James Shay

I don't like most of Frank Gehry's work, but I believe the Guggenheim Museum he designed in Bilbao, Spain, is a spectacular and timeless building (final judgement reserved until I visit it in person). His work does come across as nihilistic. The shapes are taken from the work of his former friend (former because of the "borrowing"?), Richard Serra, a modern sculptor who creates monstrously foreboding steel shapes, that are squarely in the nihilistic tradition of Twentieth Century art. I think Gehry's greatest contribution to architecture is the software he and his staff continue to develop and create to use for curvelinear shapes. Whatever one thinks of his structures' moods, he is a tremendous builder. To get his work built requires a truly great professional ability. A couple of months ago the Atlantic magazine had an article on "The One Hundred Most Influential Americans". I believe Wright was the only architect to make the cut. However, there was a sidebar about four very influential architects. The writer included one fictional architect. Guess who? In a completely off-base reading of "The Fountainhead" he castigated Rand and Roark for being the foundation of the "anything goes" architecture we see today. One of the subjects debated in modern architecture, and art in general, is the role of tradition. From our vantage point today, although perhaps not that of hundreds of years in the future, there does seem to be a great proliferation of all kinds of architectural form that is becoming harder and harder to understand and "read" for architects and the public. There are those, including me, who believe that there needs to be some kind of stronger continuuity across time in artistic disciplines than what we generally see today, although I don't believe in strongly restrictive traditions. My own reading of The Fountainhead is that the writer came down strongly on the "to hell with any tradition" side of the debate. I can very well imagine some of the comments in The Fountainhead directed at Roark also directed at Frank Gehry and other "sculpture at the expense of legibility" architects. To me, they are interchangeable. The great British architect Norman Foster creates buildings that are very modern, but still within Modernism in general. His work would stand in much better for Roark's than Gehry's, but I think Roark comes across more as a Gehry, at least with regard to any relationship at all to history. I have practiced architecture since 1971 and painted professionally since 1998. I think some of the new sculptural shapes are beautiful as abstract sculptures, often floating above the ground like some enormous piece of modern sculpture. But, I like buildings more connected to the Earth, and buildings that aren't so intimidating and often nihilistic.

Architectural drawings are issued, along with the other information required to construct a building, as "instruments of service". The architect retains ownership of them and, in effect, licenses them for a one time use, unless other arrangements are made with a client. Although there is the common misconception that drawings may be used multiple times, the reality of document ownership is made clear in the contract between the architect and owner. In the real world of design and construction, without the wonderfully imaginative artistic license Rand employed, Roark would have known things were going very off the rails on the Courtland project long before construction began. As he reviewed the progress of the construction drawings for compliance with the vision contained in his early design sketches and drawings, the deviations would become apparent. He would not have simply given Keating sketches and let it go at that. If the drawings were modified after initial completion, the time lag required to do the changes before the beginning of construction probably would have tipped him off. Perhaps the classical details were tacked-on during construction, but I believe many of the changes were more substantial and would have required extensive changes to the construction documents. The affirmation of individual human creativity, shown in Roark's career as an architect, is one of the themes that makes The Fountainhead as great as it is. But, the other side of that - the contempt for so many other architects, which is similar to the attitude of Frank Lloyd Wright, and the relentless presentation of Roark as the sole creator of his structures - without collaborators in his office, outside engineers, and others - are what make The Fountainhead unpopular among architects.

RE: Bessie the Chimp; if she can create paintings as great as Kandinsky's Compositions, nos. 1-8, or anything like the great Brice Marden paintings of the 90's, I'll hire her for a studio assistant. The gal has real talent, as well as a great heart and soul.

It doesn't look much like a Pollack to me. How about Jean Michel Basquiat ( the late, overly lamented graffiti artist referred to as Jean Michel Basketcase by the art critic Robert Hughes) over Kandinsky, with drips?

Methinks Victor's opinion of Mr. Pollack is somewhat...low, don't'cha think? I haven't posted anything until today, but here goes: the Jackson Pollack cartoon is really repulsive and dumb. With regard to Howard Stern: I can't believe anyone would let him within a country mile of a real $100M+ Pollack to do his "experiment". So, the images must have been compared through photographs, probably by nonprofessional artworlders. There is no way he could come really close to painting even a mediocre late Pollack. There's a lot of terrific abstract art.