1. I liked the thoughts about how C/JC's projects are a kind of subliminal prop for privatization. That needs more elaboration.
2. I thought the charge that C/JC are profiting off their projects needs to be better substantiated. Also, what's wrong with that? I'm perfectly OK with artists making money off their work. Shakespeare sought to make money with his plays and he did. Retired early. That doesn't make them or him bad.
3. The eternal boast that this project "created jobs" also needs to be addressed -- I wonder what the impact would have been (on society and art) to have put $21,000,000 into art programs for NYC schools. (I mean just doing the crudest math: Figuring that it costs 100,000/year for an art teacher, that means you can pay 21 teachers for ten years. Figuring 200 students/year, that would mean you could give 42,000 students art training. I bet you at the end of that you'd get a lot more than orange shower curtains messing up Central Park.)
4. I also thought that the Gates as display of conspicouous-consumption/destruction needs to be discussed in terms of late capitalism -- how the most evanescent and destructive things are the most representative of the age. Compare with say the Gothic cathedrals or the Venus de Milo and the whole classical idea of endurance, of building for eternity -- and that economic return, which is actually far greater for much less churn.
5. The reference to the situationists was good. That also needs to be further elaborated too, because it yet another example of Capitalism's brilliance at making use of counter-cultural or radical tactics.
6. A big problem though is that this is not yet an essay. It's more of a pastiche of quotes, opinions, counter opinions, and disjointed facts -- someone needs to take the trouble to put a certain amount of, dare I say it, rhetorical art in it. True, art takes work, time, and energy, but isn't that what the author is arguing for?
Joanna
Doug Henwood wrote:
> [seems a little cranky to me, but worth reading, as usual]
>
> At 6:01 PM -0400 7/3/05, Jesse Lemisch wrote:
>
>> http://www.wpunj.edu/newpol/issue39/Lemisch39.htm
>