Schwarz
View current page
...more recent posts
The cinder-block house, completed in 1959, was built on a steep hillside overlooking the Potomac River in McLean, Va. Its 2,500 square feet of living space are contained in a structure that appears solid from the front but on the inside reveals its spectacular view through 80 feet of floor-to-ceiling windows. By the time the Mardens reached old age (Luis died in 2003, and Ethel, now in her late 90s, lives in an assisted-care facility), the house was badly in need of repair. And, given its desirable site, it was a sitting duck for someone who wanted to tear it down.
But an unlikely white knight happened to live next door. James V. Kimsey, a philanthropist and the founding chairman of America Online, had recently completed an enormous and expensive house for himself — he refers to it wryly as “a monument to wretched excess” — when he bought the Mardens’ house in 2000. He had no interest in living in the diminutive structure but saw its potential as a guest house and a place for parties. “I thought of making alterations,” he recalled, “but people told me not to. It wouldn’t be a Frank Lloyd Wright house anymore, they said.”
Pollock and Placement
Recommended: Brian O'Doherty review of Victoria Newhouse's book on reading artworks through their surroundings, particularly how singular works look when placed in different museums. (Hat tip JWS.) Newhouse's test cases are the famous Laocoon-and-snakes statue, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and forty years of Pollock exhibitions.
The article seems especially germane to this post of Paddy Johnson's. An obviously fake Pollock (would he ever make dominant whitish lines that hesitant or obvious? no, he wouldn't) seems even faker with a self-professed hater of abstract art standing next to it, gesturing towards it like a carnival barker.
filed under: general - tom moody