When I visited post-Katrina New Orleans a couple years ago, my friend/tourguide laughed when I asked if various construction projects around town were due to the hurricane. He told me there were plenty of scaffolding and yellow cones before the storm, and afterward, well, some of the builders found themselves eligible for various government grants and assistance. Here’s Thomas Morton in Vice seeing something similar in Detroit ruin photography (via.) “The city’s second-most-overused blight shot is of the mile-long ruins of the Packard Auto Plant in East Detroit. ‘This is the visiting reporters’ favorite thing to see,’ [photographer] James [Griffioen] said. ‘The people all come here to shoot the story of the auto industry and they love this shot because they can be like, ‘See that? That’s where they made the cars,’ and then forget to add the footnote that the plant’s been closed since 1956.’”
I’m in New York tomorrow and there are a million things to catch. Paul Chan is speaking at the New Museum about his production of Waiting for Godot in New Orleans. And I’ve been waiting all month for the Conflux, the “art and technology festival for the creative exploration of urban public space.” Email me if you’d like to meet up, GMAIL:joanne.mcneil
Tomorrow is the third anniversary of Katrina. Check out what happened during Banksy’s NOLA visit. And here’s Life Without Buildings on preserving Modernism in New Orleans.
Paul Chan’s 1st Light is one of my favorites things from the ICA. Watch the Youtube video to get an idea. He makes animated shadow projections and a lot more than that. See the website for his current New Museum exhibition. He’s smart, funny, and political, (working with the Teamsters, Indymedia, and Voices in the Wilderness.) Last fall, the New Yorker wrote about the performance of Waiting for Godot he staged in the Lower Ninth Ward, now he’s the subject of a 6-page profile by Calvin Tompkins.
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