheim Correspondence compiled by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer. This has Wright's correspondence during the fifteen year period that it took to get the museum built. If you are not very familiar with Wright other than the image in the popular press, this is a good place to start to get a deeper understanding of the man.
(Edited by C. Jeffery Small on 1/19, 2:10pm)
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