Attendees at the Philip Johnson symposium burst into applause after the finale of Peter Eisenman's Concluding Remarks titled "An Opening Statement."
I managed to get pretty sick this weekend--since Thursday afternoon I've been living liquicap to liquicap in an attempt to get anything done. That hasn't worked, but the upshot has been that I've slept more over the last two nights than I have since New Years'.
The downside to this seemed to be missing the Philip Johnson symposium that started on Friday, an event that I'd actually managed to register for ahead of time. I figured that dizziness and nausea would not be a good mix with the airless environment of a lecture hall; I was heading home to bed.
I did manage to stick around the simulcast room long enough to get a sense of what I was missing. Kurt Forster opened up the afternoon talking about Johnson and "The Autobiographical House." Now, I've spent a semester in seminar with this man, and let me just say that it was of no surprise that, when he fired up the first slides, he said that these were just a foretaste, and nothing like what was to come: "images with the sharp, aged flavor of finely sliced salami." This from a man who once digressed for twenty minutes during a lecture on John Soane to discuss the wonders of Viennese pastry including the etymology and history of the croissant, and, in conclusion, made a young art history student turn pink by describing the sensations produced by the creamy filling of his favorite, the liebesknochen, or, as he translated, the bone of love.
Forster, wearing a Prada suit on location at the 2004 Architectural Biennale, spys a stack of doughnuts just beyond the frame.
Seeing that he was up to his old tricks, I felt comfortable leaving for home, knowing I would be safe in my ignorance. I ate some dark chocolate Petit Ecoliers for dessert, though, just to honor the lecturer.
The real excitement of this weekend was the dueling closing comments by Koolhaas and Eisenman. The Dutch One and The Belly were supposed to go at it back to back in summing up the other's summation. This promised to be a much more interesting celeb scene that Good Morning America coming to tape Zaha giving desk-crits.
In the end, even as I attempted to bear through an increasing haze of illness, it never happened. Rem bailed, leaving Eisenman to hog the stage all by himself. After coming to the podium, taking off his jacket, repeating five or six times that this was "an opening statement, not concluding remarks," he announced that he had left his speech in his Princeton office and would be "winging it." I've seen that one from Eisenman before, and I was out of the building in a flash.
This all seems to convenient--somehow Peter was prepared for Rem's no-show. A classmate suggested that Peter paid Rem off so he could be the star. I'm starting to believe it--this all seems to be of a part with other recent foldings, ducking-outs, and skips. Maybe this is all a part of a three-way deal with Vito Acconci and the LVHRD Duel cancellation.
I'm beginning to disagree with that.
So that sums up this weekend's disappointments. Now I'm going to go back to lying down and feeling awful. I'm out of movies, and the only channel I get on the tube is showing an infomercial on vacuums. The set is fabulous, however. It looks like the inside of a house, but every few feet the flooring changes color and consistency. Maybe this would be more fun with another liquicap.
