Monthly Archives: July 2016

Frank Gehry’s Bilbao

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This is truly an impressive work. After seeing Sydney Pollack’s doc on Gehry where they mainly interact and Gehry talks about his career, I came away more convinced than ever that it is one of the great architectural achievements of modern times. And Pollack is generous enough to give screen time to Hal Foster who plays the Blue Meanie: it’s just not that good, not that important, and if it were, it’d be too important because museums are about the art. He should have told that to Frank Lloyd Wright before he built the original Guggenheim with its insane spiral gallery that has proven a wonder ever since!

But enough on Meanies. What struck me is the balance and proportionality of it, and the intricacy of the surfaces that curve, bend, fold and refuse to obey the rectilinear dictates of most architecture. In fact, a vast number of columns, including staircases and elevator shafts as well as the more thematically inspired columns that soar upward from the central open space within, are freestanding: they do not begin at the ground level or end at the ceiling but usually do just one or the other, or neither. It gives the whole thing a lightness and giddiness that belies its monumental size.

And the curves seem to mimic the enormous gallery of Richard Serra’s great freestanding steel sculptures that also appear unanchored in any traditional sense. See this photo below of Gehry’s sculpted space and compare it to the permanent installation of Serra. It’s just one of the many ways in this museum is a true gem and will remain so for a long long time.

Bilbao 45

Bilbao Serra

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Enemies and Citizens: Why Are the Police Out of Control?

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Anyone who recalls the violent attacks on strikers by police in the 19th century or in the Depression era ’30s knows that they are not necessarily nice guys. But there is also an image of the “cop on the beat” who knows a neighborhood and the people in it. He’s part of the landscape and he’s there [till recently “he” was all there was] to preserve the peace, often by diplomatic, thoughtful, non-violent means.

That changed after the 1960s and changed dramatically after 9/11. The police became militarized. More police got their training in a military trained to go after insurgents who often acted like civilians. More police joined SWAT teams that used military-grade weapons and overwhelming force tactics to go after drug dealers and hostage takers even when violence was only made more likely by the use of SWAT teams in the first place.

Fewer police were “cops on the beat” who got out of their cars and armored vehicles to develop real relationships with citizens. Trained to deal with insurgents as enemies to be neutralized or destroyed, they quickly came to see citizens as an enemy rather than as neighbors and citizens to be served and protected. Especially citizens who have historically been typed as “dangerous”: young black men.

Every week we see more evidence of the racism that underlies the militarization of the police and of the military policies designed to deal with enemies–who almost always of a different ethnic and religious background from the still dominant white segment of our society–when they are brought to bear at home.

The solution doesn’t require bemoaning crazed, racist cops; it requires a change in training and a demilitarization of the police. The police is not the army or special forces or the CIA. And its members far too often think they are fighting against insurgents who are the black to their white in a black and white game of kill or be killed. it is little wonder that snipers–angered, irrational, infuriated citizens–now appear to counterattack the police. Escalation is in the air when what is needed is a radical change in training and tactics.