Art Without Clothes: Public Displays in Philadelphia

A large-scale historical object with metaphorical value, rearranged to be aesthetically captivating, and reused in a way that supports politically correct global movements (ie. going green), set in the plaza of a fine arts institution of considerable symbolic grandeur: check.

I say this not to belittle nor mock PAFA alumnus Jordan Griska's "Grumman Greenhouse" public sculpture in the Academy's Lenfest Plaza, but to argue how expected and easy its conditions are.  It is even, for a simulated plane crash, cheerful.

In 1917 Marcel Duchamp stunned the Society of Independent Artists when he anonymously submitted a urinal turned upside down and signed 'R. Mutt' for exhibition.  All works would supposedly be displayed, and he resigned from the organization when his piece was refused.  Duchamp's "Fountain" was a brazen gesture of institutional critique and a blow to the artist as godly creator (and by relation the work of art as unique, aesthetic masterpiece).  It was officially the first in the genre of Ready Made sculpture.  Griska's reappropriation of the 18,000 pound Grumman S2F tracker military aircraft is a fascinating foil to Duchamp's heroic display.  Where Duchamp's was, in a sense, anti-aesthetic, Griska's is just the opposite: the plane, as if it were an art school manikin being positioned into something evocative and art-worthy, is reassembled to look like it is gracefully diving head first into the ground.  It really takes on an anthropomorphic quality, with the bend of the cockpit resembling the broken neck of a bird.  The wings twist in a way that would not be physically likely in the event of a real crash.  It is important that Griska had no intention of rendering a crash at all; rather, his project is one of transformation.  The point, in contrast to Duchamp's, is that the Grumman S2F is dead scrap (it would have been thrown out had Griska not purchased it) in its original form and must be laboriously changed to resurrect it.  Where with "Fountain" the artist as god-craftsman is dismantled, in "Grumman Greenhouse" it is inevitably reaffirmed, in a poignant way; Griska literally becomes artist-as-savior.

What I am missing in this piece is any public recognition of irony that these conditions necessitate.  The plane is a tour de force of formalist arty language: perspective, linearity, sumptuous curves, dramatic negative space.  To add to this, a sustainable garden will be created within the plane's interior.  Life is beautiful.  But it isn't.  Innovation and transformation is absolutely essential to sustain mankind's ever-larger footprint, but art, by its nature, has the peculiar privilege to not do this (as Duchamp made clear).  It can look backwards, forwards or just stay still, and I think Griska's project- and its reception- does not take this into account.  There is something inevitably morbid about the installation: the plane was an anti-submarine aircraft flown during the Cold War, among the most unnerving periods for Americans of all ages; it is now depicted in a contorted landing but without any signs of damage at all, and delicious and pretty flora will be growing inside soon enough; after dark, it is eerily ghost like, a shipwreck of sorts, and we stare at it with the inevitable curiosity one experiences during a traffic accident.  These are fascinating qualities of the piece that have not been tackled within the window of commentary and media exposure thus far.

In "Living Room War", author Michael J. Arlen writes of television, "I can't say I completely agree with people who think that when battle scenes are brought into the living room the hazards of war are necessarily made 'real' to the civilian audience...It seems to me that by the same process they are also made less 'real'...tamed, by the enveloping cozy alarums of the household".  The thought resonates spookily with Griska's installation, in the enveloping and cozy Lenfest Plaza.  I wonder if it will be left to the audience to embody this sense of irony.

       

Works Cited

Arlen, Michael J., "Living-Room War", New York: Viking Press, 1969, p. 8

Installation specifications and other relevant facts gathered from Joann Loviglio's coverage, at http://www.ydr.com/state/ci_19156554