January 05, 2004
signs of modernity
It is elegant is it not?:
Bernice Abbott, Rockfeller Centre, 1937
You can see why people were dazzled by them in the late 20th century, and why every big corporation that wanted to celebrate its power reckoned they just had to have one.
America ruled.
That is what I see from my perspective here in Adelaide Australia living on the hinterland of the US empire of capital. New York was modernity. it was the home of abstract expressionism, whose technique of action painting was a direct expression or revelation of the unconscious moods of the romantic artist:
Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm, (Number 30), 1950
I see these skyscrapers as signifying more than a changing New York.
This image of corporate America signifies a modernist utopia; a utopia blocked by the real functional order of corporate capitalism.
This kind of modernization based on the liberation ideals of the enlightenment turned into the opposite when put in practice.
That's the criticism directed against modern architecture.
In contrast, Bernice Abbott sees the changing face of New York:
Bernice Abbott, Rockfeller Center, Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas in Foreground, 1936
The old makes way for the new. It's a reworking of Atget in America.
But truth not only relates to the world as it is. It also refers to what the world as it might be; to its utopian content. What was that content? A life of freedom and happiness.