Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
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FOLLIESAND FALSITIES
ArchitecturalPhotography
* 71
with a highway in the foreground. revealthe falsewalls,lights,mikebooms,
Miles Coolidge makes images of and wooden step units for ascendingto
Safetyville,a one-thirdscaletown built the elevated stage. (Another of Back-
in Californiain the 1970s, that con- strim'sseries,not includedin this exhi-
tains a Denny's, strip malls, and office bition, is of the fictionalizedinteriorsof
buildings, entirely bereft of human homes of that have become tourist at-
life. Yet these documents of actual tractions.)Dorbaum's3D computercon-
locations seem more fraudulent than structionsthen take that generic posi-
the virtualbuildingsrepresentedin the tion which perceives the "hyperreal"
work of those artistswhose materialis beginning to supersedethe "real"and
unbuilt. In Timtschenko'sParisII, the adds the digital argumentwhereby,as
photographof a real city looks like a Baudrillardanalogized,the map is ante-
collage-the Eiffel Tower and a Pari- rior to its terrain.
sian palace superimposedon a picture
of the outskirtsof a genericAmerican Nonetheless I could not help but feel
city. Coolidge'sworks resemblea com- that there is more than photographic
puter renderingof the kind of three- realityat stakewhenphotographycomes
storysmoked-glassofficebuildingsthat in contact with architecture;I believe
line Americancities' ring roads. the substanceof architectureis altered.
Quite a numberof influentialarchitects
Thus the curatorialfocus could be said of the past threedecades-in particular
to be the epistemologyof photography; the architectswho trainedat the Archi-
the extent to which "photographsre- tecturalAssociationin London in the
mind us that photography is not a late 1960s and the 1970s-have incor-
recordof reality,"according to the mu- porated photographicmedia and film
seum. The curator of the show was to expressand explore their architec-
ElizabethMangini.EversinceBenjamin's turalideas.RemKoolhaas's1972 project
"The Work of Art in the Age of Me- Exodus, or The VoluntaryPrisonersof
chanicalReproduction"criticshave ar- Architecture is, in effect,a photographic
gued the case againstartisticoriginality collage essay, while SMLXLand his
and authenticity;firstin responseto the slidesof Lagos,China, and the Univer-
infinitelyreproduciblephotographand sal headquartersbuilding in Los Ange-
recentlydue to the easewith which any les (shown at a lecture at Columbia
recordof realitycan be altered,falsified, University),demonstratethat this was
or constructedfrom scratchby means not just youthful enthusiasm.Bernard
of digital technology. In many cases Tschumi's1978-82 project"Screenplay
duringthis time the artistwas prosecut- Series"creates architecturalforms by
ing the caseagainstoriginalityandclaims extrapolatingfromstillsof filmssuch as
of authorship-in particular,the con- CitizenKane,Frankenstein, Psycho,and
structedphotographsof RichardPrince, TheBirthof a Nation.
Cindy Sherman,and SherrieLevinein
the 1970s and, later, the scaled-down Thus, while the show does questionthe
miniatures of Laurie Simmons. Em- distinction between art and documen-
blematicof this kind of workis Miriam taryin architecturalrepresentation,it is
Bickstr6m's Brechtian gestus: photo- also part of the very discourse that
graphs of film sets, framed so as to questionsarchitectureas building.Be it
72 * PAJ 68
Miriam Backstrim, Set Constructions,1995-99. Cibachrome on aluminum,
50 x 64 cm. Photo: Courtesy MassMoCA.
74 * PAJ 68