74 art ltd - March / April 2016:book reviews
“My Ogre Book, Shadow Theater, Midnight”
Marcel Broodthaers, (Siglio Press)Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers managed to excavate a unique poetic space within the
realm of institutional critique, in a voice that was at once facile and sincere, and distinctly his
own. Best known for his project Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles (Museum
of Modern Art, Department of Eagles)from 1968-1973, he helped set the stage for installa-
tion art. Rooted in a fascination with text, film and collage, blending words, found images
and objects with a healthy dose of Surrealism, he was at once of his time and so ahead of
it that it is easy to forget that he died in 1976. This winter (through May 15, 2016), the
actual Museum of Modern Art in New York is giving the under-recognized artist his due
with a much-anticipated retrospective. The modest but lovely book “My Ogre Book, Shadow
Theater, Midnight,” by LA’s Siglio Press, is not meant to be a substitute for that sprawling
exhibition, but can be savored on its own terms. The tidy hardbound volume gathers three
bodies of work: two sets of Broodthaers’ poems (until 1964, he was primarily a poet), and
“Shadow Theater,” a set of 80 slide images from 1973-74, that he used in his Projections.
Drawing from such disparate sources as comic books, old prints, hand shadows, and snip-
pets of text, (the found images veering from spewing volcanoes and other menacing natural
phenomena to war, astronomy and scientific observation), the series is both haunting and
amusing, and obliquely reflects themes from the earlier poems. Set together, they read like
a cryptic storybook fable for adults, steeped in an almost Victorian sense of etiquette.
Considering his interest in staking out a new vocabulary between idea and image, between
cinematic and aesthetic space, the volume gives a nifty glimpse into the making of this
influential artist’s singular perceptual alphabet.—GM“Both Sides of Sunset:
Photographing Los Angeles”
Edited by Jane Brown and Marla Hamburg
Kennedy, (Metropolis Books)
Los Angeles is a city that seems often defined by its
elusiveness. Beyond the iconic sites that beckon
tourists, it fragments into a kaleidoscope of unlikely
juxtapositions—a mirage of promise endlessly reced-
ing into a parade of palm trees and ticky-tack, studios
and mini-malls, sunshine and noir, glitz and glare.
“Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles”
thus defies expectations in capturing the texture of
this vast suburban metropolis. Edited by Jane Brown
and Marla Hamburg Kennedy, its ample pages feature
imagery from over 125 photographers of diverse
styles (and generations), along with knowing essays
by artist Ed Ruscha, who once chronicled every build-
ing on the Sunset Strip, and writer David L. Ulin, “to
evoke LA in all its contradictory glory.” LA is a city of a
thousand different neighborhoods and moods, and the
book wisely echoes that non-hierarchical layout. The
early years are evoked by figures such as Julius Shul-
man, Marvin Rand, Denise Scott Brown, and Dennis
Hopper, while contemporary artists such as Zoe
Crosher, Todd Hido, Mark Ruwedel, and Amir Zaki lend
their own eerie spin to today’s familiar vistas. We get
acrid street riots and desolate palaces. Garage doors by John Divola, signage by John Humble. A patterned concrete wall by James Welling.
A wizened Chet Baker, a glowing Eva Mendes; Venice beach bums and Hollywood wanna-bes. Trees grasping at sunlight in various improbable
forms. Whether it’s a lone cougar stalking the Hollywood Hills, or the 1967 picture of Dr. Zaius from “Planet of the Apes” seated at a bus stop
amid Googie architecture with a looming rocket and a giant donut, the volume palpably documents the banal but haunting Surrealism that
permeates this Southern California dream capital. By the time the city recedes into the smog at the book’s end, numerous shots will
linger long afterward.—GM