Streaming in a Little Nas X World

 

Richard Serra (1938-2024)

Photo by Henry Groskinsky

“I think if work is asked to be accommodating, to be subservient, to be useful to, to be required to, to be subordinated to, then the artist is in trouble," Richard Serra observed to an art critic.

"Wake" (2002-03), Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, WA

MacArthur Park

No doubt, the incomparable tune by Jimmy Webb contributed to the siren call of this park just north of West Palm Beach.  Thanks to my new wheels, I finally was able to explore it.

A long, wooden bridge with a pair of built-in picnic tables, crosses an unnamed estuary.

Only mangroves and dunes separate the estuary from the Atlantic Ocean.

I didn't spot any cakes left out in the rain, just high winds and big waves.  Swimming-prohibited flags deterred me less than multiple rocks and coral formations--exposed by beach erosion--that can injure a body a lot more easily than sand when a wave knocks you down.

That's Riviera Beach at the park's south end.

If you've ever watched a pelican dive bomb for fish, you'll know why groups of them are called squadrons.

Undeveloped shoreline--a rarity in south Florida--extends for two miles, reminding visitors how the state's east coast once looked to indigenous tribes and sailors.

Geniuses and viewers of PBS will be familiar with John D. MacArthur and his wife Catherine T.  The philanthropic foundation they established, one of the nation's ten largest, provides both fellowships and programming support.  MacArthur, a midwestern insurance magnate, invested well in Florida real estate.  His donated land--the only state park in Palm Beach County--is a tiny portion of 100,000 acres he owned in the Sunshine State.

John D. MacArthur (1897-1978)

The mile-long Satinleaf Trail offers a shady respite from the beach.  Thom once said dunes in the Sahara "all look alike."  I kinda feel that way about Florida nature walks although this one did sound and smell a little different, thanks to the roar of the surf and a frightened skunk.

This palm tree root reminded me of a sandworm in Dune.

Birnam Wood (5*)

I fell in love with this au courant environmental thriller when Jill Darvish, whose husband recently has been knighted,  can't find "Lady"on the prefix menu while she's making an online reservation and screams "fuck" in frustration.  Yet her momentary pretension doesn't get in the way of grabbing a rifle when necessary.  Eleanor  Catton--a Kiwi Jonathan Franzen--fully rounds out the half-dozen characters who propel Birnam Wood to its disastrous, foregone conclusion with similarly astute psychological detail.  Here's the deeply flawed protagonist, who leads a guerrilla group that harvests food from private land:

Like all self-mythologising rebels, Mira preferred enemies to rivals, and often turned her rivals into enemies, the better to disdain them as secret agents of the status quo.

In other words, a true believer, as opposed to a charisma-challenged follower like Shelley, her disgruntled second lieutenant.  Their toxic friendship provides the scaffolding for a novel that finds the good and bad in everybody, and which also recognizes the joy that can be found in communal living.  This passage, reminded me of a night 30 years ago in the Pines, when inhabitants of the house I shared spontaneously began singing "A Little Respect" while cleaning up after a group meal.

At Birnam Wood they would have welcomed the rain. He imagined them spreading tarpaulins in the fields, weighting the middles and staking down the corners so the canvas wouldn’t fly away, perhaps setting out rainwater butts under drainpipes, and fashioning catchments in run-off ditches beside the road, and then piling back into Mira’s van, drenched and laughing, to drive back to the shearing shed where they’d set up their base of operations; he imagined them stringing a clothesline among the ancient wooden chutes to hang their wet jackets up to dry, and he conjured in his mind a lofted space beyond the chutes where, in a happy hubbub of cross-pollinating chatter, they would all gather round to help prepare the evening meal, chopping vegetables for curry, and washing rice, and rolling out chapatis with an empty wine bottle dusted with flour, and someone would be strumming a guitar, or reading out Listener crossword clues, or narrating the gist of some recent article that had done the rounds online, and someone would be making an inventory of their progress to date, or delegating tasks for the coming day, or labelling seed sets for planting, and someone would be knitting, and someone would be poking irrigation holes in the bottoms of empty yogurt pots with a heated needle, and from time to time a snatch of melody from the guitar would cut through their conversation and they would all sing along in unison for a phrase or two – and then dissolve into embarrassed laughter, for at Birnam Wood such instances of unprompted and unaffected concord were always followed, Tony remembered, by a discomfiting self-consciousness, for a moment everybody feeling, squeamishly, just a tiny bit like members of a cult.

We never felt like members of a cult, of course, just a very privileged ghetto where the threat of climate change had barely begun to be understood and when the internet and mining of precious metals had not turned the world into a nightmare scenario.  Catton clearly understands what has been lost in the 21st century, during the toxic bloom of late stage capitalism, and Birnam Wood leaves her readers even more bereft than its titular allusion to Macbeth would suggest.

The Folly Chariot's First Field Trip

I bought a Muskmobile (aka Tesla Model Y) after hemming and hawing for almost a year. Our new chariot will live at the Folly.  Herr Cucaracha taught me that owning a car in Manhattan is more headache than convenience, and it's only going to get more expensive with the imminence of congestion parking.

 

Up-to-four-passengers was a luxury only provided by Folly rental cars in the past so Chris and I picked up Paul and Linn in Boca en route to Miami.   We began our afternoon visit at the Holocaust Memorial.  None of us except me had seen it.

An engaging docent whose parents had survived the camps told us her father refused to paint all Germans with the Nazi brush.  She'd seen The Zone of Interest, too, and pointed to the kindness of the little girl who hides apples for the prisoners as an example of humanity's capacity for kindness even under the most horrifying conditions. 

The nearby botanical garden offers relief from the grimness of the memorial.

We're in an ongoing discussion at the Folly about the meaning of "meta."  I think this mural qualifies as it X-rays the often illegal activity that first put Wynwood on the art map in 2009.

We parked just below Frida Kahlo's roller-painted visage while the friendly and talented artist worked to finish it.  He laughed when I pleaded with him not to get red paint on my new car.  Chris and I visited Kahlo's home on our trip to Mexico City last year.

Blank spaces are as rare as icebergs in the ever-gentrifying neighborhood, which I've visited almost annually since 2017.

Introducing Paul and Linn to the area mixed up my standard tour (which includes artisanal popsicles at Cielito and kosher babka at Zak the Baker, unfortunately closed on Saturdays).  They wanted to check out Walt Grace Vintage which specializes in strings and wheels.  Very cool.

Colorful guitar straps and books were on sale, too.

If anyone ever sculpts a rock Mt. Rushmore, Bowie and Lennon better be included.

Wynwood Walls, the pioneering art space that started it all, now charges $12 admission.  It may no longer be as edgy but it's just as much fun.  Too bad New York City didn't find a way to preserve 5 Pointz.

I love this fantastic take on Florida's flora and fauna.  Is that a unicorn or a roseate spoonbill?

We Work opened this space just about the time the company imploded.  I'd wager it's one of the bankrupt company's most valuable assets.  Hipsters only have to cross the street for delicious babka.

BTW, the Folly Chariot made it to Miami and back (~150 miles) with less than an 80% charge.  So far, home plugging it in at home has been more than adequate.

The Bunker Playlists

I once loved making themed playlists, even before the digital era, when it required using cassette tapes to record and sequence individual album cuts after precisely dropping the needle.  Now that I've been to the two-story Bunker in West Palm Beach, I realize you can do the same with art if you're as rich as Beth Rudin DeWoody, who has 19,000 pieces in her collection!  DeWoody has a sense of humor, too:  her portrait hangs in the upstairs restroom where everyone is sure to see it.

Appointments are required to visit the "art space," only open for the duration of the "season" (November through April) in a converted government building dating back to the 1930s.  The place is so below-the-radar that Google maps only can get you there with a street address.  Chris, Thom, Christine and I each paid $25 to get in and signed liability releases (in case we fell after being blown away?)  before a punky young docent crisply explained how the place operated.  

Lobby

Taba" by Bronwyn Katz (partial side view, 2021)

Basically, guest curators, selected by DeWoody, review digitized images of the collection and propose various themes.  Guided tours are offered for $300 per group; otherwise you're on your own.  No labels to interfere with your photography, just inexpensively printed catalogs marked "Please return" in discreetly placed plastic holders at the entrance to each room with tiny photos of each work to identify the artist, title and year it was produced. 

The Endowed Chair

"Eames Pony Skin Chair" by Pia Ledy (2021)

"Lawn Chairs" by Rob Davis (2022)

"Trophy (Gehry Chair)" by Carlos Rolon/Dzine (2011)

The name of everyone Florida had executed by Old Sparky to date are printed on this fluorescent-tube beach chair.

"You Sit, You Die" by Ivan Navarro (2002)

"Siamese VII" by Kyung-Me (2021)

Thom's shirt and bartending skills chime with this painting.  What better place to enjoy a Cosmo?

"Next Bar" by Kirsten Everberg (2019)

I couldn't tell if these chairs were part of the theme or just a place to plotz.

Citrus

"Lemon Being Engulfed in the Bardo" by Dustin Metz (2020)

"Pile of Lemons" by Pedro Pedro (2019)

Some works straddled themes.

"Nothing To Worry About" by Laure Mary-Couegnias (2022)

"Molded Lemons" by Ryan Flores (2022)

Odalisque

"Lounging Nude No. 1" by Karon Davis (2022)

"Elizabeth Taylor As Cleopatra Wax Statue Los Angeles
(On Red Yellow Striped Water Music Toile)
by Tim Hailand (2015)

"Lorelei" by Colette Calascione (2002)

"Drowsy" by Kyle Dunn (2019)

"Untitled (Study for Minotaur)" by Nahuel Vecino (2013)

"VR CFNM" by Naruki Kukita (2020)

"Celebratory Skin/Knowledge" by Raul de Nieves (partial, 2019)

Utilities

It's not often that art reminds me of my father's garage.  He hung his not-quite-so-colorful tools on pegboard, too.

Various Artists

"Brooms" by Patrick Bayly (2021) + "Bicicleta Blanca" (2006)

"Sick Pack" by Robert Arneson (partial, 1968)

Family Affair

"Fish Tank" by Paul Thek (1976) + Paul Thek in a Black T-Shirt by Peter Hujar (1976)
+ Andalusian Dog by Jean Conner (1958)

"Company of Strangers" by Tony Oursler (1996)

From the title I'm guessing this massive collection of bootlegs tapes has been passed down from Grandpa Deadhead.

"3RD Gen" by Mark A. Rodriguez (2018)

Yep, there's video, too.  Chris, standing in front of "Radio Ramble" by Johannes Vanderbeek (2016), struck a pose in the screening room behind works by Carlo Mollino and Claude and Francois LaLanne.

Checkpoint II" by Ryland Arnoldi (2023)

"Tapestry (Dogwood)" by John Currin (2010)

"Mock Up for Oswald" by Cady Noland (1989)

"Investigation Piece No. 82 (Barry Goldwater) by Al Hansen ( (1964)

The Library

Not a theme, rather my favorite room at the Bunker.  Only the tchotchke tableaus change from season to season.  Christine found the ultimate self-help book.

 

Andy is EVERYWHERE.  I'm trying to put together a really difficult jigsaw puzzle of his selfies.

Barkley Hendricks is having a moment.  In the past year, I've seen his work exhibited in three different places.

May she rest in peace.

The Unisex Bathroom

I must admit, the James Brown figurine on the floor gave me pause.

But look what's lurking under the sink!

Here I am in the elevator, decorated with pictures and and another endowed chair (no doubt commissioned) featuring the flora from DeWoody's West Palm Beach home.

Here's something I'd never thought I'd say:  there's nothing quite like the Bunker in New York City.  Brava!