Last night I watched Sketches of Frank Gehry, Sydney Pollack’s unpretentious documentary about his friend (and world-renowned architect) Frank Gehry.
I suppose because I watched it immediately after reading several discussions about gender inequality in the art world (on Edward Winkleman and Lisa Hunter), I couldn’t help but marvel at the complete absence of any women in this otherwise absorbing portrait. Pollack does interview one female at length – writer/curator Mildred Friedman – but the rest of his subjects constitute a pantheon of powerful white males, including Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Bob Geldof, Philip Johnson, Thomas Krens, Herbert Muschamp, Michael Ovitz, music director Esa-Pekka Salonen, Julian Schnabel (wrapped in a bathrobe and holding a drink), and even Gehry’s 94-year-old therapist. Indeed, the most memorable woman in the film is found only in a passing reference to the architect’s pushy ex-wife, who made him change his name from Goldberg to Gehry in the 1950s. Even in his office, we meet only male designers and assistants. Are there really no women working at his firm, apart from (presumably) the receptionist?
To me, the overriding theme was one of risk-taking: These men are all gamblers, risk-takers on a gargantuan scale, with the colossal egos that such risks require. And that sentiment echoes what I’ve been reading lately – in a nutshell, that society rewards the grand gesture, not modesty; conviction, not timidity; and boldness, not diligence. It’s not that these are male or female traits, but they are cultivated differently.
Where does that leave architecture? A pessimist might say that a museum designed by Gehry will be best suited to showcase only the most muscular art, along the lines of Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and so on – in other words, art that projects itself across an immense expanse of space. And so the cycle continues, as some have criticized about MoMA's recent rehanging. I am not that cynical, but I also don’t see where the change can come from. Where is that pipeline of young female architects and engineers?
4 comments:
WELL MY FRIENDS ALL HAD COMMENTS:
FRIEND 1: Loved this but now feel like I allowed myself to be conned.
FRIEND 2: Very interesting. I've said for a long time that male and female art work is different and that for all time in the past the gold standard for greatness has been defined by the art of men. Therefore the work of women looks different from the work of men and is not preceived as being like the male conunter part and therefore by definition, set by male standards, is not as good. It's not looked at as different but not qualitatively as good. It's shit if you ask me. And you know I'm not a raging feminist. Men and women are different, it's not that one is better than the other. They are simply different. When it comes to strength men are stronger. When it comes to complexity women are more complex. Who's better? Who knows. Why can't we just see the difference and evaluate both from where they are coming from.. Have two equally valid and good standards if you must.
I'm disappointed about the documentary you described. It does sound like a male hack job. I'm just a little tired of Mr. Farnk Gehry. I had no idea he changed his name.
DEEPAINT: I STILL LIKE GEHRY AND HIS WORK. EVERYTHING HAS FLAWS. I ALWASY HOPE FOR A VOICE FOR WOMEN, AT THE SAME TIME.
I don’t mean to imply that Gehry is anti-female, just that the documentary (which I really enjoyed, by the way) inadvertently highlighted a glaring absence of women in the field. Lately, when thinking about gender in museum design, I’ve been applying an Agnes Martin test. Would I want to see Martin in MoMA’s second-floor atrium, washed out by its 110-foot ceiling? No. But I would want to see her paintings in the warm interiors of Gehry’s Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota.
Every time I am reminded about Gehry’s name change, I think about the messy proposition of assimilation. (“What, you don’t like Jews? No problem.”) My own uncle changed his first name when he arrived in America. (“What, you don’t like Arabs? No problem.”) It sounds like capitulation of the highest order, but maybe it was liberating – a reinvention of the self that allowed him to take risks.
Does Gehry succeed because he's arrogant, or because he's developed a commercially successful style? It's interesting to contrast "Sketches" with "My Architect," where the equally egotistical (but far more talented, IMHO) Louis Khan died alone and bankrupt on the floor of Penn Station. The difference? Khan (a Jew who also changed his name) was an iconoclastic genius. Gehry is a fad.
Thanks – I just put “My Architect” in my Netflix queue. I’d been meaning to see it. Yeah, Gehry is all about the branding!
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