Mini Slumpy [[William Livingstone House)

[buildingsofdetroit]

An L.A. artist wants $12K to build a dollhouse of ol' Slumpy [[RIP), aka the William Livingstone House. The video doesn't really sell me on cutting a check.

http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/p..._house_detroit

[Gistok]

You're right BoD.... it's not even as though he wants someone to commission and buy the model... he just wants donations for geitting it built. That then begs the unanswered question [[that a lot of folks will have).... why??

[smogboy]

You're right BoD.... it's not even as though he wants someone to commission and buy the model... he just wants donations for geitting it built. That then begs the unanswered question [[that a lot of folks will have).... why??

Hypothetically he gets the money to build this model, what's he going to do with this scale house? And it's not like he's the one building the house either- the article points to him having an LA model maker build it for him.

It seems more like a self gratifying project for him than anything else.

[davewindsor]

An L.A. artist wants $12K to build a dollhouse of ol' Slumpy [[RIP), aka the William Livingstone House. The video doesn't really sell me on cutting a check.

http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/p..._house_detroit

Whoa, did you see this organization's financials? United States Artists is a non-profit that declared on their IRS return that they received over $13.5m in grants and contributions in 2009 and another half mil. in investment income. And that artist is asking for $12K + another $10K = $22K for a three foot model. I wonder if he's the Hollywood model builder in Los Angeles he vaguely refers to in the third person. I'm sure one of our Detroit lego builders can build them a 3 foot replica as tribute for a lot less.

Well, I'm not sure what percentage of those grants and contributions are gov't grants, but that's a nice use of taxpayer dollars.

[Lowell]

Interesting... I treated on this subject with the 2007 painting "Open House" which was a "what could be" reconstruction of Slumpy to its former glory filled with partiers at an open house. The painting was displayed at the inaugural opening of the Works: Detroit Gallery on Woodward at MLK. The theme of the "Intersections" exhibition was relation to the surrounding neighborhood; so Slumpy was a obvious candidate for me. I exhibited the 6' x 3' painting side by side with a torn apart 'open house' photo of the Livingstone House printed out and pasted together from 8.5 x 11" sheets of paper.


The above was shot in poor lighting with outside light shining through; so here is a better rendition of the painting. BTW, you can acquire this for much less than our friend in Cleveland's $12K. LOL.


I learned that on the exact day I completed the painting Slumpy had been demolished. In truth its salvation was beyond hope at that point, short of an absurd cost of completely dissecting it and totally rebuilding. But art doesn't have to deal with realities. It is just as much about possibilities and impossibilities.


The great significance of the house, overlooked by the blogger, is that it was the youthful Albert Kahn's first full project. Ren Farley's site has a good description here http://detroit1701.psc.isr.umich.edu...20Mansion.html.

[wolverine]

An LA artist wants to commission an LA artist?
So then...not really his work...
Doesn't seem fair that the mode building company is not credited. I'd want to know the REAL artists work that the money is going to.

$12,000 seems about right though, maybe even too cheap. Architectural models can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars to build. Dollhouse might be an understatement. These studios build these things to get every detail right to make it look like a shrunk version of the real thing.

[Dan]

Why not take that money and use it to properly mothball one of slumpy's brothers or sisters...

Or better yet, use it as the seed money to start a proper renovation....

[buildingsofdetroit]

Why not take that money and use it to properly mothball one of slumpy's brothers or sisters...

Or better yet, use it as the seed money to start a proper renovation....

D'accord, monsieur!

[Jimaz]

That would be a challenging but impressive build in Activeworlds, the virtual reality building environment.

They have brick walls but unfortunately no individual bricks. It might be possible to add a brick texture to some other small piece.

[DetroitPlanner]

$12k going to the right group would do a lot to shore-up and secure a bunch of vacant homes so they don't end up like the Livingstone house.

edit: I agree with Dan. This is what I get for posting too fast!

[kathy2trips]

Capital idea! I wonder how many of these buildings are actually owned by banks [[or THE CITY, in fact) with no sense of civic responsibility that could give a cr@p. Now, that's something sane and constructive they both can do with that kajillion dollars in stimulus money. Any suggestions on possible "shoring-up" candidates?

[mauser]

So then...not really his work...
Doesn't seem fair that the mode building company is not credited. I'd want to know the REAL artists work that the money is going to.

Google "Rodin", "Michelangelo", "Titian" and "Peter Paul Rubens" for starters, and then come back and give us your lecture on what and who the 'REAL' artists are, and why the company of people that assisted in the works they produced are never mentioned.

[VincentinLA]

Greetings DetroitYes visitors,

This is Vincent Johnson in Los Angeles. I was sent this set of blog responses to my proposed William Livingstone House Detroit project, and wanted to provide some information that would hopefully answer the questions on this post.

First, my project is an art project. The fabrication would be done by Barnacle Brothers in LA. They have made a great deal of the sculpture that is shown in LA, including LA artist Mike Kelly, whom I studied under at Art Center in Pasadena in the mid-1990's. Kelly is from Detroit. You may have heard about his mobile trailer project that replicates the parts of his childhood home, that will be shown in Detroit.

The project would be initially shown at Las Cienegas Projects, which is an artist run space in LA that is getting a great deal of art world attention.

This is part of a projected much larger project, which will include a 3 volume set of my photographs of distressed and dead architecture in Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland, where almost all of my blood relatives live. It will also include large-scale photographs and possibly drawings of the subject at hand. I already have the a major university scholar as my partner for writing the texts for the books. He is from Chicago. I am from Cleveland.

This split Michigan house would be my second project proposal to USA Projects, should my first one find funding success. It would also be built doll house sized.



I've talked to several people about the history of building construction in the Midwest. One person said that many of the houses were poorly built, which could be why do many properties have collapsed in the region, including ones built by millionaires. I recall asking would a mansion built in London in 1890 have collapsed by now, in the manor the William Livingstone House, which literally fell apart.

I like this split Michigan house as a fabricated sculpture project as it moves the conversation about Detroit's demise into different territory, beyond the realm of the fantastic. Myself and others have surmised that Detroit's planned obsolescence in cars may have extended into its housing.

---

Here are links to two institutionally funded projects I've done in the past:

Philosophy of Time Travel, Studio Museum in Harlem


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/ar...gn/20harl.html [[five LA artist collaboration) [[funded by Creative Capital and the Studio Museum in Harlem)




Still of the digital animation of the "Philosophy of Time Travel" project.
For this project we proposed to recreate a portion of Brancusi's Endless Column, then crash it into the Studio Museum in Harlem.

This was produced in LA and Toronto, by our technology artist on the project, and a CGI artist in Brooklyn. This was funded by our Creative Capital grant.






"Philosophy of Time Travel" Studio Museum in Harlem, 2007

Our five artist collaboration was able to be advised by Richard Serra's studio in New York regarding this project, as to the structural engineering needs of the building to create our project. Serra's studio did this on a pro bono basis. Each of the five artists in our collaboration worked on all of the elements of the project. Yet we still required several assistants and an on site project architect [[also pro bono) to complete the project.

Parts of the project did not come to fruition, including a fake NYC newspaper about the sculpture flying into the building. There was talk of Creative Time sending our video animation over people's cell phones during the opening. There was talk of out video being shown on one or more of the large video walls in Times Square during the opening. There was talk of an artist book about the project. The sculpture was shown inside of the museum, but it was our artist collaboration's intention of having a sculptural element outside of the building too.

---
Civil Air Defense Project # 1, LAXART

Here is a bit of info regarding my Civil Air Defense Project # 1, LAXART, Los Angeles.


http://laxart.org/exhibitions/view/v...ject-1/#images

LAXART exhibition: "Civil Air Defense Project No. 1", fabricated sculpture of a 12x6 foot 1956 Chrysler Air Raid Siren - a composite of several elements of the CARS during the 1950's; automobile parts were used for the dials, gear shift, exhaust, and other elements); Hand built Bomb Shelter using Department of Defense instructions from the Cold War Era.

The project speaks of Cold Wars fears in LA. There were 24 real C.A.R. sirens in LA during the Cold War era. Each weighed 6,000 pounds. They rotated on a base and had a sound radius of 8 miles. Up close they were as loud as a jet engine. They were part John Deere tractor and part siren by the American Blower Corp. Chrysler made about 200 of them in total. They employed a Hemi engine. Some had seats like on a tractor. One siren went off by accident in LA in the 1950's, causing panic and hysteria, as the siren going off meant there was a military attack about to happen on the West Coast.

I would meet two or more times a week for 3-5 hours with the fabrication team on this project, to discuss possible solutions to every aspect of the project's creation.
An architecture student was brought on to produce the drawings from the hundreds of photographs I found online of the various sirens.

[Lowell]

Welcome to forum Vincent and thanks for an outstanding first post. It clears up a lot of misconceptions and guesses about what you are attempting.

I would make one note, however, in defense of Detroit construction and by extension the Livingstone's architect the youthful Albert Kahn.

One person said that many of the houses were poorly built, which could be why do many properties have collapsed in the region, including ones built by millionaires. I recall asking would a mansion built in London in 1890 have collapsed by now, in the manor the William Livingstone House, which literally fell apart.

You should be aware that the partial collapse of the house was due to to a botched move of the house the to a new location. Otherwise it could have lived on for centuries.

[Johnlodge]

One person said that many of the houses were poorly built, which could be why do many properties have collapsed in the region, including ones built by millionaires. I recall asking would a mansion built in London in 1890 have collapsed by now, in the manor the William Livingstone House, which literally fell apart.

You should be aware that the partial collapse of the house was due to to a botched move of the house the to a new location. Otherwise it could have lived on for centuries.

Well, that was fun, so what's your next project? My only critique – I'd actually go to a place and research before casting aspersions on it. For example, I hold my own stereotypes about California artists, but I'm not going to take donations to create an installation sharing them with others until I have a few more examples proving my point.

[fryar]

Myself and others have surmised that Detroit's planned obsolescence in cars may have extended into its housing.

An ironic note, that, considering that the state of this city has left quite a few of its residents [[and some on this board) a bit sensitive when it comes to the depiction of Detroit [[and its ruins). I think all of that is fair game, so to speak, and a useful backdrop for a cautionary tale, an inverse barbarians at the gates theme. But not everyone agrees; some would just like the world to stop heckling, hotting and howling.

FWIW, if you meant that seriously, I don't think it adds up. The city of Detroit itself, including old "Slumpy" [[the William Livingstone House), was already in existence by the time "Detroit" [[the "Big Three") hit on Obsolescence by Given the timeline of urban sprawl, you would see much more that in Detroit's post-war suburbs than in Detroit itself. Incidentally, that would look somewhat more like your new

Speaking just for myself, the themes that surround Slumpy or any of Detroit's ruins are those of a regionally fatal regional embrace of urban abandonment/flight and sprawl, basically. But then, I'm more of an accountant than artist.

[VincentinLA]

Lowell,

There is no need to defend Detroit to someone who grew up in Cleveland. There was a black cloud over Cleveland for decades, and atop that we were in New York's shadow, and could literally feel how far we were away from the world that NYC was all about. Over time I came to consciousness that Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburg, etc. were Manchester or Birmingham, England, and NYC was [[and is) London. Detroit's Cass Tech was famous in Cleveland when I was a kid. There was no such animal in Ohio back then.

I should make it known that I've done my homework on the William Livingstone house, and know about what happened when it was moved in an attempt to preserve it. As I am not a builder, I do not know if it is precisely the case that there were significant structural deficiencies in the William Livingstone house, as there appear to be in the Michigan house that split in two purportedly due to a storm. As I said in my initial post, I was told there were building construction issues that have led to where much of the entire Midwest is today. As an artist, I know I can take real and imaginary narratives and use all of them for my work. Yet I would still certainly like to know the truth of the matter as to how Detroit came to be where it is today.

[VincentinLA]

I have been to Detroit many times since the late 1970's. I was planning on coming to Detroit to document the subject of my project, but found that it had already been demolished in September of 2007. I also understand something about what it means to represent something or someone, as I wrote my graduate thesis on this matter. As to proving my point - do you mean that I should provide evidence of dead architecture in Detroit, or what is it you otherwise have in mind? For myself I perceive my project as a metaphor about America, not only Detroit, since what happened in Detroit, which generated more wealth in the last hundred or so years than most cities that have ever been on this earth, is clearly a part of the U.S., which is the richest country that has ever existed in the history of the world. Metro Detroit is not broke. According to the Wall Street Journal there are 89,000 millionaires in the region, more than in San Jose, where the Silicon Valley is located.

[VincentinLA]

Here's an WSJournal article that says that Detroit has more millionaires than the San Jose [[the Silicon Valley)

Vincent in LA

--

WSJ Blogs

The Wealth Report

Robert Frank looks at the lives and culture of the wealthy.

August 3, 2010, 2:29 PM ET Wall Street Journal

New York Has the Most Millionaires

By Robert Frank

New York’s millionaire population has now surpassed the boom times of 2007.

New York, New York, Big City of DreamsAccording to the new Metro Wealth Index, created by consulting firm Capgemini, the New York Metropolitan area had 650,000 high-net worth individuals, or people with $1 million or more in investible assets in 2009. That is 18.7% higher than in 2008.
Once again, the New York area topped the list of metro-area wealth centers. Its total was greater than the combined total of the next three runners up–Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington.
Of the top 10, Houston posted the the fastest growth, at 28.9%. But all enjoyed strong growth.
Here are the tallies of millionaires for the top 10, along with the percentage growth:
New York – 667,200, +18.7%
Los Angeles – 235,800, +13.3%
Chicago – 198,100, +15.1%
Washington, D.C. – 152,400 +19.3%
San Francisco – 138,300 +14.5%
Philadelphia – 104,100, +20.1%
Boston – 102,300, + 14.4%
Detroit – 89,100, +12.1%
Houston –- 88,200, +28.9%
San Jose — 86,500, +24.5%

What are the takeaways?

First, that the U.S. taxpayers’ bank bailouts certainly helped those on Wall Street [[though why New York still has huge budget problems given the wealth surge in 2009 and much-publicized tax burden of the wealthy remains a mystery).
Second, that finance, technology and oil remain the main sources of wealth in the U.S.

Third, while New York, D.C., Houston and San Jose are now above 2007 levels, the rest are still below the 2007 heights. Fourth, that 2010 may not be as rosy as 2009 when it comes to minting new millionaires or re-minting the old ones.
What patterns do you see in the numbers?

[Pushtina]

So, this is a project about how Detroit has more millionaires than San Jose? Huh?

[VincentinLA]

As many of you may well already know, the artworld views Detroit as America's Berlin. I have been to Berlin, and personally think it is the model for Chicago, but I also see the similarities to Detroit, from the bombed out remains in many parts of Berlin, to what Detroit and much of America could look like if there were a massive reconstruction effort as there was in Germany after the Berlin Wall fell. Artists in LA and NYC see the potential of having massive studio spaces in Detroit.

This past December in Miami, Detroit's cultural scene was celebrated and highlighted during Art Basel Miami Beach, as part of the Oceanfront series projects. I was in Miami that week. There were Detroit music parties at several venues. Detroit's music scene was the debut event of Art Basel Miami Beach 2010.

You may also know that the New York artist Matthew Barney has produced a major operatic project in Detroit recently. One of the most important new painters in the artworld now has a studio in Detroit. Many artists from Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Los Angeles are doing projects in Detroit. So as versus their being a negative perception of Detroit, the artworld perceives the city somewhat like American and European architects looked at Los Angeles a hundred years ago through the 1950's, which is as a place of opportunity to try something that would not be possible somewhere else.

[Johnlodge]

So as versus their being a negative perception of Detroit, the artworld perceives the city somewhat like American and European architects looked at Los Angeles a hundred years ago through the 1950's, which is as a place of opportunity to try something that would not be possible somewhere else.

And so you want to fund an art project that insinuates all our buildings were made to fall apart, because "one guy" told you so? I'm not following the logic.

[VincentinLA]

I think I've already defined my project on this post.

The point I am making about the WSJ article about Detroit having more millionaires than San Jose [[the Silicon Valley), is that it looks to me that Detroit has the means to do something to transform itself.

I take downtown LA and Hollwood [[which is an actual neighborhood in LA) as examples. Downtown LA became the dumping ground of America's homeless several decades ago. Downtown LA also ceased to be invested in, and its historic business and shopping corridors collapsed into near third world poverty for about 80 years. Only when individuals in LA started investing in downtown, opening really good restaurants and amazing bars, in these quite derelict areas, did downtown LA become a destination - even though it still looks like a scene from Bladerunner in many areas. The same transition happened in Hollywood, California, which was an beaten down an area as there was anywhere in the Western United States. Hollywood wasn't even a ghost of itself in the 1990's. It was an embarassment to LA, when tourists would come and see nothing but blight and homelessness. Only in the past 5 years has Hollywood been flooded with fun places to go out to in the evening. This was done by local people who wanted LA to have some of what is in San Francisco and in New York. Even with this, most of Hollywood still is in need of transformation. Yet the streets of Hollywood boulevard are now full of locals looking to have a fun evening.

Certainly Metro Detroit is in position of doing something similar .

[VincentinLA]

Since I grew up in Cleveland, I understand the concerns re the depiction of Detroit. I heard two narratives when I grew up: "Mistake on the Lake" and "Best Location in the Nation." The neighborhood I grew up in, Collinwood, I found out had the largest concentation of factories in any city in the world in the 1970's.

As for representation, when one goes to an art museum, one sees paintings of a well to do person that represent a person at their best. Artists developed a sign system of images that they added to the painting to let the viewer know the true character of the person depicted. When an artist graduated from art school in Paris, when Paris had kings, the student was initially trained in the academic style of the leading artist who was running the school. When the student was about to graduate, they were taken into a room with a blank canvas on an easel, and told to paint a portrait from their imagination of that showed the greatness of the king. Yuo can only imagine what happened to the artist who chose to do otherwise. Only when the church patronage system collapsed did some artists decide to portray the world as it is, as versus the fantasy world that many people desire it to be. There are exceptions to this happening much earlier. In Amsterdam, during the age of Rembrandt, there was a guild system for artists to sell their works, as versus only a patronage system. Rembrandt tired of painting fantastic pictures of wealthy people, went bankrupt, was literally stripped by a bank of his every asset, including his paint brushes. He went on to do a series of self portraits that show him slipping into poverty. This cycle of self analytical paintings is considered to be the apex of human achievement in self-portraiture in the Western world.

Now, as far as the timeline of when an idea came into the world - in this case planned obsolescence, my idea here is that ideas are not new, but the current use of them make them seem to be so. it could be the case that certain ideas were on place and even on the books to be instituted, but for whatever reason, there was a delay in pressing the Go button.

For the record, I also got to see the NYC before it became what it is now. I lived in Fort Green, Brooklyn while I was a painting student at Pratt. We went to Harlem, Hoboken, the Lower East Side and the South Bronx during the early 1980's. None of these places were habitable. Alphabet City was a nightmare. Each NYC neighborhood - from Hells Kitchen in Manhattan to Red Hook in Brooklyn seemed to live up to its name. There were day stores in Brooklyn that operated out of burned up storefronts that paid no rent. The NYTimes was all over those places because of how impoverished so much of NYC had become. Now Hoboken has a W Hotel, and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where the Mafia used to operate out of about 60 years ago, is now the most desired neighborhood to live in for creative types on the entire East Coast. So Detroit is now getting an earful of what other cities have also gone through, but those cities were transformed. I recall being in disbelief that NYC had become a safe place to live.

The William Livinstone house in Detroit is then not a permanent state. Yet it could be - depends on those who are in a position to make things better doing so.

[VincentinLA]

Perhaps the WSJournal article is in error, but I doubt it, since that's what they do for a business.

I am funding my own three volume photographic documentation project of Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland. If the William Livingstone House project does not go forward, I have this and several other projects I am working on, all of which I am personally funding. I also have exhibition venues for each of these projects.

For the record - it is a requirement of USA Projects for its artists to pursue donors.

Thanks