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American icons: Skyscrapers and the way we were
"Skyscrapers' at the Art Museum
So you say to yourself: What's there to say about a skyscraper? You photograph it tilted to the left, you photograph it titled to the right, you take a head-on mug shot, and the job's done.
"Skyscrapers," currently at the Art Museum, aims to disabuse you of that idea. Early in the exhibition these architectural wonders are referred to as "documents of progress." This notion bears some examining.
Of course the erection of a skyscraper requires a certain level of architectural skill, not to mention affluence. For countries like Malaysia and Dubai, skyscrapers are still a way of shouting, "Hey you! We've arrived!"
But skyscrapers are also paragons of utilitarianism. You can pack the largest number of people and businesses into the smallest space by stacking them up rather than by spreading them out.
Norman Rockwell and James N. Rosenberg were certainly aware of the less than glittering truth behind the facades. Perhaps John Sloan was as well— is it entirely by accident that the Flatiron Building bisecting those splendidly attired matrons in his 1909 etching, Fifth Avenue, looks like an erect penis?
But Joseph Pennell's The Cross of Gold, Cedar Street Building (in which the lighted windows form a cross) and Oscar E. Cesare's The Pioneer: Uncle Sam (which links skyscrapers to log cabins in a pageant of American iconography) are more representative of the almost religious awe in which these modern ziggurats were held.
Even the flinty-eyed film director Fritz Lang, upon beholding Manhattan, was blinded by a vision that became his silent classic, Metropolis. Titles like An American Cathedral and Jewelled City unblushingly declare their admiration for the new order of urban life.
Most of the works in the show are realist in tone: Although they include some lovely etchings and drawings, photography seems to be the chosen vehicle for celebrating the urban magic, from Alvin Langdon Coburn's nuanced Broadway and the Singer Building, by Night to Dorothy Norman's Nirvana-like images of a distant Manhattan floating upon the waters of the Hudson.
In the show's latter portions, Modernists like John Marin, Jan Matulka and Thurman Rotan take center stage, and the skyscrapers cease to matter for themselves, instead becoming pretexts for examinations of form. The venerated documents of change are themselves changed into mere documents.
"Skyscrapers," currently at the Art Museum, aims to disabuse you of that idea. Early in the exhibition these architectural wonders are referred to as "documents of progress." This notion bears some examining.
Of course the erection of a skyscraper requires a certain level of architectural skill, not to mention affluence. For countries like Malaysia and Dubai, skyscrapers are still a way of shouting, "Hey you! We've arrived!"
But skyscrapers are also paragons of utilitarianism. You can pack the largest number of people and businesses into the smallest space by stacking them up rather than by spreading them out.
Norman Rockwell and James N. Rosenberg were certainly aware of the less than glittering truth behind the facades. Perhaps John Sloan was as well— is it entirely by accident that the Flatiron Building bisecting those splendidly attired matrons in his 1909 etching, Fifth Avenue, looks like an erect penis?
But Joseph Pennell's The Cross of Gold, Cedar Street Building (in which the lighted windows form a cross) and Oscar E. Cesare's The Pioneer: Uncle Sam (which links skyscrapers to log cabins in a pageant of American iconography) are more representative of the almost religious awe in which these modern ziggurats were held.
Even the flinty-eyed film director Fritz Lang, upon beholding Manhattan, was blinded by a vision that became his silent classic, Metropolis. Titles like An American Cathedral and Jewelled City unblushingly declare their admiration for the new order of urban life.
Most of the works in the show are realist in tone: Although they include some lovely etchings and drawings, photography seems to be the chosen vehicle for celebrating the urban magic, from Alvin Langdon Coburn's nuanced Broadway and the Singer Building, by Night to Dorothy Norman's Nirvana-like images of a distant Manhattan floating upon the waters of the Hudson.
In the show's latter portions, Modernists like John Marin, Jan Matulka and Thurman Rotan take center stage, and the skyscrapers cease to matter for themselves, instead becoming pretexts for examinations of form. The venerated documents of change are themselves changed into mere documents.
What, When, Where
“Skyscrapers: Prints, Drawings and Photographs of the Early Twentieth Century.†Through November 1, 2009 at Berman Gallery, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Ben Franklin Parkway and 25th St. (215) 763-8100 or www.philamuseum.org.
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