Los Angeles, 1999
DA: It seems like there is a very specific relationship between the landscape or the topography in your painting Highland, Franklin, Yucca (1999), which has mountains in the background with the street names superimposed on top at a right-angle. You're forced to view of the mountain with the grid-like layout of a place like Los Angeles.
ER: I am trying to hammer down my feelings about those particular city intersections and the idea of the city grid. You might say 'How about Lincoln and Pico?' Your mind can drift and call up all kinds of past experiences that happened on that corner. You can go through your whole evaluation of society by sizing up a strip mall that you see there as totally valueless or decadent. But it still has some truth to it that makes you want to do something with it.
DA: I always wanted to have a way to understand this city better. This city is so non-linear, so broken apart. I wanted a timeline to follow - one thread - but instead I found many divergent paths. So recently I took a really interesting trip in Los Angeles. I went to San Pedro and tried to go up the Los Angeles River in a small military-type boat to see how far we could go.
ER: That is a good challenge. You might just reach a dead end!
DA: It was a two-day trip. The first day I went as far as I could go by boat. Then the second day we drove the continuation of the river. I felt like if I could just follow it 'til it ends, even though it's a joke of a river, I would understand the narrative of the land a little bit better. This concrete runway, viaduct that leads from the Pacific Ocean into this dense metascape. Then it literally disappears into a trickle of water the size of a knife.
ER: That should be J.G. Ballard's next book - a story about the LA River. He could do it. And have all these great descriptions of the concrete viaducts, embankments and all that.
DA: He's the master of concrete.
http://www.frieze.com/feature_single.asp?f=999
ER: I am trying to hammer down my feelings about those particular city intersections and the idea of the city grid. You might say 'How about Lincoln and Pico?' Your mind can drift and call up all kinds of past experiences that happened on that corner. You can go through your whole evaluation of society by sizing up a strip mall that you see there as totally valueless or decadent. But it still has some truth to it that makes you want to do something with it.
DA: I always wanted to have a way to understand this city better. This city is so non-linear, so broken apart. I wanted a timeline to follow - one thread - but instead I found many divergent paths. So recently I took a really interesting trip in Los Angeles. I went to San Pedro and tried to go up the Los Angeles River in a small military-type boat to see how far we could go.
ER: That is a good challenge. You might just reach a dead end!
DA: It was a two-day trip. The first day I went as far as I could go by boat. Then the second day we drove the continuation of the river. I felt like if I could just follow it 'til it ends, even though it's a joke of a river, I would understand the narrative of the land a little bit better. This concrete runway, viaduct that leads from the Pacific Ocean into this dense metascape. Then it literally disappears into a trickle of water the size of a knife.
ER: That should be J.G. Ballard's next book - a story about the LA River. He could do it. And have all these great descriptions of the concrete viaducts, embankments and all that.
DA: He's the master of concrete.
http://www.frieze.com/feature_single.asp?f=999
posted by Neil Young at 1:34 PM
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