when houses hang from helicopters...

black and white images from a very short article from 1973 found sunday at the flea, and a small color promotional postcard (which may or may not have already appeared on airforms), all related to the the futuro - "a finnish designed fiber-glass mobile pad that looks more like a spaceship than a weekend pied-a-terre". the "bungalow" was 26 feet in diamter, and could be purchased furnished. according to the article the fiber-glass structure was nearly maintenance free, and its "sealed-up saucer shape and unique ventilation system all but eliminate dust and humidity." plus it seems that transport could be done via helicopter.

in the early 1970's the finnish pod was shown in the usa at state fairs, and the company also had offices in illinois and philadelphia. no idea if any of the ones built or shown here are still around.

when painting was architecture, and sometimes kites...

richard smith, a whole year a half a day X, 1966

richard smith, gazebo, 1966 (installation at the architectural league of ny)

richard smith, western stile, 1968

richard smith, passerby, 1969

richard smith, threesquare 3 (pink russian), 1975

richard smith, grey slice 1, 1975

richard smith, bix X, 1975

richard smith, big T, 1975

a few months ago i picked up a little catalog of the work of richard smith, called "richard smith: seven exhibitions 1961 - 1975". it was published by the tate gallery and seems to have been a re-installation of 7 of smith's key exhibitions - which seems a pretty interesting take on a survey show. i've been thinking a lot lately about smith's work, particularly two bodies, a series of shaped canvasses from the mid/late 1960's, and a series of canvasses attached to dowels circa 1975, that seem to be informed by asian textiles and kite forms.

i don't know that much about smith and his career (the book's texts are frustratingly vague, and i'm less inclined to do web research until i've digested the images a bit more...), but the ways in which he attempted to move painting into physical dimensionality (sculptural form) on one hand, as well as conversing with traditional craft languages (string, unstreched canvas, bamboo or dowels) on the other, puts his work of these periods into some really wonderful, odd, and traditionally "unsuitable" territory (and i'm wishing for once someone would write about the risks an artist like smith took in embracing such a craft aesthetic while clearly being immersed in hard edge abstraction, as i can't imagine similar painters being supportive of such a move).

in terms of my own interests i have a ton of respect for artists with this kind of restlessness, as much of the work feels more experimental rather than resolved - a very good thing in my own book, because it makes the work feel human rather than calculated.

as mentioned above, the earlier paintings use a hard edge abstract language, but the work also feels related to late british pop painting as well. the canvasses themselves contain actual physical shifts in the picture plane, with canvas stretched over low extrusions or small pieces of wood. in these works, smith explores stretched canvas over a variety of shaped structures, some individually simple, while others include many repeated forms with slight variations. his visual graphic language seems to dialogue with a number of british abstract artists at the time (robyn denny, paul huxley, etc.).

of course, there were other artists working with shaped/topographical canvas forms, but smith's work has a level of geometric simplicity and idiosyncrasy that gives the hard edge forms a feeling that they are rooted in the intuitive or the organic. certainly the images and their repetition are "designed", but the painted objects feel somehow connected to use - as if they were once ritual objects, whose truthful purposes have been lost, so that they have the freedom to be appreciated for their aesthetic invention, harmony, dissonance, etc.

with the 1975 works, smith leaves the traditional stretched canvas form behind, and begins to work with canvas over dowels that appear to be held together with string. these works begin to feel a bit like asian kites or african skin stretched shields, but the kite-like works also connect with richard tuttle's unstretched canvas and odd shaped paper pieces that hover between being a painting, sculpture, or object. unlike tuttle's penchant for small scale, smith's work - which does feel similarly quiet - is still conversing with large scale abstract painting, as a piece like grey slice (pictured above) is nearly 7 feet tall.

most of the writing in the catalog suggests that smith's earlier works which force the surface of the canvas off the flat plane, as well as his eventual leap into the larger kite works, are related to an interest in moving beyond the easel. the writers seem to view the leaps as a kind of formal concern to bring painting literally forward - i.e. off the stretcher bar frame. to my own idiosyncratic and somewhat illogical eye, it seems also as if smith's dissatisfaction with a flat canvas was less formal and more of a push towards the inclusion of the language of ritual and craft within an existing dialogue related to hard edge abstraction and british pop art (which i believe had already included more abstraction in its dialogue than here in america at the time).

by inserting a craft and/or ritual language into his work, smith seemed able to not only leave the flat picture plane of painting, but also the wall as a support structure. you can see this in 1966's freestanding "gazebo" made of 4 paintings, which resembles something like a tony smith sculpture, or an andrew geller beach house, more than anything to do with painting at the time. similarly mining his own spatial terrain, many of smith's later kite-like works were hung not from the wall, but from the ceiling. in these situations painting comes very close to becoming an extension of architecture. while some would dismiss these works as ornament, i believe they have the power, particularly through this language of in between-ness, to become sites for a variety of contemplations.

i remember having a conversation with a sculptor many years ago who commented in the usual sculptor vs. painter argument that a painting is simply a sculpture with a decorated surface. although certainly not exclusive to smith's work, what is interesting to me about his kite pieces - and in particular the ones hung from the ceiling - is that they really do hover between being a painting and a sculpture. i will admit that for me, there is nothing more tired than getting involved in the 'is it a painting or a sculpture' discussion; nor do i think that smith's work of this period was necessarily wholly invested in such drivel either, but i do love how much these works hover between a number of "acceptable" and "unacceptable" visual languages of the time.

of architecture, words, and trees...

this morning i woke up with max bill's name running through my head, for no apparent reason. i don't know if this ever happens to others, but there are days when a word or a name continuously bounces into consciousness in a kind of repetitive frenzy, sometimes for an entire day. so now i am in the midst of the words 'max bill' being constantly spoken to me by my brain. it's only 7 am, but i am already a bit tired of hearing it inside me. nonetheless, how could i not begin to notice how nice his name sounds being spoken with only two syllables (is there anyone with a real name that is only one?). it seems to me that along with the sound of his name, the look of the spelling, the short form of the words, it completely fits the austere lines of his architecture, and the clean precision of his graphics, paintings, and sculpture. say his name or look at it as a graphic form, and know the meaning and the relationship is almost perfect. it is as if all of the work that he made, came out of looking at his own name, and quietly repeating it to himself... max bill, max bill, max bill, max bill...

yesterday i emailed a friend to ask about the german word for tree, and i was surprised to find that it is the word 'baum'. unlike the wonderful relationship to the words max bill and every thing that came from the hands of max bill (actually even his hairstyle...); i can't find the word 'baum' feeling anything like a tree when i hear it or see it. in fact, it sends me everywhere but to the idea of tree. this is one of the first times that english actually trumps another language in terms of the relationship of a word spoken and seen, to the object it represents. for me the word tree in english sounds kind of like the form of a tree, with a heavy root system in the spoken beginning "tr" and then shooting up to the sky with the sound "ee". if you place it on its side, with the 'T' at the bottom you will see what i mean. it also seems connected to a tree visually, with the "t" seeming like a trunk and limbs, the 'r' being a curved branch coming off the stronger "t" frame, and the pair of "e"s feeling a lot like leaves.

if one wants to get deeper in all of this, one remembers that max bill was swiss, and i'm pretty sure he spoke german, so the word "baum" came out of his mouth many times. i'm wondering what 'baum' sounded like when max bill spoke it, or how it looked written in his hand. did either make the word any more tree-like... or perhaps less so?

the severity of bill's name and the seemingly small feeling of the word 'baum' suggest to me a kind of small tree skeleton, more like the skeleton of a tiny bird, but feeling like a fall tree without any leaves. now i can almost see this 'baum' looking hand drawn in ink against a relatively light sky. this kind of tree could be a tree, but it would still suggest architecture and graphic language. it would be a max bill tree, or i suppose der max bill baum...

above, you will understand the joy one feels when by some small bit of magic, one writes a bit, and then uncovers absolute perfection in the archives. i don't know who or what guided me to this photo of bill, looking very much like the words 'max bill', holding in his hands not only his architecture, but clearly a few tiny max bill baums... i can't help but feel that this photo is of the man contemplating the sounds of his own name in relation to his own architecture and to the word tree written and spoken in many languages...

when plastic bags are houses...

two images from an early 1970's popular science magazine featuring an experimental polyethylene air house built by architecture students at cornell university using a single 20 x 100 foot sheet of plastic, and kept inflated with an air hose. note the student holding a super 8 film camera... i would very much like to see that movie!