Tonight there was an exhibit of the Artists and Architects in Residence Program of the MAK Center in the Schindler House in West Hollywood. Two of the projects were of particular interest to me—the first because I like baseball, and the second because I ride L.A. public transportation.

Julien Diehn
(baseball and art)

“Maybe that’s the quality of simplicity. When Mantle hit the ball out of the park, everybody is sort of stunned for a minute because it’s simple. He knocks it right out of the park and that usually does it.”—Frank Stella (comparing the effect of art on a viewer to that of a home run)

This quote, Julien Diehn’s inspiration for this instillation, is displayed on the wall facing the entrance to the room and perpendicular to the wall (at left) where the TV show Home Run Derby (1959-60, shot in L.A.’s Wrigley Field) is being projected. As you enter and are watching the TV, you initially only hear a radio interview, entitled “New Nihilism or New Art?” (1964—Bruce Glaser, Dan Flavin, Don Judd and Frank Stella), discussing contemporary art. As you cross the room to stand by the quotation, you start to hear the voices and sounds that are part of the television show. These can only be heard clearly when standing right in front on the displayed quote. While not quite a sound and image collage, the space manages to create a physical representation of chiasmus.

Baseball is art, art baseball. That is all you know on earth and all you need to know.

Anke Freimund and Alexander Dworschak
(”Los Angeles Without a Car”)

The title itself was enough to pique my interest,… but wait there’s more! This photography-by-rail (aka bus and foot) project by two Viennese architects was inspired by Thom Andersen’s documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003). (The movie points out that when heroes, such as Jake Giddes in Chinatown, lose their cars in movies set in L.A., it is symbolic castration; however, the movie also points out that people who say no one rides the bus in L.A. haven’t ridden the bus in L.A.)

About Anke and Alex’s project, the MAK website says: “Scrutinizing the urban myth that a car is unavoidable in L.A., the Viennese architects used only public transportation as they conducted walking tours throughout the city.” The pair journeyed through the streets of L.A., taking pictures of the various neighborhood signs. The pictures are currently displayed in a book, which sits on a stand in front of a huge, sprawling L.A. map in a quaint house built by a Viennese-born American architect and now nestled amongst rows of indistinguishable apartment buildings in West Hollywood.

I talked with the two (briefly), and they confirmed that Los Angeles Plays Itself, which they saw in Vienna, was, in fact, the inspiration for them to come out to Los Angeles and undertake this project. I always assumed the film wouldn’t translate well in other places—that you had to have lived this city to appreciate the sentiments, but that may be giving the movie too little credit—it’s full of interesting information that a variety of people can enjoy, from film-lovers to city planners to film-loving city planners. Anke and Alex explained what they particularly liked about the documentary was that it showed an L.A. that isn’t usually shown. (my note: It showed this L.A. by using footage that has often been viewed but maybe not appreciated as depicting Los Angeles). That interest in the “other L.A.,” the “real L.A.,” explains why in their tour of L.A., Anke and Alex avoided the common landmarks and visual markers. In the book they only display photos where you couldn’t see the neighborhood name, so the pictured area could stand on its own as a place, distinct from the associations an Angeleno may have with “Lincoln Heights” or “Beverly Hills.”

They also confirmed that Viennese public transportation is much better, but I had no doubt.

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Coincidentally, Los Angeles Plays Itself shows footage of Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, which was torn down in the mid-1960s but had been used to film movies such as The Pride of the Yankees.

This entry was posted on March 8, 2007 and is filed under art/architecture, film/video, los angeles, quotations.