Graham Foundation I MIT Press Series in Contemporary Architectural Discourse

EVICTIONS
Acht1mg Architektur! Image and Phantasm in Contemporary Austrian Architecture ART AND SPATIAL POLITICS
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen

Inside Arcltitecltire
Vittorio Gregotti

Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics

RosALYN DEuTsCHE
Rosalyn Deutsche

Graham Foundation for Advanced Studles in the Fine Arts

Chicago, Illinois

• THE MIT PRESS

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

LONDON, ENGLAND
©1996 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechan-
ical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permis-
sion in writing from the publisher.

Publication of this book has been supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced
Studies in the Fine Arts.

Page 284 reproduces the jacket design by Victoria Wong from V&riations on a Theme Park: 71w New
For Robert Ubell
American City and the End of Public Space, edited by Michael Sorkin. Copyright © 1992 by Michael
Sorkin. Reprinted by permission of Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.

This book was set in Bembo by Graphic Composition, Inc., and was printed and bound in the
United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Deutsche, Rosalyn.
Evictions : art.and spatial politics I Rosalyn Deutsche.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-262-04158-8 (bb' ill<. papec)
1. Public space. 2. Public art. 3. Space (Architecture) 4. City planning. I. Title.
NA9053.S6D48 1996
711' .13-dc20 96-15527
CIP
 CONTENTS

AcKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

INTRODUCTION xi

I THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE

KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO's HOMELESS

PROJECTION AND THE SITE OF URBAN

"REV IT ALIZAT ION" 3

UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT: PUBLIC ART IN

NEW YORK CITY 49

REPRESENTING BERLIN 109

PROl'ERTY VAtUES: HANS HAACKE, REAL

ESTATE, AND THE MUSEUM 159

II MEN IN SPACE

MEN IN SPACE 195

Bovs TowN 203

CHINATOWN, PART FouR? WHAT jAKE

FORGETS ABOUT DOWNTOWN 245

 CONTENTS

Ill PUBLIC SPACE AND DEMOCRACY

TILTED ARC AND THE USES OF DEMOCRACY 257 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AGORAPHOBIA 269

NOTES 329

CREDITS 377

INDEX 379

I feel very fortunate in having had so much help writing this book.
First, I would like to thank the people who invited me to write the articles
and deliver the talks that were the original versions of these essays-Douglas
Crimp, Irit Rogoff, Brian Wallis, Philomena Mariani, Neil Smith, Michael Dear,
Mark Wigley, and Richard Ingersoll. I am also grateful to the editors of the journal
October for making a space for my work on art and urbanism.
Work on the final essay was supported by a grant from the Graham Founda-
tion for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, which also assisted in the publication
of the book.
My thanb to Jennifer Berman for tracking down and collecting the photo-
graphs. Thanks also to Roger Conover, Matthew Abbate, and Yasuyo Iguchi at
the MIT Press and to Lois Nesbitt for her constructive copyediting.
I am particularly indebted to my students at several universities, with whom
I first discussed many of the ideas in these essays and who responded with interest
and challenging questions.
Thomas Keenan and Bruce Robbins were very generous in reading and
commenting astutely on portions of the final manuscript.
For various kinds of help over the last decade and during the preparation of
this book, I would like to thank Robert Benton, Marielle Cohen, Marion Cohen,

viii
 Ac KN 0 W L EDG MEN TS

Beatriz Colomina, Douglas Crimp, Hans Haacke, Thornton Hayslett, Jennifer

Hayslett-Ubell, Frances Katz, Thomas Keenan, Silvia Kolbowski, Laura Kurgan,
Ernest Larsen, Doreen Massey, Elizabeth Miller, Sherry Millner, Meaghan Morris, INTRODUCTION
Matt Mungan, Linda Nochlin, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Renee Shanker, Lynne
Tillman, Anthony Vidler,Jane Weinstock, Mark Wigley, and KrzysztofWodiczko.
I deeply appreciate the wisdom and compassion of Deborah Tanzer. Robert Ubell
has sustained me in ways that I cannot even begin to measure. This book is dedi-
cated to him with love.

The essays collected here were written over a period of ten years on topics ranging
from public art and homelessness to the repression of feminism in critical theories
of public space. With the exception of ''Agoraphobia," which was written espe-
cially for this book, they have been published previously. While they have been
revised and, in a few cases, expanded for this volume, their arguments are un-
changed. The essays remain marked by the circumstances in which they were pro-
duced, as conditional interventions in historically specific-and ongoing-cultural
debates. Each essay can be read independently, but together they form a single
project that explores connections among contemporary art, space, and political ~1.(

struggles. 1 The essays discuss diverse spaces-cities, parks, institutions, exhibitions,

artworks, disciplines, identities. I am concerned not only with the struggles taking
place inside these spaces but with the less visible and therefore more pressing strug-
gles that, I argue, produce and maintain all spaces.
The essays enter and question a particular interdisciplinary space-a dis-
course that combines ideas about art, architecture, and urban design, on the one
hand, with theories of the city, social space, and public space, on the other.
In shorthand, I sometimes call this interdisciplinary field "urban-aesthetic" or
"spatial-cultural" discourse. While this discourse is not new, its present intensity
and ubiquity are. It has attracted considerable attention since the early 1980s. 'Why,
 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION

my essays ask, has it become so popular, so rapidly, in so many different arenas- although they both mobilize a democratic rhetoric of"openness" and "accessibil-
the academy, the art world, urban planning, mass media, municipal documents, ity" and rise to the defense of public space-are structured by exclusions and,
social movements-and among so many disparate political groups, from neocon- moreover, by attempts to erase the traces of these exclusions. Exclusions are justi-
servative policy intellectuals to leftist cultural critics? What political issues are at fied, naturalized, and hidden by representing social space as a substantial unity that
stake in the discourse about art and space? What political relationships organize the must be protected from conflict, heterogeneity, and particuiarity. Evictions takes
space of the discourse? account of specific exclusions in urban-aesthetic discourses to expose the authori-
My answers to these questions are various and provisional. While the focus tarian strategies that construct unitary images of social space. In the end, I contend
on urban-aesthetic discourse unites my essays, it also periodically disrupts their that conflict, far from the ruin of democratic public space, is the condition of
continuity. The discourse itself is neither monolithic nor static but, on the contrary, its existence.
takes different forms and is capable of growing and changing. New alliances be-
tween urban and aesthetic disciplines were forged during the years in which I
wrote these texts, and the imperative of responding to these shifting formations
prompted revisions in my own thinking, encouraging me to call into question my The essays in the first section, "The Social Production of Space," were written
earlier premises and to enlarge my critique of "spatial politics" so that it extends between 1985 and 1988. I first became interested in art and spatial politics in the
to the space of politics itsel( Evictions documents these transformations. early 1980s when I observed the coincidence of four phenomena in New York
The book is divided into three interconnected- sections that represent three City: massive urban development, intensification of official rhetoric about new
stages of my involvement in debates about art and social space. The flfst section public spaces, an explos.ion of interest in the aesthetics of urban planning, and a
analyzes the mutually supportive relationship that developed in the 1980s between sharp increase in public art cOmmissions. What, I wondered, is the relationship
aesthetic ideologies and an oppressive program of urban restructuring. The open- among these urban and aesthetic events? The opening essays examine different
ing essays draw on critical spatial theory, especially nco-Marxist geography, to con- aspects of art's social function in contemporary urbanism and question the domi-
test mainstream and conservative ideas about art, the city, and public space. The nant model of urban-aesthetic discourse that was then-and, to a great extent, still
second section criticizes an alliance that has formed between prominent urban and is-used to explain this function. Promoting the participation of art and architec-
cultural scholars who use critical spatial theory for quite a different purpose-to ture in urban redevelopment projects, this model neutralizes the political character
ground an account of postmodern culture that shores up traditional left political of both art and the city. It couples an aesthetic ideology positing that art and archi-
projects and rejects new kinds of radical political philosophies, social movements, tecture transcend social relations with an urban ideology that presents the spatial
and aesthetic practices, including new feminist theories. The final section returns organization of cities as the natural product of biological, social, or technological
to the question of public space raised early in the volume. These last essays explore evolutions undergone by a supposedly organic society. These concepts sanction
contemporary aesthetic debates about the meaning of the term public but rethink art's role in the urban environment as beneficial while legitimating existing urban
the question of public space from the feminist and radical democratic perspectives conditions as inevitable.
adopted in the second section. My essays counter this urban-aesthetic alliance by combining critical ideas
As a whole, the book ·argues that the dominant paradigm of urban-aesthetic about the social construction of"art" with perspectives, taken from critical urban
interdisciplinarity and the most influential radical critiques of that paradigm- studies, on what Henri Lefebvre calls "the production of space" -a phrase coined

xii
 INTRODUCT!ON iNTRODUCTION

to signify that the organization of the city and of space in general is neither natural introduce conflict into public space. Instead, I claim that homeless people and
nor uniformly advantageous. Space is, rather, political, inseparable from the con- public spaces are integrally linked, dual products of the spatioeconomic conflicts
flictual and uneven social relations that structure specific societies at specific histor- that constitute contemporary urban restructuring.
ical moments. This section examines the involvement of aesthetic practices in what Interwoven with this analysis is a critique of the depoliticized aesthetics in-
urban theorists call "the politics of space," including struggles over public space. stnunental in portraying redevelopment as the preservation of tradition. Juxtapos-
"KrzysztofWodiczko's Homeless Projection and the Site of Urban 'Revitaliza- ing these aesthetic concepts with a different kind of aesthetic practice, I explore a
tion'" investigates the role played by architecture, urban planning, park design, public project about homelessness proposed for the Union Square monuments by
and historic preservation in obscuring the conflictual character of urban redevelop- the artist KrzysztofWodiczko. I was first inspired to write my essay about Union
ment. Focusing on New York's Union Square Park, an example of a new public Square after seeing W9diczko's Homeless Projection: A Proposal for the City cf New
space whose wholesale transformation was engineered unO.er the banners of histor- York, which I interpreted as a confrontation with the official Union Square rede-
ical continuity and return to tradition, I investigate the city's campaign to restore velopment progr~m. While the promoters of Union Square redevelopment used
the park's historical monuments. The monuments exemplify the kind of "outdoor the square's historical_ monuments to advertise the benefits of redevelopment,
art" sponsored by late nineteenth-century municipal beautification movements, Wodiczko appropriated the sculptures to create a counterimage of redevelopment.
and I compare the part played by these movements in shaping the industrial city Employing slide projections that transformed the gentrified statues into homeless
to the role of contemporary.aesthetic disciplines in organizing postindustrial space. people, he forced the monuments to testifY to the sociospatial conflicts that they
In exploring these processes, I first had to understand the significance of were being employed to conceal. Against the city's official restoration program,
urban redevelopment and its residential component, gentrification. What was their Wodiczko disclosed the social divisions-and the social groups-expelled when
;elationship to another urban event-the sudden appearance of large numbers of historical monuments are presented as symbols of social cohesion. Wodiczko'S
homeless people on the streets of New York? Earlier, I had coauthored an article project thus contests the neutralizing concepts of"historic preservation" and "con-
investigating links between the gentrification of New York's Lower East Side and textualism" that dominated arChitecture, public art, and urban planning in the
the widely celebrated growth of what was then called the "East Village art scene." 1980s. In my reading, this contestation is a true act of restoration. For this book,
The article placed gentrification within broader processes of global sociospatial influenced by new ideas about rights, I have elaborated on the portion of the
restructuring. 2 Now, aided by critical urban theory, I extended the analysis. Instead Union Square essay in which I analyze Wodiczko's Homeless Projection as an attempt
of celebrating redevelopment as a "revitalizing" and "beautifying" process, I view to create a democratic public space in the public spaces of the redeveloped city.
it as the historical form of late-capitalist urbanism, facilitating new international "Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City" expands the analysis
relations of domination and oppression and transforming cities for private profit introduced in the Union Square essay. I criticize the widespread tendency in art
and state controL The mechanism of redevelopment, I argue, destroys the very a·nd urban discourse of the 1980s to celebrate what was called the "new public
conditions of survival-housing and services--for residents no longer required for art." In contrast to an earlier conception of public art as "art in public places," the
the city's economy. The emergence of a large population of homeless residents is new public art was touted as "socially responsible;' "site-specific," and "functional"
redevelopment's most visible symptom. because it helped design, and so contributed to the "beauty" and "utility" of, its
This analysis disputes the idea that new public spaces and homelessness are newly redeveloped urban sites. "Uneven Development" questions the social func-
two discrete phenomena, an image that makes people without homes appear to tion of redevelopment itself and its functionalist rhetoric. Excavating the history

xiv XV
 {NTRODUCTION
fNTRODOCT!ON

of Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan as a case study of the marriage of redevel-
tof Wodiczko 's Homeless Projection" and "Uneven Development," I relate critical
opment and the new public art, the essay employs Henri Lefebvre's analysis of
spatial strategies deployed in postmodern art to critical theories of space in urban
spatial contradictions and his critique of urban planning to argue that a genuinely
studies. I argue that both disciplines emphasize the social production and therefore
responsible public art must, in Lefebvre's words, "appropriate" space from its dom-
the mutability of spatial arrangements. "Representing Berlin" makes a comple-
ination by capitalist and state power. In the tradition of radical site-specific art,
mentary point. In expressionist "city paintings," traditional notions about the au-
public art must disrupt, rather than secure, the apparent coherence of its new urban
tonomy of aesthetic space cannot be dissociated from traditional ideas about urban
sites. Defending the democratic potential of site-specificity against its depoliticiza-
space. Both sets of ideas support existing urban conditions by making them appear
tion by conservative forces, I explore parallels- between critical treatments of space
natural and inevitable. The reciprocity between aesthetic and urban ideologies is
in aesthetic and urban theory. Using a work by KrzysztofWodiczko as an example
exemplified in the art-historical category "urban expressionism," commonly
once again, I suggest that Lefebvre's appropriation of space is similar to the reorga-
thought to have originated in Berlin. Examining the dual claim that expressionism
nizations of space undertaken by certain site-specific artists. For both, public space
is a quintessentially_"urban" style and that Berlin is an "expressionist city," I trace
is not a preconstituted entity created for users; it arises only from a practice (or
the history of urban expressionism from its invention in Berlin in the early twenti-
counterpractice) of use by those groups excluded from dominated space.
eth century to its revival in the late 1970s by promoters of German neoexpression-
"Representing Berlin" was completed before the Union Square and Battery
ism. I contend that urban expressionism combines mutually sustaining urban and
Park City essays but after· I had begun to investigate the intersection of contempo-
aesthetic discourses to perform two depoliticizing roles: Berlin emerges as the ex-
rary urban and aesthetic discourses. The essay applies this investigation to modern
emplar of an urban condition understood as universal and transhistorical, and ex-
art history, demonstrating how the discipline's traditional isolation from urban
pressionism appears as the epitome of art's capacity to transcend social life.
scholarship, coupled with its empiricist bias and idealist presuppositions, set the
"Representing Berlin'~ also contains interpretations of two artworks by Lou-
stage for the neutralization of urban sites in 1980s art discourse. The essay, ex-
ise Lawler and Hans Haacke that present alternative, politicized ways of engaging
tended for this book, was first presented at a symposium organized in 1985 by the
urban contexts. Unlike the new public art, these works do not collaborate in the
"' London Royal Academy of Arts in conjunction with the exhibition "German Art
design of the redeveloped city. Unlike neoexpressionist city painting, they do not
in the 20th Century." The exhibition represented expressionism as the national
seek to transcend urban social conditions. On the contrary, they draw attention to
artistic style of modern Germany and associat7d it with the country's liberation
those conditions. But they do not reduce art's social meaning to a simple reflection
from Nazi and foreign domination. In this way, it also invented a pedigree for
of"external" social reality, a model that leaves art per se politically neutral. Instead,
German neoexpressionist painting that had emerged in the late 1970s and early
they employ spatial tactics developed in postmodern art-site-specificity, institu-
1980s. But to many critics neoexpressionism was neither new nor emancipatory.
tional critique, critiques of representation-to reveal the social relations that con-
Rather, it embodied a regression to conventional artistic forms and ideals of aes-
stitute both aesthetic and urban spaces.
thetic autonomy-ideals that had recently been challenged by new contextual art
In 1971, nearly a decade before the expressionist revival, Haacke produced
practices governed by the principle that an artwork's meaning is socially con-
two works that in retrospect can be seen as forerunners of site-specific .art that
structed and inseparable from the historical conditions of its existence.
addresses both urban and aesthetic sites, 3 Haacke's works, created for his upcoming
"Representing Berlin" contributes to the critique of neoexpressionism's re-
exhibition at New York's Guggenheim Museum, exposed the covert operations of
treat from the social, as exhibited in expressionist paintings of the city. In "Krzysz-
New York's real-estate industry, which shapes the use and appearance of urban

xvi
xvii
 iNTU()DUCTION INTUODUCT!ON

space. But Haacke's "real-estate pieces" posed a powerful threat to one of New the challenges posed by new political practices built on partial critiques and aims.
York's most prestigious aesthetic spaces. After seeing plans for the works, the Gug- While the texts in "The Social Production of Space" draw upon critical urban
genheim's director canceled Haacke's exhibition. This incident is the topic of geography to intervene in aesthetic discourses that legitimate the capitalist produc-
"Property Values: Hans Haacke, Real Estate and the Museum." The essay was tion of space, the "Men in Space" essays. examine the politics of radical geography's
written in 1985 for the catalogue accompanying what became, given the Guggen- construction of spatial politics. Using ideas about representation generated by cul-
heim cancellation, Haacke's first one-person show in a New York City museum. tural theory, they criticize geography's own production and maintenance of a mas-
The Guggenheim's director argued that the "specificity" of the real-estate pieces culinist space. Written between 1990 and 1993, the essays present a feminist
was incompatible with the museum's identity as an aesthetic domain standing contestation of this space.
above social conflicts. I contend that this censorship shows how the museum's The title essay of the section, "Men in Space," appeared soon after the publi-
presumed autonomy is actually a contingent relationship of exclusion-the mu- cation of Harvey's and Soja's books. It link<; these books to the work on art and
seum is endowed with a universal aesthetic essence by repressing the social conflicts the politics of space by cultural critics Jameson and T. J. Clark. I argue that what
that constitute its very conditions. Drawing analogies between the fetishizat:ion of unites these scholars in a new interdisciplinary formation is their rejection of issues
city and museological spaces, "Property Values" reevaluates the Guggenheim epi- of sexuality and gender and their marginalization of feminist social analysis. "Men
sode in light of the collabor~tive relationships between art institutions and New in Space" asserts that the repression of feminism is a structural, not an incidental,
York real estate in the 1980s. element of the group's foundationalist social theory and unitarian epistemology.
These writers conceive of society as an impartial totality integrated by an economic
foundation. They believe that a single antagonism-class-embodies the antago-
nistic character of the social totality. Consequently, only one theory-Marxism-
The book's second section, "Men in Space," responds to new problems raised by can adequately account for social relations of subordination. My essay uses feminist
a form of urban-aesthetic interdisciplinarity generated by an influential group of ideas about the politics of images to challenge these claims. While authors like
nee-Marxist geographers and cultural critics. The alliance between the two dis- Clark measure artistic images of the city against an external urban reality, feminist
ciplines was anticipated in Fredric Jameson's well-known 1984 essay, "Postmod- theories treat visual images as themselves social relations-representations produc-
ernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism." The alliance was launched ing meanings and constructing identities for viewing subjects. "Men in Space"
decisively in 1989 when two critical geographers, David Harvey and Edward Soja, suggests that the image of a coherent social space perpetuated in the new urban-
published books about postmodernism, marking the entry of urban studies into aesthetic discourse is a fantasy that harbors its own spatial politics. Elevating the
debates about postmodem culture. Jameson's and Harvey's critique of contempo- subject of the image to a vantage point from which he can supposedly "see" the
rary culture, like the essays in the first section of my book, is ba.sed on theories social totality, it relegates different perspectives to subordinate .or invisible
about the social production of space. But instead of drawing parallels between positions.
critical spatial theories and critical postmodern art, these writers employ politicized "Boys Town," a critique of Harvey's The Condition ofPostmodernity, elaborates
spatial discourse to define postmodern art forms as an escape from politics. I argue on the analysis begun in "Men in Space." The earlier article originally appeared in
that Harvey and Jameson enlist the social production of space discourse to protect an art magazine while "Boys Town" was written first as a lecture and then as an
the space of traditional left political projects, based on ideas of social totality, against essay for an audience of geographers and urban scholars, obligating me to survey

xviii xix
 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION

the history and key issues of contemporary art that I felt Harvey had distorted or interrogate the field's objectivist claims. Contemporary spatial theory, the essay
ignored. This interdisciplinary responsibility gave me an opportunity to demon- concludes, does not, as its practitioners who cite noir assume, simply penetrate
strate how the very postmodern art practices that Harvey condemns as nonpoliti- deceptive appearances to uncover urban reality. Rather, it too is a spatial produc-
cal-critiques of visual representation-offer an important politicJI challenge to tion: it sets up, and simultaneously detaches itself from, images of the city and of
his social theory, which he models on vision. space that define a masculine subject.
"Boys Town" examines the spatial politics implicit in Harvey's contention
that postmodernism's valorization of "fragmentation" and difference conceals the
totality of late-capitalist space and therefore jeopardizes the possibility of emanci-
patory struggles. For Harvey, new intellectual currents that start from· different The fmal section, "Public Space and Democracy," goes back to questions about
points of social analysis or that identify new objects of political study are complicit public art and public space raised in the fust part of the book-questions that have
with capitalism's concealment of social reality. I argue that when Harvey claims to become more prevalent .among art, arc~itecture, and urban critics in the 1990s.
perceive an absolute basis of social unity, he must refuse to acknowledge the politi- What does the term public mean now? Tlte concluding ~ssays reconsider this ques-
cal contribution of art informed by feminist theories of representation. For femi- tion in light of the ideas about foundationalism, subjectivity, and sexual difference
nists have analyzed the foun.dationalist image of society as a fiction of subjects explored in the previous section. They do not abandon the earlier critique ofbour-
driven by a desire to disavow their own partial and fragmented condition. 4 geois-concepts of the public-notions that protect the exclusionary rights of pri-
"Chinatown, Part Four? What Jake Forgets about Downtown" responds to vate property and legitimate state control of urban spaces-although, with the help
two articles by urban spatial theorists: Mike Davis's "Chinatown, Part Two? The of theorists of radical democracy, they problematize this critique. They continue to
'Internationalization' of Downtown Los Angeles" and Derek Gregory's "Chi- stress the importance of disputing conservative ideas of democracy that, in de-
natown, Part Three? Soja and the Missing Spaces of Social Theory." My Chinatown fending public space as a universal realm to be shielded from politics, attempt to
essay explores the references to film noir and descriptions of urban scholars as rally popular c-onsent to authoritarian forms of power. But these essays also ques-
hard-boiled detectives currently popular in critical urban discourse-especially in tion the authoritarianism of certain leftist redefinitions of public space as a "public
Davis's City of Quortz, a cultural history of Los Angeles. Why, I ask, do neo-Marxist sphere"-the very domain of democratic politics.
urban scholars, who completely detach the study of space from questions of sexual- In "Tilted Arc and the Uses of Democracy," I use the notorious controversy
ity, so readily compare their work with noir-a genre that links the dangers of the over the removal of Richard Serra's Tilted Arc (1981) from Manhattan's Federal
city with the sexuality of femmes fatales? I suggest that the absence of questions of Plaza in 1989 to examine contemporary aesthetic debates about the meaning of
sexuality in urban discourse is the first clue to their presence. p:ublic space. The essay, written as a review of a book documenting the Tilted Arc
The essay argues that urban theory's invocation of noir to support its claim incident, concentrates on the rhetoric of democracy mobilized by opponents and
to objectivity and to reinforce its avoidance of issues of subjectivity demonstrates supporters.of Serra's sculpture. Botlt sides, like all defenders of public space, pre-
urban theory's resistance to contemporary cultural criticism and is, moreover, a sented themselves as promoters of democracy. I defend Serra's left-wing advocates
symptom of its underlying preoccupation with sexuality. Treating urban studies agai!l-st the charge of elitism leveled against them by neoconservatives, who, in a
not as a discourse that simply explains culture but as itself a form of culture, "Chi- textbook example of what Stuart Hall calls "authoritarian populism;' used the
natown, Part Four?" uses ideas about noir developed in feminist film theory to Tilted Arc debate as an opportunity to endorse cultural privatization and to justifY

= xxi
I
! lNTRODUCTl()N iNTR()OUCTION

state censorship of critical art in the name of the people's right to public space. I public is not settled by equating public space with political space. Rather, a new
also support what I consider to be the democratic possibilities of site-specific art question arises: Which politics?
against conservative definitions that make site-specificity consistent with the con- I approach this question by comparing two critical concepts of the political
cealment, rather than the questioning, of power in public art's urban sites. But public sphere. One is based on a strict division between an abstract, universalist
"Tilted Arc and the Uses of Democracy" also argues that, faced with an onslaught public and a private arena of conflicting, partial interests. Champions of this con-
of conservative democratic rhetoric, the sculpture's defenders made few efforts to cept treat public space as a realm of social plenitude that has declined-even van-
articulate concepts of democracy, public art, or public space in more radical direc- ished-in a "postmodern" epoch of conflict, heterogeneity, and particularity. A
tions. I link this failure to the left's reluctance to abandon myths of the "great contrasting position holds that a unitary public space is not "lost," but is, instead,
artist" -now reincarnated as "the exemplary political artist" -and its continuing what critic Bruce Robbins (borrowing from diverse theorists of the public) calls a
attachment to vanguardist attitudes as incompatible with- democratic principles as "phantom." In this view, the singular public space is a phantom because its claim
j

!
are conservative notions of democracy. I conclude that art critics who want to to be fully inclusive has always been an illusion. What is more, the very notion of
defend public space should take a harder look at the question of democracy. an undivided social space is irremediably deceptive, constituted by disavowing plu-
1
"Agoraphobia" takes up this question, placing aesthetic debates about public rality and conflict.
i
j
j
space within the context of broader struggles over the meaning of democracy. The struggle between these competing conceptions of public space is re-
While some of the ideas in this essay were introduced in an earlier article, I have phrased in current debates about art's publicness. Some critics call for the recovery
expanded and restructured them into a virtually new text that examines conserva- of an artistic public sphere modeled on Enlightenment ideals _of a political public.
tive, liberal, and leftist redefinitions of the tenn public. The essay has two principal In this unified public space, impartial citizens rise above particularity and conflict,
objectives. First, it brings new theories of "radical and plural democracy" to bear dedicating themselves to reaching consensus about the common good through the
on current thought about what makes art public. Although public art discourse has exercise of reason. In contrast, art informed by feminist critiques of vision implic-
lI' so far paid little direct attention to these theories, the issues they raise are already itly casts doubt on the citizen of the classical public sphere by exposing how the
present at the very heart of controversies over aesthetic politics. I then intervene impartial subject is a masculiriist fiction whose wholeness is secured by mastering
in a particular controversy, disputing a suggestion made by certain leftist critics that difference and otherness. I liken this art to critiques of modern political theory
art informed by feminist ideas about subjectivity in visual representation is irrele- undertaken from the ·point of view that the modern idea of the citizen must be
vant, even a danger, to art's participation in what these critics call public space. I reworked if democracy is to be extended. These critiques hold that the impartial
argue that feminist critiques, which explore the public rather than private nature citizen, far from an autonomous being, is constructed by the very object from
of vision and subjectivity, are crucial to the growth of a different and, to my mind, which he claims detachment: he can develop only in the presence of "society" set
more democratic public space. up as an object that, unified by an absolute foundation, itself transcends partiality-
Over the last decade, radical cultural critics have counteracted neutralizing a complete totality. From the standpoint of radical democracy, however, this image
conceptions of the public by defining public space as a public sphere-an arena in of society is incompatible with democratic values. For, as the political philosopher
which citizens engage in political activity-and by redefining public art as work Claude Lefort proposes, democracy is invented when references to an uncondi-
that enters or helps create such a space. But the question of the meaning of the tional basis of social unity are abandoned. Without an underlying positivity, society

xxii xxiii
 iNTRODUCTION

cannot be internally complete. Rather, its identity becomes an enigma and is I

therefore open to limitless debate-a debate that is coterminous with public space.
I conclude that art critics who advocate a return to the ideal of a unitary THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE
public sphere try to recuperate the masculinist subject and, in so doing, hide from
the very openness of public space that they ostensibly champion. To this end, they
cast art informed by feminist critiques of subjectivity into privacy, dismissing it as
inimical to political public space. The eviction of feminist critiques from the artistic
public sphere has something in corrunon with all of the evictions explored in this
book. It seeks to protect a space-in this case the space of politics-whose coher-
ence, it is imagined, precedes representation. In my final essay, ":Agoraphobia:' I
argue that this search can lead in authoritarian directions. When space is pictured
as a closed entity, conflicts-and social groups associated with conflict-appear as
disturbances that enter space from the outside and must be expelled to restore
harmony. Against nostalgic images of space that externalize and delegitimate con-
flict, "Agoraphobia" streSses the importance of remembering that we cannot re-
cover what we never had. Social space is produced and structured by conflicts.
With this recognition, a democratic spatial politics begins.

xxiv
T
KRZYSZTOF 'WODICZKO's HOMELESS PROJECTION AND THE
SITE OF URBAN "REVITALIZATION"

In The City Observed: A Guide to the Architecture q[Manhattart, Paul Goldberger con-
cludes his historical survey of Union Square with the following observation:

For all that has gone wrong here, there are still reminders within the
square itself of what a grand civic environment this once was. There
are bronze fountains and some of the city's finest statuary. The best of
the statues are Henry Kirke Brown and John Quincy Ward's eques-
trian statue of Washington, with a Richard Upjohn base, and Karl
Adolf Donndorf's mother and children atop a bronze fountain base.
There is also an immense flagstaff base, 9Yz feet high and 36 feet in
diameter, with bas-reliefs by Anthony de Francisci symbolizing the
forces of good and evil in the Revolutionary War; even if a derelict is
relieving himself beside it! it has a rather maJestic presence. 1

This use of a homeless person as a foil for the aesthetic merits of a sculptural base
and for the nostalgic visions evoked by civic monuments will hardly surprise any-
one familiar with Goldberger's apologies for the luxury condominiums, lavish cor-
porate headquarters, and high-rent office towers that proliferated in New York
City throughout the 1980s. Goldberger was then senior architecture critic of the
 THE SOCIAL Pl.tOOUCTlON OF SPACE HOMELESS PRO]EC'fiON ANO THE SiTE OF URBAN "R~VITALIZATION"

New York Times and, like his account of the Union Square monuments, his journal- romance of, in the first case, the skyscraper, and, in the second, the historical
istic appraisals of the decade's profitable new buildings remained indifferent to monument.
urban social conditions, divorcing them from the circumstances of architectural The City Observed appeared in 1979, only a few years before "derelicts;'
production. Goldberger never mentioned the fact that the architects of New York's along with other members of a "socially undesirable population," 5 were evicted
construction boom not only scorned the glaring need for new public housing but from Union Square by a massive program of urban redevelopment. Like all such
relentlessly eroded the existing low-income housing stock, thereby destroying the episodes in the most recent New York real-estate boom, this one forcibly "relo-
conditions of survival for hundreds of thousands of the city's .poorest residents. cated" many of the area's lower-income tenants and threatened others with a per-
Detaching himself from questions of housing and focusing on what he deemed manent loss of housing. The publication of Goldberger's guide coincided with the
proper architectural concerns, he also impeded the more basic recognition that the preparatory stage of the redevelopment plan, and the book shares prominent fea-
destruction of low-income housing was no accidental by-product of the decade's tures of the planning mentality that engineered Union Square redevelopment and
architectural expansionism but was, along with unemployment and cuts in social of the public relations campaign that legitimated it: aesthetic appreciation of the
services, an essential component of the economic imperatives that motivated the architecture and urban design of the neighborhood coupled with sentimental ap-
new construction in the first place. peals for the restoration of selected chapters of the area's hi~tory.
But the architecture 9iscourse exemplified by Goldberger's journalism ob- The thematic resemblance between the book and the planning documents
scures the urban context most effectively not when it turns its back on the city is no mere coincidence. It vividly illustrates how instrumental aesthetic ideologies
altogether but when it professes "social responsibility" in the form of a concern can be for the powerful forces determining the use, appearance, and ownership of
for the city's physical environment. Intermittently, for instance, Goldberger ad- New York's urban spaces and for the presentation of their activities as the restora-
dressed the substantial threat that the construction of the 1980s posed to New tion of a glorious past. For Goldberger, "Union Square's past is more interesting
York's light, air, and open space. To meet this threat, however, he espoused a than its present. Now the square is just a dreary park, one of the least relaxing
concept of urban planning that, far from offering a solution, was itself a consider- green spaces in Manhattan." 6 Invariably, the reports, proposals, and statements is-
able part of the city's social problems. 2 Asserting that the critical factors in develop- sued by New York's Department of City Planning, the City Parks Commission,
ment projects are the size, height, bulk, density, and style of buildings in relation and municipal officials about the various phases and branches of Union Square
to their immediate physical sites, Goldberger disregarded architecture's political redevelopment also reminisced about the square's glorious history and lamented its
and economic sites. True, he conceded in passing that "architecture has now come sharply contrasting present predicament. As one typical survey put it: "For the
to be a selling point in residential real estate as much as it has in commercial." 3 most part, the park today is a gathering place for indigent men whose presence
But this recognition did not prevent him from aiding the destruction of housing further tends to discourage others from enjoying quiet moments inside the walled
and communities by aestheticizing the real-estate function of current construction open space." 7 These texts paid no attention to the future of Union Square's dis-
much as he did the commercial function of the early twentieth-century sky- placed homeless. Neither did they consider the prospects for new homeless people
scraper.4 In short, he made common cause with contemporary development for produced by the mass evictions and increase in property values caused by redevel-
the rich and privileged using the same rationale that authorized his description of opment. Instead, they conjured a past that never existed. Narratives recounting
the sculptural treasures of Union Square: celebration of the essential power and vaguely defined historical periods stressed the late-nineteenth-century moment of

4 5
 THE SociAL PRODUCTION oF SPACE HOMELESS PIIOJE(;TION AND THE SITE OF URBAN "REV!TALlZATI()N"

Union Square's history, when it was first a wealthy residential neighborhood and the contrary, the mutability of. their language and calls attention to the changing
then a fashionable commercial district, part of the increasingly well known (thanks uses to which they are put as they are continually recast in new historical circum-
to a wave of museum exhibitions, media reports, and landmark preservation cam- stances and social frameworks.
paigns) "Ladies' Mile."fl Redevelopers were most eager to revive this presumably While the architecture and urban discourses circulating in jour~alism such
elegant and genteel era, and aesthetic discourse helped them construct a distorted as Goldberger's and in the documents produced by New York's official urban-
architecture and design history of the area, offering reassuring illusions of a contin- planning professionals manufactured an aesthetic disguise for revitalization, The
uous and stable tradition symbolized by transcendent aesthetic forms. The history Homeless Projection dramatically interferes with that image, restoring the viewer's
of Union Square, it is said, lies before our eyes in its architectural remains. Using ability to perceive the connections that these discourses sever or cosmeticize-
the same methods that smoothed the way for the design and execution of redevel- the links that place the interrelated disciplines of architecture, urban design, and,
opment, reconstmcted histories such as Goldberger's take readers on a tour of the increasingly, art in the service of the fmancial forces that shape New York's built
area's buildings, monuments, and "compositions." 9 environment. Further, the clear ethical imperative behind the work's intervention
Krzysztof Wodiczko's Homeless Projection: A Proposal for the City cf New York in contemporary urban struggles contrasts sharply with the dominant architectural
interrupts this "journey-in-fiction." 10 Using the same terrain and the same "sig- system's preferred stance of"corporate moral detachment." 12
nificant" architectural la~dmarks, Wodiczko's public artwork takes a radically Wodiczko entered the arena of New York housing politics when he
different position within the politics of urban space. Its form: site-specific, tempo- mounted an exhibition in a New York art gallery. The Homeless Projection exists
rary, collaborative with its audience; its subject matter: the capitulation of architec- only as a proposal first presented at 49th Parallel, Centre for Contemporary Cana-
ture to the conditions of the real-estate industry; the content of its images: the dian Art, in the winter of1986. Consisting of four montaged slide images projected
fearful social outcome of that alliance. These qualities render The Homeless Projection onto the gallery's walls and a written statement by the artist distributed in an ac-
useless to those forces taking possession of Union Square in order to exploit it for companying brochure, the proposal outlined a plan for the transformation of
profit. They militate also against the work's neutralization by aesthetic institutions. Union Square Park. Wodiczko's exhibition coincided with the unfolding of the
Instead of fostering an unreflective consumption of past architectural forms to oil redevelopment scheme that was actually transforming Union Square, opening sev-
the mechanism of urban "revitalization," the project identifies the system of eco- eral months after the completion of the first phase of the park restoration-the
nomic and political power operating in New York beneath what the artist once ideological centerpiece and economic precondition of the district's revitalization.
called "the discreet camouflage of a cultural and aesthetic 'background.' " 11 Erod- Such drastic changes in the built environment are engineered by institutionalized
ing the aura of isolatio·n that idealist aesthetics constmcts around architectural urban planning. "What has been of fundamental importance," writes a critic of the
forms, The Homeless Projection also-by placing those forms within a broad and history of town planning, "is the role of the project, that is of imagination." 1;,
multivalent context-dismantles the even more obscurantist urban discourse that These projects mobilize vision and memory. No matter how objectifying their
relates individual buildings to the city construed only as a physical environment. language, they are, by virtue of their selective focuses, boundaries, and exclusions,
Wodiczko's project reinserts architectural objects into the surrounding city under- also ideological statements about the problems of and solutions fQr their sites. Since
stood as a site of economic, social, and political processes. Consequently, it contests The Homeless Projection's potential location was a target of the pervasive and calcu-
the belief that monumental buildings are stable, transcendent, permanent structures lated urban process of redevelopment, Wodiczko's photographic and textual pre-
containing essential and universal meanings. The Homeless Projection proclaims, on sentation in a space of aesthetic display-the art gallery-recalled the visual and

6 7
 HOMElESS PPOJEC'I'lON AND THE SITE OV URBAN "REVITALIZATION"
THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION Of SPACE

KrzysztofWodiczko, The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for the City if New York, 1986, Lafuyette
Monument, Union Square Park (photo courtesy KrzysztofWodiczko and Galerie Lelong).

KrzysztofWodiczko, The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for the City of New York, 1986, Abraham
Lincoln Monument, Union Square Park (photo courtesy KrzysztofWodiczko and Galerie
Lelong).

8 9
 THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE HOMELESS PROJECTION AND THE SITE Of. URBAN "REVl'fALIZATION"

KrzysztofWodiczko, The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for the City of New York, 1986, Mother
and Child Fountain, Union Square Park (photo courtesy KrzysztofWodiczko and Galerie
Lelong).

KrzysztofWodiczko, The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for the City of New York, 1986, George
Washington Monument (photo courtesy KrzysztofWodiczko and Galerie Lelong).

10 II
 THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE HOMELESS PROJECTION AND THE SITE ()F URBAN "REVlTAI.lZAT!ON"

written forms of city planning. Like the official proposals generated by the teams status groups by middle-class groups as beneficial by definition." 15 "Revitalization"
of engineers, landscape architects, designers, demographers, sociologists, and ar- conceals the very existence of those inhabitants already living in the frequently
chitects who shaped Union Square's renovation, Wodiczko's presentation envi- vital neighborhoods targeted for renovation. The term most routinely mobilized
sioned alterations to its prospective site and set forth the principles and objectives to designate urban changes was ''gentrification," which, coined in London in the
governing the proposaL Unlike such documents, however, The Homeless Projection 1960s, does suggest the class interests at work in the process. In New York, how-
offered no suggestions for enduring physical changes to the area under study. In- ever, the term was used primarily in a celebratory spirit, and, in any case, it mis-
stead, the artist disclosed a plan to appropriate temporarily the public space o( identifies the gentrifYing classes as a landed aristocracy.
Union Square Park for a performance in the course of which he would project Where explanations of revitalization and gentrification existed at all, they
transient images onto the newly refurbished surfaces of the four neoclassical monu- were generally formulated out of the concepts, values, and beliefs espoused by the
ments that occupy symmetrical positions on each side of the park. Yet imperma- financial institutions, politicians, corporations, real-estate developers, landlords,
nence is not the only quality distinguishing Wodiczko's proposal from official and upper-middle-class residents who benefited from the process. At their most
projects. There is another, more crucial difference between the two: mainstream self-serving-and in the form most widely disseminated in the mass media-such
planning claims that its proposals will restore a fundamental social harmony that accounts repressed the social origins, functions, and effects of gentrification, pre-
has been disrupted while Wodiczko's project illuminates the prevailing social rela- senting it as the heroic act of individuals. "When an area becomes ripe for gentri-
tions of domination and conflict that such planning both facilitates and disavows. fication," New York's former housing commissioner explained,

THE IMAGE 0!' REDEVELOPMENT a condition that cannot be rigorously identified in advance but seems
to depend on the inscrutable whims of an invisible hand, the new
The Homeless Projection was a proposal for a work to be situated in Union Square, purchasers face monumental tasks. First the building must be emptied.
but the work's subtitle, ''A Proposal for the City of New York;' suggests that Union Then layers of paint must be scraped from fine paneling; improvised
Square was only a detenninate location of an urban phenomenon extending far partitions must be removed; plumbing must be installed and heating
beyond the immediate area. Indeed, the transformation of Union Square from a ripped out and replaced. Sometimes the new buyers spend years under
deteriorated yet active precinct consisting of a crime-ridden park, low-rent off1ce pioneering conditions. 16
buildings, inexpensive stores, 14 and single-room occupancy hotels into a lux-
ury "mixed-use" neighborhood-commercial, residential, retail-was only an Not all descriptions were so blatantly misleading. But those that specified or even
individual manifestation of an unprecedented degree of change in the class criticized gentrification's social effects tended to be superficial, impressionistic, or
composition of New York neighborhoods. The concluding phases of these meta- eclectic rather than grounded in an understanding of the specific f.:tctors governing
morphoses-following the preliminary and calculated stages of abandonment, ne- patterns of urban growth and change.
glect, and deterioration-were identified in the early 1980s by a constellation of By the middle of the decade, however, some efforts had been made to "iden-
inaccurate, confusing, and distorting terms. Overtly falsifYing was the overarching tify rigorously" the structural elements that prepare the ground for gentrification
rubric "revitalization," a word whose positive connotations reflect nothing other and to ascertain precisely whose needs regulate the restructuring of urban space
than "the sort of middle-class ethnocentrism that views the replacement of low- within which gentrifiCation was playing a leading role. These new theories were

12 13
 THE $OCIAL PRODUCTION 01' SPACE HOMELESS PROJECTION AND THE $1TE OF URl:lAN "REVJTALIZATJON"

based on the premise that the physical form of the cityscape is inseparable from tion within the larger transformations taking place in central cities. In so doing,
the specific society in which it develops. The wholesale reorganization of urban they closely follow the detailed study of capitalist urbanization made by David
space represents, then, no mere surface phenomenon. It is part of a full-scale social Harvey, a geographer who has tried to understand the factors propelling the flow of
restructuring. In 1984, trying to place gentrification within the context of this capital into the built environment of the city during particular economic periods. 19
broader restntcturing, Neil Smith and Michele LeFaivre developed a "Class Analy- Harvey apPlies to urban processes Marx's critique of the contradictions of capitalist
sis of Gentrification." 17 By contrast with notions of "inscmtable whims" and accumulation and a Marxist analysis of the ways in which capitalism attempts to
"invisible hands," the authors examined a systematic combination of economic ensure its own survivaL He thus emphasizes capitalism's tendency toward overac-
processes-a devalorization cycle of declining real-estate values-through which cumulation, a crisis that occurs when the production of capital in certain sectors
inner-city neighborhoods have been historically developed into deteriorated areas of the economy exceeds opportunities to employ it at the average rate of profit.
in order to create the necessary conditions for gentrification. Taking place within Manifested in falling rates of profit, overproduction, surplus capital, surplus labor,
the wider periodicity of capitalist expansion, the devalorization cycle-consisting or greater exploitation oflabor, overaccumulation crises can be temporarily solved
of new construction, landlord control, blockbusting, redlining, and abandon- by switching investment into other sectors of the economy. Harvey views extensive
ment-produces a situation in which a developer's investment can yield a maxi- investment in the built environment as a symptom of such crisis-"a kind oflast-
mum profit. Profit maximization depends on the existence of a substantial gap ditch hope for finding productive uses for rapidly over-accumulating capital." 20
between the current capitalization of real estate in a specific location and the po- Because real-estate investment entails long-term, large-scale projects, the (short-
tential return on investment: "When this rent gap becomes sufficiently wide to lived) success of the attempt requires the mediation of financial and state
enable a developer to purchase the old structure, rehabilitate it, make mortgage institutions.
and interest payments, and still make a satisfactory return on the sale or rental of Smith and LeFaivre bring Harvey's conclusions to bear upon contemporary
the renovated building, then a neighborhood is ripe for gentrification." 18 central-city development and gentrification, which they see as a component of
By the authors' own admission, their analysis of the devalorization cycle is capital's strategy of switching investments. To counteract falling rates of profit,
schematic. It must be adjusted to accommodate variations among deyelopment capital moyes into areas such as real estate and construction. Describing gentrifica-
procedures in diverse cities and to account for such variables as conflicting capital tion as "the latest phase in a movement of capital back to the city, " 21 the authors
interests, state interventions, and the emergence of conununity movements. argue persuasively against the prevailing idea that gentrification is a spontaneous
Nonetheless, the analysis destroys the myth that arbitrary, natural, or individual "back-to-the-city" movement on the part of individuals suddenly eager for the
actions produce neglect and abandonment, which are then "corrected" by gentri- excitement of cosmopolitan life.
fication. Rather, abandonment and gentrification are tied together within the logic But the use of city neighborhoods as commodities to be exploited for profit
of an economic system, demonstrating that they are integrally linked products of is only one of their purposes in a capitalist economy. Neighborhoods have also
specific decisions made by the primary actors in the real-estate market-financial traditionally provided the conditions for reproducing labor power. For Smith and
institutions, developers, government, landlords. LeFaivre, gentrification represents the definitive replacement of the latter function
Smith and LeFaivre's description of the real-estate devalorization cycle by the neighborhood's service as a commodity: "The economic function of the
stresses the commodity function of city neighborhoods under capitalism. The au- neighborhood has superseded the broader social function." 22 Yet gentrification
thors emphasize comrnodiftcation even more strongly when they place gentrifica- is itself a means for reproducing labor power. In 1980s New York, the tension

14 15
 THE SoCIAL PI<OOUCT!ON OF SPACE HOMELESS PROJ!lCTION AND THE SITE OF URBAN ''REVITALIZATION"

between the two uses may well have signaled internal capitalist conflicts between tutions and corporate services within them." 25 But in addition to transforming
those interests that required the conditions to maintain the labor force-lower relationships among international and national cities, the new international divi-
paid and part-time service workers in particular-and those that could profit from sion oflabor affects the workforce within the corporate center itself These centers
the destruction of those conditions. Gentrification is, then, a specific historical present limited opportunities for blue-collar jobs, further "'marginalizing' the
instance of a more general contradiction between the imperatives of accumulation lower class which has traditionally found job mobility extremely difficult." 26
and reproduction in the late-capitalist city. In 1984, writing about the new com- As an arm of broader governmental policy, urban planning in New York
mercial art scene then unfolding on New York's Lower East Side, Cara Gendel City began in the 1970s to focus on the needs of the city's new economy-its
Ryan and I situated gentrification within the shifts taking place in the composition corporate-linked activities and workers~and on maximizing real-estate profits.
of the late-capitalist labor force. 23 Citing heavy losses in manufacturing jobs in Simultaneously, it engineered the dispersal of that "immobile" population with no
New York City, unemployment in the industrial sector due to automatization of place in the restructured economy. Bureaucratic procedures and planned develop-
labor, and the concomitant steady growth in jobs in the fmancial, business, and ment programs executed the task. Union Square revitalization was such a program.
service sectors, we reasoned that gentrifiCation was a cntcial part of a strategy for The dose correspondence between its evolution and the unfoldi?g of broad eco-
restructuring the nation's workforce. Coupled with the loss ofblue-collar jobs and nomic trends is clear. In 1976 the area became the object of City Planning Com-
cuts in basic services, it has helped impoverish and disperse the traditional, now mission attention, and in 1984 the final redevelopment plan was approved. During
largely redundant workforce and has allocated urban resources to fulfill the needs these years New York lost more than 100,000 blue-collar jobs and gained over
of the city's corporate workers. twice as many in the finance, insurance, and other business industries. These
Changes in the nation's labor force were conditioned and modified by a changes, which had been accelerating since the 1950s, were reflected in the Union
global reorganization oflabor that had accelerated since the 1970s. Global restruc- Square area. That period, especially the phase between 1970 and 1980, saw an
turing has had profound ramifications for urban spatial organization on a variety of exodus ofhght-manufacturing companies from the district's lofts, which were sub-
levels. As a system for arranging production on a global scale, the new international sequently converted to more profitable residential and commercial uses compatible
division of labor entails the transfer by multinational corporations of labor- with the city's new economic base. Although it is difficult to furnish accurate fig-
intensive and productive activities elsewhere, often to third-world countries, and ures for Union Square itself, since the area includes portions of four separate census
the intense concentration of corporate headquarters in a few international centers. tracts, the neighborhood's middle-class residential population substantially in-
Enhancing flexibility and control over vastly extended operations, strategies are creased. By the early 1980s, 51 percent were employed in the service industries
formulated, managerial decisions made, and fmancing administered from the global and 43 percent in wholesale and retail businesses, while other employment sectors
cities. To qualify as such an international center of business a city must possess, showed "less growth." 27 The disparity in employment possibilities indicates that
first, a high proportion of headquarters of corporations doing the majority of their New York's period of economic prosperity and resurgent business expansion was,
business in foreign sales, and, second, a centralization of international banks and in truth, an era of intense class polarization. According to a report prepared by the
international corporate-related services: law, accounting, and advertising firrns. 24 Regional Plan Association and based on 1980 census data, 17 percent of the New
By the late 1970s in the United States only New York and San Francisco had York area's upper-income households accounted for more than 40 percent of the
emerged as such international centers where "even the international activities of area's total income, while 42 percent-those with incomes under $15,000~ac­
firms headquartered outside these cities were increasingly linked to fmancial insti- counted for only 14 percent of that income." (By 1983, in New York City itself,

16 17
 THE SoCIAL PRODUCTION 01' SPACE HOMELESS PROJECTION AND '!'HE SITE OF URBAN "REVITALIZATION"

those with incomes under $15,000 constituted over 46 percent of the popula- From its inception, Union Square redevelopment was conceived and exe-
tion.29) The report sunnised that "the economic outlook for hundreds of thousands cuted under the aegis ofhistoric preservation, restoration of architectural tradition,
of poorly educated, low-income residents throughout the New York area, stretch- and reinforcement of the existing urban context. These concepts dominated public
ing from Trenton to New Haven, is growing more bleak." 30 discourse about the redevelopment scheme and the narrower aspects of the
The objectives and effects of New York's redevelopment programs can be decision-making process. The four bronze monuments in Union Square Park-
accurately assessed only within the framework of this larger urban development. refurbished and rendered newly visible-incarnate the attempt to preserve tradi-
The City Planning Conunission, however, did the opposite. During this period, it tional architectural appearances in order to deliver Union Square into the hands
started to constrict its vision by employing a strategy that the Board of Estimate of major real-estate developers and expedite luxury development. In fact, the patri-
would eventually codifY under the name "contextual planning." Further, the com- otic statues became a useful symbol to the proponents of revitalization as early as
mission pinpointed this time of extreme class polarization, wrenching economic 1976, when the Department of City Planning received a $50,000 "City Options"
restructuring, and social dislocation of the poor-most evident in the forced mo- grant, part of a New York City Bicentennial Project, from the National Endow-
bility of people without homes-as the moment when the city finally began to be ment for the Arts. The grant was "to produce designs that would improve city
conserved, stabilized, and protected from radical change as well as from the radical life." After consulting with the community board, elected officials, businessmen,
impositions of modernist arc.hitectural concepts. Advised by the architects, urban "civic leaders;' and other city agencies, the planning department published a report
designers, planners, and engineers who staff the Department of City Planning, the entitled Union Square: Street Revitalization, the first exhibit in the case history of
commission modified its zoning regulations, bureaucratic methods, and physical Union Square redevelopment. This report became the basis for the Union Square
design orientations to "guide" development by the principle of responsiveness to Special Zoning District Proposal, originally released in November 1983, revised in
the needs of particular city environments. It pursued a design path directed toward June 1984, and, after passing the city's review procedure, adopted later that year.
the historic preservation of existing circumstances. With relief, one architect and The final redevelopment plan fulfilled the primaty goals and followed many of
urban planner for the city praised the preservationist outlook: the specific recommendations outlined in Union Square: Street Revitalization. In
applying for the City Options grant, the planning department selected four "his-
The urban aesthetic of associational harmony is reasserting itself under toric" neighborhoods as the object of its study and design proposals. Its ambition,
the banner of cultural stability. The mercurial rise to prominence and the application stated, was preservation: "Cities contain many centers and commu-
power of the urban preservationist movement has helped to fuel this nities rich in history and a sense of place. We seek to develop prototypical tech-
change in direction. Preservation of both our most valued urban arti- niques by which the particular character of these areas can be reinforced so as to
facts, whether they be the conventionalized row houses of Brooklyn assist in their preservation through increased safety, use and enjoyment." 33 Among
Heights or the sumptuous dissonance of the New York Public Library the strategies developed to "capitalize on existing elements worthy of preserva-
is an important, if not vital, contribution to our sense of emotional tion" 34 was the first suggestion for improving the park: "Restore the center flag-
well-being. 31 pole, a memorial to the 150th anniversary of the United States, which features the
Declaration of Independence engraved in bronze." 35
This redevelopment-the resurgence of tradition and the emergence of a restricted The cover of Union Square: Street Revitalization capitalized on another Union
and spectacularized notion of cultural preservation-helped smooth over violent Square monument and patriotic event, reproducing an engraving from a
disturbances in the city's sociallife. 32 nineteenth-century copy of Harper's Weekly captioned "The Great Meeting in

18 19
 HOM[:f,EJS$ PRO}<:CTION AND THE S!TE Of URBAN "REVITALIZATION"
THE SoCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE

Union Square, New York, To Support the Government, April 20, 1861." The
print depicts a crowd of New Yorkers gathered at the base of the colossal equestrian
statue of George ·washington, now ceremonially located at the southern entrance
to the park but then situated on the small island at the park's eastern perimeter.
The illustration evokes a brief time during the Civil War when Union Square
became a meeting place for a public believed to be unified by nationalist sentiment.
Loyal citizens repeatedly rallied around the Washington statue listening to speeches
by Mayor Opdyke and letters of endorsement from the governor, president, and
other officials. Newspapers describe the patriotic, unified spirit of these crowds:

The great war-meeting at Union Square effectually removed the false

impression that the greed of conunerce had taken possession of the
New York community, and that the citizens were willing to secure
peace at the sacrifice of principle .... The patriotism of the citizens
was also indicated by the wrath which that meeting excited at the
South. The Richmond Dispatch said: "New York will be remembered
36
with special hatred by the South, for all time."

Cover of Union Square: Street RetJitalization

The name of the square, originally referring only to its physical position at the
juncture of Broadway and the Bloomingdale Road, was now imbued with conno-
tations of national unity and shared history, dreams that, it was hoped, had come the contradictions between, on the one hand, idealized representations symboliz-
true as a result of the war. 37 The placar~ with the word union occupying dead ing spiritual ideas and the presence of a protective and reassuring authority, and,
center of the Harper!s Weekly print affirms these sentiments. on the other hand, the current realities of starvation and police brutalization of
The survival of this myth of unity helped repress beneath lofty ideals of demonstrators. Halper described Donndorf's mother-and-children fountain on the
communal harmony the more disquieting memories of the conflicts that character- square's west side-where it still stands-as "a dreamy piece of work" facing
ized modern urban society, conflicts visible in Union Square itsel£ Union Square Broadway right near the "free Milk for Babies Fund hut." 38 With similar irony, he
Park, for instance, was the scene of some of America's earliest labor demonstra:.... juxtaposed the "big history" represented by the great men and deeds memorialized
tions, including the New York segment of the first May Day celebration in 1886. in the park's other statues with the historical class struggle, whose skirmishes were
Class divisions would conspicuously reemerge in the 1930s when the square be- then being waged within the square itsel£
came the customary New York site for communist rallies and militant demonstra- But the original intentions behind such monuments, when they were
tions by the unemployed and homeless. In Union Square, published in 1933, erected in American cities in the late nineteenth century, actually corresponds
"proletarian novelist" Albert Halper used the park's heroic monuments to highlight

21
20
 HOMELESS PROJECTION AND THE SITE OF URBAN "REVITALIZATION"
THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION Of SPACil

more closely to their later use by the apparatus of Union Square redevelopment. They targeted public open spaces, such as Union Square Park, as prime locations
As Christine Boyer argues, neoclassical imitations of Greek and Roman sculptures for shaping the desired community, a public realm of cohesive values formed
were designed to conceal social contradictions by uplifting "the individual from through moral influence. "Modern civic art," wrote Charles Mulford Robinson,
the sordidness of reality" through the illusions of order, timelessness, and moral one of its foremost supporters, "finds in the open space an opportunity to call [the
perfection that neoclassicism was supposed to represent. 39 AlthOugh never com- citizens] out-of-doors for other than business purposes, to keep them in fresh air
prising a planned or unified sculptural program, the Union Square monuments and sunshine, and in their most receptive mood to woo them by sheer force of
exemplify the type of strategically positioned sculpture promoted by the beauty to that love and that contentment on which are founded individual and
nineteenth-century municipal art movement-copies of Parisian copies of Greek civic virtue." 42 New York's municipal art specialists consistently lamented that
and Roman landmarks of art ·and architectural history. Decontextualized, invested Union Square was a missed opportunity for such civilizing missions.
with new meanings about America's emerging economiC imperialism and national They were fortunate, however, that the square existed at all. One of the
pride, they were products of the decorative offshoot of the municipal art move- few public squares provided in the 1811 Commissioner's Map that established the
ment, itself part of a widespread attempt in the late nineteenth and early twentieth rectilinear grid plan for "upper" Manhattan above Washington Square, Union
40
centuries to create order and tighten social control in the American city. Inspired Square almost failed to materialize. In 1812 it was recommended that plans for the
by fears of the unplanned ·chaos of urban industrialization, squalor and disease in square be dropped since they would require the use ofland and buildings with high
the slums, extensive immigration, and a wave oflabor disturbances, the notion of real-estate values. Although the project survived these threats and finally opened to
urban planning and design as an instrument that could counteract these threats the public in 1839, greatly enhancing land values in the inunediate vicinity, civic
appeared in nascent form among civic art crusaders. Their activities are, then only art reformers regretted that the park was never properly utilized to create a physi-
one aspect of the effort, as David Harvey describes it, cally-and therefore socially-cohesive public space. One critic proposed that it

l
l
to persuade all that harmony could be established around the basic
institutions of community, a harmony which could function as an anti-
be turned into the civic center of New York:n Another suggested that a proper
and elaborate sculptural program be organized there around the theme and images
of liberty secured by the War of Independence. "Could anything influence more

Il dote to class war. The principle entailed a commitment to community

improvement and a commitment to those institutions such as the
Church and civil government capable of forging community spirit.
forcibly the national pride of our coming generations?" 44 Public statues, embody-
ing social ideals, would, it was hoped, "commemorate in permanent materials the
deeds of great citizens, the examples of national heroes, the causes for civic pride,
II From Chalmers through Octavia Hill and Jane Addams, through the and the incentives to high resolve which are offered by the past." 45 As instruments
for the pacification of an unruly populace, the sculptures, like the street layouts
urban reformers such as Joseph Chamberlain in Britain, the "moral

I
J

'i.
I
!
reformers" in France and the "progressives" in the United States at
the end of the nineteenth century, through to model cities pro-
grammes and citizen participation, we have a continuous thread of
bourgeois response to the problems of civil.strife and social unrest. 41
devised by the municipal art movement, "searched not to transform the contradic-
tions between reality and perfection but for the norms that moral perfection must
follow. " 46 Indeed, when Robinson, who codified municipal art concepts, turned
his attention to conditions in the metropolitan slums, he ignored the problem of
poverty itself, declaring, "With the housing problem civic art, its attention on the
As part of this network, municipal art advocates sought to generate a sense outward aspect of the town, has little further to do." 47
of order and communal feeling through spatial organization and decorative beauty.

22 23
 HOMELESS Pl<()jJ;CTION AND THE S!TE Of URBAN "REV!TAl.lZAT!ON"
THE SoCIAL PRODUCTION Of SPACE

Blinding itself to the most troubling facts of urban life, separating the city's events were reported and in which changes became visible mirrored the termino-
social structure from its "outward aspect;' the municipal art movement only con- logical inaccuracies surrounding urban restmcturing. Mistaking the new residents
tributed to the persistence of the housing problem. By the 1980s, the uses of New of"new" neighborhoods for a lost aristocracy, for example, the term gentrification,
York's civic sculptures-and of the architectural and urban design system that they like the park renovation, participated in the nostalgia that prevailed during the
represent-had everything to do with the housing problem. This is amply con- Reagan years for genteel and aristocratic ways of life, a sentiment fully exploited
firmed by the fate of the Union Square monuments. Surely, the appearance of a and perpetuated by prestigious cultural institutions. The term also yields erroneous
nineteenth-century American imitation of a Roman equestrian statue on the cover perceptions of inner-city change as the rehabilitation of decaying buildings. Rede-
of a late-twentieth-century city-planning proposal for redevelopment during a pe- velopment, by contrast, involves rebuilding, usually after buildings have been razed
riod of fiscal crisis demonstrates the extreme pliability of the monument's meanings and sites cleared. In these aggressive acts, the power of the state and corporate
and functions. Yet the architects of redevelopment (and the copywriters of real- capital is more obvious.
estate advertisements) used the sculpture to shore up the illusions of cultural stabil- In Union Square, the illusion that the park restoration preceded redevelop-
ity, historical continuity, and universal values connoted by such architectural forms. ment plans produced an equally distorted picture. The actual narrative differed
They thus denied that their own acts of preservation are ideologically motivated, considerably from surface impressions. Documents generated during the process
shaped by particular investments, presenting preservation as, instead, a neutral deed indicate the extent to which planning in the area was part of the comprehensive
of cultural rescue. 48 With the title "Union Square: Street Revitalization" unfolding policy adopted by city government following New York's fiscal crisis. The initial
across them, the nineteenth-century print and the George Washington monument survey of Union Square, financed by the City Options grant, took place at a time
were appropriated to embody an idea of urban redevelopment as restoration. The when austerity measures had been imposed on city residents. Union Square: Street
"union" placard promised that coherence and harmony in the public realm would Revitalization completely embraced the popular explanations offered by politicians
adhere to the Union Square created by the .redevelopment project. Similarly, the and fmanciers about the origins of the fiscal crisis-overborrowing, corruption,
monuments themselves, their dirty images cleaned up, layers of grime and graffiti greedy workers and welfare recipients-and accepted the "solutions" justified by
removed from their surfaces as part of the park renovation, were enlisted to project these explanations-cuts in basic services and deferred wage increases. 49 The re-
an image of redevelopment as an act of benign historic preservation. Suffusing all port asserted that "public financing of new [housing] projects must be mled out"
official accounts of Union Square's metamorphosis, this became the classic image in the development of Union Square's housing "frontier." 50 In its place, private
of gentrification, securing consent to and selling the larger package of redevelop- development of housing, as well as of office and retail space, became a panacea.
ment. The aesthetic pre·sentation of the physical site of development is, then, indis- Hopefully, efforts might be made to "enlist the real-estate industry in effort [sicJ to
solubly linked to the profit motives impelling Union Square's revitalization. market new or rehabilitated housing units." 51
But this image of redevelopment can be contested by reconstructing the The report's seemingly neutral, descriptive language concealed its own role
steps taken by the city to create the new Union Square. The fact that the first in executing a brutal solution to a problem larger than Union Square's deteriora-
visible sign of change in the area arrived in the form of the park renovation rein- tion: the incompatibility of the city's new economy and its traditional workforce.
forced the perception of Union Square redevelopment as a beautification program. The solution lay in "attempting to get rid of the poor and take away the better
Media reports, too, focused on the park for ahnost a solid year before there was situated housing stock to reallocate to the workers needed by corporate New
any public indication of more comprehensive activities. The sequence in which York." 52 The same year that Union Square: Street Revitalization appeared, Roger

24 25
"1{

HOMELESS PROJECTION AND THE SITE 01' URBAN "REVITALIZATION"

THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF St>ACE

around Union Square. Admittedly, the report contains no suggestions for provid-
Starr, the city's housing and development administrator during the fiscal crisis, ad-
ing low-income housing but does make some pretense of formulating strategies
vocated the "resettlement" of residents no longer needed in the corporate-oriented
for furnishing moderate-cost housing. The later proposal disregards both. By 1983,
economy. Referring to deteriorated neighborhoods that, he hoped, would be va-
the implications of the original report had become dearer and hardened into pol-
cated by such "relocation;' Starr asserted that "the role of the city planner is not
icy. At the very moment when services to the poor were cut and the assumption
to originate the trend of abandonment but to observe and use it so that public
53 made that no thoughts of public financing of housing could even be entertained,
investment will be hoarded for those areas where it will sustain life." Using Starr's
the government, acting through the Parks Commission and Plannina~ Department '
"empirical" methods, the planning department complied with his prescription.
was directing its funds toward subsidizing the rich.
Redevelopment, then, was hardly a matter of the city enlisting the real-estate in-
The $3.6 million restoration of the park constitutes such a public subsidy.
dustry to fulfill the needs of residents. Rather, real estate and other capital interests
Both the 1973 and 1983 Union Square plans indicate the degree to which the
enlisted city government to supply the conditions to guarantee their profits and
success of redevelopment depended on cleaning up the park's image and trans-
reduce their risks.
forming it into an external housing amenity. An indication of the accuracy of this
The extent of the city's intervention in the housing market on behalf of
prediction is the fact that by the time the restoration was planned and publicized,
corporate prof1ts emerges in its clearest outlines in the 1.983 proposal for redevel-
and, significantly, during the preparation of the final planning department proposal,
opment. The Union Square Special Zoning District Proposal acknowledges that ."Ma~­
the destiny of the area's most important development parcel~the entire city block
hattan-wide market changes in the manufacturing, commercial, and res1denttal
occupied by the abandoned S. Klein department store-was being decided. In
sectors" 54 had brought about changes in the population and land uses of its wider
July 1983 a two-year option to buy the property had been acquired by William
study area: the territory bounded by Twelfth Street to the south, Twentieth Street
Zeckendorf, Jr., New York's most active real-estate developer, particularly in spec-
to the north, Third Avenue to the east, and Fifth Avenue to the west. The proposal
ulation in poor neighborhood lots that were to become catalysts for gentrification.
points out, however, that Fourteenth Street and Union Square proper had bene-
The planning department map labels the property the "S. Klein/ZeckendorfSite."
fited little from prevailing trends in the area. This pivotal center needed infusions
. h . " 55 h rt Zeckendorf intended to develop it for luxury corrunercial and residential use, but
of government support. "The Square contmues to ave a poor Image, · t e repo
his plans depended on the subsequent fulfillment of various city plans. One plan,
maintains, affirming that a principal barrier to development were the "social prob-
however, was already under way as the hindrance that the park's image represented
lems" plaguing Union Square Park, particularly its use by a "socially undesirable
to gentrifYing groups was being removed. The restoration of the park can, then,
population (e.g., drug peddlers)." 56 By this time, however, the park had been
only be viewed as that crucial stage of gentrification in which the poor are dis-
"fenced off for reconstruction;' 57 a project that had been publicly announced
lodged in order to make a neighborhood comfortable for high-income groups.
in 1982. Typically, this stage of displacement is sanctioned under the auspices of crime
The obstacle that the park's image represented had already been anticipated
prevention and the restoration of order. The park, in other words, was being re-
in the 1976 study. But the full force of the city's class-biased response to the prob-
claimed from thieves and drug dealers. This goal, paramount in determining the
lem and of its rationale for current urban policy is demonstrated by a difference
urban design principles that governed the park's renovation, also reveals the,limits
between the 1976 and 1983 documents. In 1976, the surveyors concluded that
of the program of historic preservation and of the attempt to create a continuity
"high income households ... are more likely to be attracted to the Upper East
between past and present. While existing nineteenth-century structures-the
Side or other established prestigious neighborhoods" ss than to the shabby area

27
26
 HOMEUOSS PROJ13CT/ON AND THE S!TE OF UI<BAN "REVITALIZATION"
THE $OCIAL PRODUCTION OF $PACF,

cutting directly across the park replaced the original radial pattern of six paths
park's monuments-were refurbished and sham ones-lights and kiosks-con-
converging on a circle in the park's center; a pathway encircling the park's periph-
structed, the park was also bulldozed in preparation for the first phase of its "resto-
ery provided the major circulation route; trees were removed and thinned out; and
ration" to its "original" condition. Phase I thoroughly reorganized the park's
removal of walls and trees created an open plaza at the park's southern entrance.
spatial patterns to permit full surveillance of its occupants. This change was accom-
According to the police department in Saint Louis, this is the precise configuration
plished through design precepts aimed at creating "defensible space." Oscar New-
of a safe park because it pennits "natural" surveillance from a long periphery that
man, who popularized this phrase, considers "defensible" that space which allows
can be easily patrolled. 62 A statement by the design office of the New York City
people to control their own environments. 59 But the phrase comes closer to de-
Parks Commission applauded the success of Phase I:
scribing the application of the disciplinary mechanism that Foucault termed
"panopticism" to state-controlled urban surveillance. By producing defensible
With design emphasis on improved accessibility, visibility and security
space, architects and urban designers become agents of the discreet and omnipres-
to encourage its optimal use, the park has once again recaptured its
ent disciplinary power "exercised through its invisibility; at the same time it im-
60 importance as a high quality open space amenity for this corrununity.
poses on those whom it subjects a principle of compulsory visibility." Grounded
Since Phase I began, the area around the park has changed quite dra-
in ideas of natural human territorial instincts, defensible space assigns architecture
matically. It is felt that the park redesign has contributed greatly to the
the role of policing urban ·space: revitalization of the Union Square area, and regained the parkland so
needed in this urban environment. 63
Architectural design can make evident by the physical layout that an
area is the shared extension of the private realms of a group of individ-
The manipulation ofNew York's high level of street crime has proved instru-
uals. For one group to be able to set the norms of behavior and the
mental in securing public consent to redevelopment and to a planning logic of
nature of activity possible within a particular place, it is necessary that
control through the kind of spatial organization exemplified by Union Square
it have clear, unquestionable control over what can occur there. De-
Park's sophisticated new security system. On April19, 1984, a~ the inaugural cere-
sign can make it possible for both inhabitant and stranger to perceive
mony for the restoration, the existing landscape had already been demolished.
that an area is under the undisputed influence of a particular group,
Mayor Koch told an assembled crowd: "First the thugs took over, then the mug-
that they dictate the activity taking place within it, and who its users
gers took over, then the drug people took over, and now we are driving them
are to be .... "Defensible space" is a surrogate term for the range
out."" ~.10 present th e d eve lopers , takeover as crime prevention, however, the social
of mechanisms-real and symbolic barriers, strongly defined areas of
and economic causes of crime were repudiated as thoroughly as the causes and
influence, and improved opportunities for surveillance-that combine
61 aims of redevelopment were obscured. Koch, for example, wholeheartedly en-
to bring an environment under the control of its residents.
dorsed the resurgence of biological determinist ideas about the origins of "preda-
tory street crime." Reviewing Crime and Human Nature, a book by sociobiologists
That the private corporate and real-estate interests represented by the new Zeck-
James Q. Wilson and Richard]. Herrnstein, in the neoconservative Policy ReView,
endorf Towers, its future residents, and other beneficiaries of Union Square re-
Koch reiterated the authors' explanations of street crime in terms of biological and
development would exercise "unquestionable control" over the public space of
genetic differences that produce unreformable delinquents.65 He then used these
Union Square Park was assured by a few decisive changes in the park's physical
explanations to justify New York's methods of crime control and its continuing
appearance and circulation system. An open expanse of lawn with two walkways

29
28
 HOMELESS PROJECTION AND THE S!TE Of' URBAN "REV!TAtiZATJ()N"

THE SoCIAL PRODUCTION Ol' SPACE

€XISTii'iG COI~OITI01iS
><:M"<-·<c:·o·~,-""1. 7'f

Union Square Park, architectural drawings. Existing conditions in 1983 (left); proposed modifi-
more effec~ively than crime, legitimated the violent dislocation of the poo E 1
cations (right). refers to this proce , b h d r. nge s
III' h' f ss y t e wor Haussmarm, appropriating the name of Napoleon
s arc Itect o the reconstruction of Second Empire Paris:
attack on the poor: higher levels of indictments and convictions of felons, an in-
creased police force, the imposition of criminal law for purposes of "moral educa- By "Haussrnann"
. I mean the practice • which h as now b ecome general
tion;'66 and, by implication, redevelopment projects that, employin'g architecture omakmgb
f . reac
. hes m · t he working-class quarters of o ur b.tg Cities,
.. '
as a disciplinary mechanism, transform city neighborhoods into wealthy enclaves particularly_ m those which are centrally situated, irrespective of
in order to facilitate the movement of "undesirables" and "undesirable market whether th1s. practice
. · occaswne
IS · d by considerations
. of public health
activities" 67 out of the immediate vicinity. and beaunficatwn
. 0 r by t h e deman d for btg
. centrally located busi-
These tactics of urban restructuring are not entirely new. Neither is the era- n~ss premlses or by traffic requirements, such as the laying down of
sure of the less appealing signs of restructuring nor the disavowal of its social conse- railways, streets, etc. No matter how different th e reasons may be
quences. Over a hundred years ago, Friedrich Engels described similar procedures the result is everyvv here th e same: the most scandalous alleys and'
for transforming the city to meet the needs of capitaL At that time, disease, even

31
30
 f-IOMEI.ESS J>nO]ECTION AND THE SITE 01' URBAN "REVITAI.!~AT!(lN"
THE SOCIAL PRODOCTlON 01' SPACE

tions of contemporary city planning, the project's realization as a performance in

lanes disappear to the accompaniment of lavish self-glorification by Union Square would have critically scrutinized~re-presented-the city environ-
the bourgeoisie on account of this tremendous success, but-they ments that such planning produces. For this performance, Union Square would
appear again at once somewhere else, and often in the immediate have provided a fitlly equipped, carefully arranged, and strategically located theater
neighborhood. 68 of urban events. This "fake architectural real estate theater," as Wodiczko describes
it, was built by a series of well-calculated strategies in an urban revitalization cam-
About the housing question, Engels continues: "The breeding places of disease, paign. Carried out in the name of history-the Zeckendorf Towers were adver-
the infamous holes and cellars in which the capitalist mode of production confmes ti~ed as "Th~ Latest Chapter in the History of Union Square"-that campaign
·
our workers night after mght, ·
are not abolished; they are mereIy shifi d l h I""
t te e sew ere. tned to consign its own brutal history to oblivion.
That bourgeois solutions only perpetuate urban problems is indicated by the Using the Union Square site, still haunted by memories of recent changes
growing numbers of homeless who live no longer inside Union Square Park but and marginalized city residents, The Homeless Projection conjures the memories of
on the surrounding streets and sidewalks. Furthermore crime has, in the words of alterations and social conflicts from the very spaces and objects designed to exorcise
the New York Times, "moved into Stuyvesant Square;' only a few blocks away, them. To awaken these memories, Wodiczko planned to take advantage of the
having "tnigrated from nearby areas that have been the focus of greater police ~ark's physical configuration and the spectacle created by its restoration. The plen-
surveillance."7o Parks COmmissioner Henry]. Stern concurs: "It's clear some of tiful lamps-reproductions of nineteenth-century Parisian streetlights-and the
the problems of Union Square Park, and maybe Washington Square Park, have platform on which the park is elevated-a legacy of alterations to the Fourteenth
migrated to Stuyvesant Square." 71 By subsuming all ofNew York's social ills under Street subway station in the 1930s-furnished a public stage accessible to a ready-
the category of crime, the rationale for revitalization reproduces and heightens ~ade city audience. The setting included tangible reminders of social restructuring
the problems of poverty, homelessness, and unemployment. Simultaneously, it at- m the park's spatial reorganization: redirected pathways, newly sodded lawns,
tempts to eradicate their visible manifestations. Embodied in the restored park and thinned-out foliage. Since Wodiczko's work inserts the park restoration into the
its monuments, architectural efforts to preserve traditional appearances also hide context of more extensive architectural activities, the signs of urban change that
the proof of rupture. by 1986 surrounded the park would have completed his set, although most were
not yet in existence when the proposal was first designed. Scaffolding, cranes, ex-
THE HOMELESS PROJECTION: COUNTERIMAGE OF REDEVELOPMENT
posed building foundations, demolished structures, fenced-off construction areas
and emptied buildings attested to the large-scale restructuring of the ~ity. The;
"Behind the disciplinary mechanisms:' writes Foucault, "can be read the haunting juxtaposed Signs of destruction with the signs of preservation in the park itself.
memory of 'contagions,' of the plague, of rebellions, crimes, vagabondage, deser- Th~ huge, luxury Zeckendorf building rising across the street-"The Shape of
72
tions, people who appear and disappear, live and die in disorder." Similar repres- Thmgs to Come;' as its billboard announced-indicated the principal beneficiaries
sions inhabit the controlled urban space that Wodiczko selected as the site of The of this activity.
Homeless Projection. Wodiczko's project encourages a critical public reading of this . In a~dition to lighting, stage, audience, and sets, Union Square Park pro-
Haussmannian arena of beautified surfaces, suppressed contradictions, and relo- V1ded Wodtczko with actors in the shape of the park's figurative monuments. Wo-
cated problems. If, as I suggested earlier, the form of the proposal that Wodiczko diczko's temporary appropriation of the statues prompted an awareness of the role
exhibited at 49th Parallel at once uses and comments on the presentational conven-

33
32
 HoMELEss PJ<OJ!'CTION ANP THE SITE OF Ul~BAN "REVITALIZATION"
THE $oCtAL PRODUCTION Of SPACE

after the death of the Civil War president, and the fountain located on the western
they were already playing in New York's gentrification. Evoking memories differ-
side of the park, a "heroic bronze group" of a mother and children-do not
ent from those that the monuments were originally meant to conjure and from
strictly conform to the Revolutionary War theme but can be readily assimilated
those that the restorers hoped to elicit, The Homeless Projection probed the less ex-
into the general patriarchal program and atmosphere of eclectic classicism. As the
alted purposes that underlie seemingly reverential acts of faithful preservation.
author of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln contributes to the motif of lib~
Sculptures once placed in open spaces in the hope of pacifYing city residents were
eration from tyranny. But on July 4, 1926, Tammany Hall greatly strengthened
manipulated by Wodiczko to construct and mobilize a public, "restoring" the
the sculptural program's thematic coherence by donating a huge flagpole base that
space as a site of public debate and criticism. Using the monuments in their con-
was placed at the center of the park. The base solidified the topos of freedom,
temporary incarnation-mediums for repressing the changed condition~~ofurban
displaying the full text of the Declaration of Independence, a relief depicting a
life-Wodiczko converted them into vehicles for illuminating those conditions. In
struggle against evil, a quotation from Thomas Jefferson encircling the base, and a
this way, he planned to make the city's built environment into a type ofBrechtian
plaque stating, "This monument setting forth in enduring bronze the full text of
theater about which Walter Benjamin observes: "To put it succinctly: instead of
the immortal charter of American liberty was erected in commemoration of the
identifying with the characters, the audience should be educated to be astonished
73
150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence."
at the circumstances under which they function." Originally, the park's six pathways converged on the flagpole base. Now this
Despite energetic attempts by the mass media, the city, real-estate promo-
tribute to freedom is stranded in the middle of a broad expanse of lawn designed
tions, and segments of the cultural establishment to present the bronze statues as
to render the public accessible to surveillance and to prevent illicit activities at the
representatives of eternal values-aesthetic and moral-the monuments have in-
park's center-the most distant point from the perimeter policing. The monu-
deed been recast in compromising situations and positions. Haphazard from its
ment's changed position suggests that the enduring principle that it now commem-
inception, the Union Square sculptural program is generally taken to symbolize
orates has little to do with what it ostensibly honors: the democratic revolution's
liberty and individual freedom, an interpretation originating in the nineteenth cen-
establishment of the right to freedom. Rather, the flagpole base memorializes the
tury when commentators noted that two of the-· sculptures fortuitously share a
interests historically protected by principles of individual liberty: the freedom of
common subject: heroeS of the French and American democratic revolutions. The
private property, in this case, the unfettering of the financial forces in whose inter-
George Washington statue was erected in 1856 and, althop.gh it adopts the codes
est the park renovation was largely undertaken. The meaning of the sculpture's
of Roman imperial sculpture, is habitually described as a symbol of the freedom
metan;wrphosis-an example of what Wodiczko terms architecture's "real-estate
secured by the War of Independence. Standing now on the park's eastern edge,
change"-was confirmed when the park monuments were presented in the Zeck-
Lafayette, by Frederic August Bartholdi, sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, was pre-
endorf Towers sales office, which opened in the spring of 1986. Framed photo-
sented to New York in 1873 by the city's French residents as a memorial to
graphs of the statues were displayed among a group of pictures representing Union
French-American relations. Inscriptions on the statue's base corrunemorate two
Square's history and showing the park's mounted police as a backdrop for a model
instances of such solidarity: mutual inspiration and support during the American
of the new condominiums, whose prices approach half a million dollars. That a
Revolution and sympathy extended by the United States to France during the
substantial number of apartments were sold in the first week of business -fulfills
difficult period of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, the latter an
the prophecy of a 1984 Times editorial that, urging support for Union Square
urban revolution for which the monument apparently has no sympathy to offer.
redevelopment, seconded the City Planning Commission's faith that "the location
The remaining nineteenth-century statues-Abraham Lincoln, erected three years

35
34
 HOMELESS PROJECTION AND THE SITE OF URBAN "REVITALIZATION"
THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE

base above the "degrading" action of "a derelict," seven years later, during New
York's bicentennial celebration, rhapsodized the "essential dignity" of the Statue
of Liberty. Unfortunately, Goldberger's defense was not prompted by a desire to
fortifY the monument's original message against contemporary waves of anti-
inunigrant sentiment and attempts to enact repressive legislation against Hispanics
and Asians in the United States. Rather, he applauded the Statue's ability to rise
above such issues and fulfill a monument's "fundamenta:l~' role in the urban envi-
ronment: "The city that is too large and too busy to stop for anyone seems,
through this statue, to stop for everyone. Suddenly its intense activity becomes
background, and the statue itself becomes foreground: we cannot ask of a monu-
ment that it do anything more." 75
With remarkable clarity~ Goldberger inadvertently summarizes not the actual
effects of monuments but the ideological operations of his own idealist aesthetic
and urban principles. Stretching the tenet of aesthetic autonomy to include the
city that surrounds the individual monument, he fetishizes the urban environment
at the level of its physical appearance. He thus describes the Statue of Liberty's
compositional relationship, by virtue of its permanent position in New York Har-
bor, to a city which, through that relationship, is rendered more physically coher-
ent. But Goldberger himself, utterly neutralizing and restricting the notion of
context, uses architecture to push into the background, to blur, the city's "intense
activity" -its social processes, its intense real-estate activity.
Zeckendorf Towers Sales Office, 1986. The Homeless Projection, by contrast, treats architecture as a social institution
rather than as a collection of beautiful or utilitarian objects and addresses urban
of the public square and its handsome lines and great statuary will attract investment space as a terrain of social processes. It uses the Union Square monuments neither
to depreciate the significance of the city's activities nor to minimize the meaning of
from builders." 74
Still, the dogma persists that monumental architecture can survive changes its individual architectural Objects. Instead, the work foregrounds their constitutive
in both the immediate context of its display and the broader contingencies of relationship. Wodiczko planned to project onto the surfaces of the four figurative
history with its dignity and power intact. Successful monuments, we have recently monuments in Union Square Park-representatives of architecture's attempt to
been told, transcend the "trivialities" of commercialism. This assertion is grounded "preserve its traditional and sentimental appearances" 76-photographic images of
in the same aestheticist premises as the belief that successful monuments transcend the attributes of New York's homeless population, the group most noticeably dis-
the "trivialities" of social conditions such as poverty and homelessness. It is not possessed by such preservationism. Magnified to the scale of the monuments,
unexpected, then, that Paul Goldberger, who elevated the Union Square flagpole though not heroicizing or representing homeless people themselves, the images

37
36
1t'''","'"
!

HOMELESS PROJECTION AND THE SITE 01' URBAN "REVITALIZATION"

THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE

would have remained, as they did in the gallery installation, unchanged throughout renders the projection more astonishing as excluded material-the evidence of
the artist's performance. The images show various characteristics of homeless homelessness-returns within the vehicle of its repression-the architecture of
people: their costumes and equipment; their means of travel occasioned by en- redeveloPment. An evicting architecture becomes an architecture of the evicted.
forced mobility; and the repertoire of gestures that they adopt to survive and to The surprise engendered by this uncanny impression alters the viewer's relation to
secure an income on the streets. Far from transcending the "trivial" facts of city urban objects. For if dominant representations imprint their messages on receivers
life, Wodiczko's monuments are forced to acknowledge the social facts they have by inviting immediate identification with images so "natural" they seem uncoded,
Wodiczko's transformed images have the opposite effect: impeding both the mon-
helped produce.
The Homeless Projectioris images are of, precisely, trivial objects: a shopping uments' messages and the viewer's identification with authoritative images, they
cart, a wheelchair, a can ofWindex. And while these monumentalized conunon- foster a creative consumption of the city. Wodiczko's works are, then, projections
place items clash absurdly with the heroic iconography of the neoclassical statues, onto projections.
they also seem oddly at home there. Wodiczko gives his altered monuments an But The Homeless Projection does not simply interrupt the monuments'
appearance of familiarity by seamlessly joining the images to the statues' own forms speech. It does so precisely by extending, deepening, and radicalizing the statues'
and iconography. He might, for example, superimpose a photograph of a human own messages. Wodiczko's images of the tokens ofhomelessness depict the current
hand over a statue's bronze one so that the projected image merges imperceptibly oppressive outcome of confiictual private property relations. The images are, how-
with the sculpted figure's anatomy. As in surrealist montage, however, the appear- ever, integrated into architectural and urban forms symbolizing social unity, the
ance of continuity only makes the presence of the new material more startling. common interest of the people supposedly represented by the democratic state.
Disengaging spectators from their customary disregard of the monuments and from The projection thus highlights a seeming contradiction between the state's claim
the seduction attempted by the restoration program's new presentation, attitudes to represent the common good and its support of economic domination. This
that isolate the monuments from surrounding conditions, The Homeless Projection contradiction is enshrined in the Union Square monuments in both their present
allows viewers to perceive the sculptures only in relation to those conditions. incarnation and their original form. As monuments to the democratic revolutions
The artist ensures this primary reading by means of the images' iconography of the late eighteenth century, the statues not only commemorate social unity.
coupled with montage techniques-the formal relationships that Wodiczko estab- They also celebrate "the rights of man," which, inaugurated by those revolutions,
lishes between image and architecture. His careful accommodation of an unchang- proclaim the individual freedoms guaranteed by the democratic state. Wodiczko's
ing image to the appropriated surface of an existing architectural structure has a projection suggests that there are good reasons to question the political function
twofold effect. First, it focuses the viewer's attention on the structure-on the of these twin aspects of the state: on the one hand, the state represents an ideal,
monument's physical stability as well as its mythical symbolic stability. One be- universal realm elevated above the conflicts of civil life and, on the other hand, it
comes aware of the image of inevitability and power that the monument itself is the guardian of the rights of man. Karl Marx, for one, famously argues that
normally projects. At the same time, Wodiczko's projection uses the structure's precisely the dual character of the bourgeois concept of the state makes capitalist
own formal and iconographic codes to undermine its seemingly unshakable homo- relations of oppression and exploitation appear inevitable. 77 The real goal of the
geneity and authoritative permanence. Manipulating the structure from within, bourgeois state, he claims, is to naturalize and therefore justify social conflict. The
the montage symbolically moves the object so that its actual instabilities can be democratic revolution, writes Marx, brought the modern state into existence by
perceived. The congruence between image and architecture is crucial since it separating the state and civil society. Shattering civil society into a depoliticized

38 39
 HOMELESS PROJEC1'ION AND TH£ StTE OF URBAN "REVITAI,IZATION"
THE $oCJAL PRODUCTION OF Sl';\CE

state derived its power. With the fall of the monarchy, the origin of social unity
realm of atomized individuals and of material life, the revolution simultaneously
and of power resides, as the Declaration of the Rights of Man states, in "the
constituted the state as a domain of harmony transcending the particularities and
people." The declaration refers power to the people, but the democratic act de-
strife of civil life. Marx reasons further that people in bourgeois society are likewise
prives "the people" of a ftxed source of meaning. They, too, have no substantial
split in two. As citizens, endowed with civil rights, they .live an abstract life as
identity. The democratic revolution consists, then, of the disappearance of cer-
communal beings. But the rights of man-human rights-are the "rights of the
tainty about the meaning of society, which legitimates debate about the question
member of civil society, i.e., of egoistic man, of man separated from other men and
of social unity. The meaning of society is decided within the social itself but is
from the community." 7 ll The practical consequence of human rights is to ensure
not inunanent there. Rather, uncertainty about foundations authorizes democratic
the freedom of private property by protecting the self-interest of each individual
debate and questioning of power.
against any concern for the social good. For Marx, the bourgeois notion of"politi-
Lefort agrees with Marx that the Declaration of the Rights of Man was made
cal emancipation;' the granting of civil rights, implies that people can only be
in the name of human nature, but because right is deprived by the democratic
freed from this conflict abstractly, through citizenship in the state. Consequently,
revolution of an absolute foundation, it, too, is relocated from a transcendent realm
individualistic man, the bearer of the rights of man, emerges as "real man." The
to a space within society. l},_ights become an enigma. Against Marx, Lefort argues
idea of political emancipation thus presupposes the necessity of private property
that the democr.ttic revolution actually reduces the source of rights not to nature
and precludes the abolition of economic conflict, which, safeguarded in the form
but to the human utterance: it is the essence of rights to be declared. And since
of human rights, the bourgeois state is instituted to protect.
neither rights nor "the people" who declare them are given entities but emerge
We may disagree with Marx's wholesale dismissal of human rights as mere
only with the declaration, rights do not, as Marx thought, testifY to man's separa-
bourgeois delusion. There is another way to think of rights. Criticizing Marx's
tion from man but to the social interaction implicit in the act of declaring. The
analysis of the rights of man, the political philosopher Claude Lefort presents a
human subject as the bearer of rights is not an autonomous but a radically contin-
different theory of democracy. 79 Lefort argues that the split between state and civil
gent being.
society did not take place, as Marx thought, with the democratic revolution but
Still, Lefort is careful to point out that what Marx failed to see in the rights
earlier, during the monarchy. At stake in Lefort's "correction" of Marx's history is
of man does not negate what he did see. Defending democracy, in other words, is
not chronological accuracy but the meaning of democracy. According to Lefort,
no reason for dismissing Marx, who "was perfectly correct to denounce the rela-
Marx's failure to investigate the alteration represented by developments during the
tions of oppression and exploitation that were concealed behind the principles of
monarchical period made him unable to perceive the different alteration brought
freedom, equality, and justice." 80 Marx's insight can, then, illuminate both the so-
about by the emergence of the bourgeois state. As a consequence, Marx saw only
cial functions perfonned by Union Square's statues in the redevelopment process
one aspect of the democratic revolution and could not appreciate the significance
and the nature of the challenge raised by Wodiczko's Homeless Projection. Like the
of the political revolution that destroyed absolutism, a destruction that occurred
bourgeois state, the public monuments can only symbolize communal harmony
with the Declaration of the Rights of Man. For Lefort, the democratic revolution
and universal good if the sphere of economic conflict-real estate, in this case-
inaugurated a change in the meaning of rights coextensive with equally radical
is constituted as a private domain dissociated from public life. But precisely this
mutations in the meanings of society and of power. Under the monarchy, the
rigid separation of public and private spheres also enabled the monuments to serve
meaning and unity of society appeared to rest upon an absolute basis-a transcen-
as the guardians of real estate. By causin~ the effects of the private economic sphere
dent foundation that was embodied in the figure of the king and from which the

41
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 HOMELESS PROJECTION AND THE SITE OF URBAN "REVITALIZATION"
THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE

windshields, and obtain a street donation. Lincoln's stereotypically "proud but

to reappear within the public monuments and thus threatening the security of the
humble" bearing is reconfigured, through the addition of a crutch and beggar's
public/private divide, The Homeless Projection revolutionizes the statues, which,
cup, into the posture of a homeless man soliciting money on a street corner. A
in their altered state, are forced to acknowledge their own contradictions and
bandage and cast change Lafayette's elegant stance and extended arm into the mo-
repressions. tions of a vagrant asking for alms, and the mother sheltering her children metamor-
But what if, following Lefort, we also fmd something in the idea of human
phoses into a homeless Btmily appealing for help. In addition, Wodiczko projected
rights that Marx did not fmd? What if we see not only a "false" freedom through
a continuously fading and reappearing image onto the Lincoln monument: an
which the bourgeois state guarantees the rights of private property but also the
emptied building with a partially renovated facade.
possibility, inaugurated by the democratic invention, of social groups raising de-
This "style" of building-conspicuously empty despite an equally visible
mands for freedoms-for rights-that challenge the omnipotence of state power
need for housing-was a familiar New York spectacle throughout the 1980s. Its
and the exclusions of property? What if we define public space as the space where
surface, like the surface of the monuments, had been partially restored as part of a
society constitutes itself through an unending declaration of rights that question
presentation to encourage neighborhood speculation. Fissuring the surfaces of the
and limit power? The Homeless Projection might then be read as a symbolic declara-
Union Square monuments-the images of gentrification-with images of the va-
tion of new rights-for homeless people. Infiltrated with Wodiczko's images, the
cated building and of the mechanisms by which the homeless survive, The Homeless
statues issue a demand for·the legitimacy of homeless residents as members of the
Projection concretizes in a temporary, antimonumental form the most serious con-
urban community, a demand raised against the legitimacy of state power to exclude
tradiction embodied in New York architecture: the conflict between capital's need
them-from Union Square, from the city, from society itsel£ Transformed into
to exploit space for profit, on the one hand, and the social needs of the city's
the medium of such a demand, the Revolutionary War monuments become a
residents, on the other. Mapping these images onto the monuments in a public
conunemoration of the democratic revolution, whose most radical act in Lefort's
square, Wodiczko forces architecture to reveal its role as an actor in New York's
view was to make it possible to question the basis of power. Temporarily, that is,
real-estate market. Wodiczko's intervention in the space of Union Square revital-
the statues metamorphose into the public monuments, and Union Square into the
ization thus addresses the single issue most consistently ignored by the city
democratic public space, that they are officially proclaimed to be. For Wodiczko's
throughout the long and complicated course of redevelopment: displacement.
project takes account of the exclusions that create the social unity that the monu-
During The Homeless Projection, and afterward in viewers' memories, the Union
ments supposedly represent and thereby subjects the foundation of that unity to
Square monuments, diverted from their prescribed civic functions, would have
democratic contestation. The Homeless Projection thus extends the very revolution
commemorated this urban event-mass evictions and development-produced
that Union Square's sculptural program ostensibly memorializes but whose most
homelessness.
radical messages it evades.
To facilitate what I have interpreted as a democratic questioning of social
REAL-ESTATE AESTHETICS
unity, Wodiczko manipulates the statues' own language, breaking up its apparently
unitary and stable meanings. He transforms the classical gestures, poses, and atti-
Indifference to and concealment of the plight, even the existence, of displaced
tudes of the sculpted f1gures into the gestures, poses, and attitudes currently
residents was predictable. To foster development, the city encouraged a suppres-
adopted by people begging on the streets: George Washington's left forearm presses
sion of data on displacement and homelessness. While The Homeless Projection places
down on a can of Windex and holds a cloth, so that the imperial gesture of his
this issue at the center of urban life, official architecture and urban disciplines took
·right arm is transformed into a signal made by the unemployed to stop cars, clean

43
42
 HOMELESS PROJECTION ANP TilE SITE Of URBAN "RllVJTALIZATI()N"
TnE SociAl. PRODUCTION ()I' St>ACE

by the developers, bankers, and community representatives, and other

part in its cover-up in Union Square. To appreciate fully the extent of this repudia-
professional, lay, and governmental constituencies. They posited that
tion, it is necessary to understand the crucial role played by "contextual aesthetics"
zoning was legislating esthetics, and that a single vision was too restric-
during a key phase of revitalization. tive, leaving little room for genuine architectural design quality. The
Government subsidies to real-estate developers are not limited to direct fi-
result is a cookie-cutter building that is ugly and sterile, set in an ill-
nancial outlays or to tax abatements and exemptions. Beneftts also accrue from the
considered and barely usable public open space that is often neglected,
city's administration of institutional allowances for building, especially through its
or used by the seedier elements of New York's street-corner society.
bureaucratic procedures and zoning regulations. Union Square development de-
These same buildings appear to be insensitive to the existing buildings
pended on a specialized proceeding through which the planning corrunission per-
around them, creating dissonance in urban form.s:''
mits zoning constraints to be waived or altered. The vehicle for this alteration is
the "special zoning district" defmed in the planning department dictionary as a
The special zoning district is treated, then, as a means to conserve tradition, restore
section of the city designated for special treatment "in recognition of the area's
coherence and stability, and ensure architectural diversity. But it serves other func-
unique character or quality. " 31 Permitting changes in the use, density, or design of
tions as well.
buildings in the specified area, the creation of a special zoning district is commonly
The Zeckendorf Company's plans in Union Square depended on the cre-
portrayed as a flexible response to "perceived needs:' 82 Commentators frequently
ation of a special district for sites fronting directly on the park. After purchasing
demonstrate this flexibility by comparing it to the rigidity of the 1961 Zoning
the option to build on the Klein site, Zeckendorf announced that the realization
Resolution, whose rules the special zoning district has, since the 1970s, tended to
of his project, which was itself crucial to the area's redevelopment, was contingent
modify or circumvent. Champions of the special district start from the premise
on the rezoning already proposed by the planning department. The zoning change
that the 1961 zoning code is grounded in the principles of European modernist
would increase the allowable density for buildings around the square, providing
architecture of the 1920s; they then characterize it as "utopian," "antitradition;'
additional space bonuses for the Klein property in return for the developer's reno-
"antiurban;' and "unresponsive to context." Casting support of the special zoning
vation of the Fourteenth Street subway station. The 1983 summary of the planning
district as a "critique of modernism" and con:flating urban and aesthetic problems,
department's two-year study undertaken to "guide" redevelopment so that it
advocates present current manipulations of land-use regulations to aid redevelop-
':ould reflect the "existing urbanistic context" set out the rationale for the special
ment as responsiveness to the environment and the social needs of city residents.
zoning district. 84 In recognition of Union Square's architectural uniqueness and to
The following assessment of the problems justifying the use of the special zoning
foster "compatibility between any new construction and the existing significant
district typifies this logic: architectural buildings," 85 the proposal not only suggested increased density allow-
ances for new buildings to match those of the late-nineteenth- and early-
Less than ten years after the adoption of the 1961 Zoning Resolution,
twentieth-century structures. It also created special "bulk distribution regulations":
disaffection with the results of the utopian vision set in .... The pre-

I
{
I
vailing view was that the new zoning was incompatible with the best
efforts of architects and urban designers to produce high-quality archi-
plazas or ground-floor setbacks were prohibited (the park made plazas unneces-
saty), and the facades of all buildings on the square had to be built to the property
line and to rise straight up for a minimum of eighty-five feet. A system of mandated
tecture and good city form. This belief, while most often heard from
I architects and urban designers was also expressed with great regularity
setbacks and a restriction on towers within one hundred feet of the square would,
according to the proposal, ensure light and air.
I
45
44
 HOMELESS P110]ECTION AND THE SITE OF URflAN "REVITAt!ZATJON"
THE $OClAt PHOPUCTtON Of SPACE

more extensive effect of revitalization-raised property values-was virtually un-

Zeckendorfs architects had already designed his mixed-use building to con-
remarked in the hundreds of pages generated throughout the planning and review
form to these contextualist principles. Four seventeen-story apartment towers
processes. The unquantifiable numbers of homeless people who, according to the
would rise from a seven-story base occupying the entire building site. They would
New York State Department of Social Services, "fmd shelter out of the public
begin at a point farthest from the park and terminate in cupolas to "echo" the
view" 89 in city parks were driven from the newly visible Union Square, their num-
historic tower of the Con Edison building behind them. According to Zeckendorf,
bers increased by those made homeless by the larger redevelopment plan.
the building plan addressed "the concerns we've heard from the community about
86 Also not mentioned in the city's reports was the single-room-occupancy
not overshadowing the park and fitting in with the rest of the structures there."
hotel that stood on the Klein site. Its demolition was the precondition of the Zeck-
The key point of the zoning rationale and of Zeckendorf's compliance was the
endorf project, and its address, 1 Irving Place, is now that of the luxury towers.
contention that the new buildings would not merely harmonize with the existing
Similarly, the planning department surveyors who in the proposal applauded the
environment but also recapture its history as an elegant neighborhood. As a New
increasingly residential character of the neighborhood due to middle-class loft con-
York Times editorial put it: versions and who examined the quality of existing residential buildings, failed to
survey the thirty-seven single-room-occupancy hotels and rooming houses in the
To understand fully what the rescue of Union Square would mean, the
area around the special district, buildings containing six thousand housing units for
observer has to imagine how it once resembled London's handsome
residents on fixed or limited incomes. 90 Yet the relationship between current levels
Belgravia and Mayfair residential districts. By insisting on the eight-
ofhomelessness and single-room-occupancy displacement in New York City was
story rise directly from the sidewalk, the planners hope that modem
well known:
apartment house builders will produce a contemporary echo of the
walled-in space that gives the small squares of London and America's
87
This shrinkage of housing options is nowhere more visible than in the
older cities their pleasing sense of order and scale. long-time staple housing source for low-income single persons-the
single-room-occupancy (SRO) hoteL Across the country the number
Before ultimate approval (with slight modification) in January 1985, both the
of units in SROs is declining. In some areas they are being converted
rezoning proposal and the design of the Zeckendorf Towers had to pass through a
to luxury condominiums, while in others they are abandoned by own-
public review process. Over a period of seven months, each project was debated at
ers unable to afford taxes and maintenance costs. In New York City,
public hearings, first before the community boards, then before the City Planning
SROs have disappeared at an alarming rate. Because of this-and
Commission, and finally before the Board of Estimate. The city and the developer
other forces at work-it is estimated that as many as 36,000 of the
submitted obligatory, highly technical environmental impact statements in which
city's most vulnerable residents, the low-income elderly, now sleep in
they were required to show "the potential environmental effects of a proposed
88 the streets. 91
action on noise level, air and water quality and traffic circulation."
The supreme measure of the city's alignment with corporate interests in the
Although the number oflower-priced SRO units in New York declined by more
area is the failure of any of its reports to mention the socioeconomic impact of the
than 60 percent between 1975 and 1981,92 the burden of surveying the area and
redevelopment plan on the area's low-income population. Displacement of resi-
determining the effects of Union Square redevelopment on the occupants of these
dents, the most obvious effect of the literal demolition of housing as well as the

47
46
 THE SoClt\L PRODUCTION OF SPACE

dwellings fell to the housing advocates who argued against development plans at
the Board of Estimate hearing. The environmental impact statements ignored the
UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT: PUBLIC ART IN NEW YORK CITY
impact of both primary displacement-the direct consequence of the demoli-
tion of the SRO on the Zeckendorf site-and the more significant secondary
displacement-the displacement caused by higher rents, enhan~ed property values,
real-estate speculation, legal warehousing, and, temporarily, illegal conversion of
neighborhood rooming housesY:>
Throughout, this concealment was facilitated by appeals to aesthetic contex-
tualism and by the cultural sentiments informing all three phases of Union Square
revitalization: the park restoration, creation of the special zoning district, and ap-
proval of the Zeckendorf project. Although traveling under the sign of contextu-
alism, the architects and designers who minutely calculated the physical effects of
rezoning and of the towers on the shadows and air in Union Square or judged the
The ti,Ue issue is not to make beautiful cities or well-managed cities,
project's aesthetic effects on the cornice lines of the square's other buildings exem-
it is to make a work of life. The rest is a by-product. But, .making a
plify what Ernest Mandel calls the "real idol of late capitalism"-"the 'specialist'
work of life is the privilege of historical action. How and through what
94
who is blind to any overall context." struggles, in the course of what class action and what political batde
During the same period, the ranks of the city's technocrats swelled to include
could urban historical action be reborn? This is the question toward
artists, critics, and curators who were asked to fulfill the task, spelled out at the
which we are inevitably carried by our inquiry into the meaning of
time in a Mobil advertisement, of encouraging residential and commercial real-
the city.
estate projects and revitalizing urban neighborhoods. One example of cooperation
with these corporate demands by sectors of the art establishment is public art
-Raymond Ledrut, "Speech and the Silence of the City"
placed in redeveloped spaces and applauded as socially responsible because it con-
tributes, functionally or aesthetically, to the so-called pleasures of the urban envi-
BEAUTY ANp UTILITY: WEAPONS OF REDEVELOPMENT
ronment. Such work is based on the art-world equivalent of official urban planners'
constricted version of contextualism. Knowing the social consequences of this con-
By the late 1980s it had become clear to most observers that the visibility of masses
textualism underscores the urgency of creating alternative art practices such as The
o~ ~o~eless people interferes with positive images of New York, constituting a
Homeless Projection, whose reorientation of vision disturbs the tightly drawn borders
I secured by New York's contextual zoning.
cns1s m the official representation. of the city. Dominant responses to the crisis
took two principal, often complementary, forms: they treated homelessness as an
\: individual social problem isolated from urban politics or, as Peter Marcuse con-
(
tends, tried "to neutralize the outrage homelessness produces in those who see it." 1
I Because substantial efforts to deal with homelessness itself would have required
\, at least a partial renunciation of its inunediate causes-the commodification of
li

48
 UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT
THE SoCIAL PRODUCTION Of SPACE

entities. But today there is no document of New York's ascendancy that is not at
housing, existing employment patterns, the social service policies of today's auster-
the same time a document ofhomelessness. Municipal reports, landmark buildings,
ity state-those committed to preserving the status quo tried, instead, through
and what we call public spaces are marked by this ambiguity.
strategies of isolation and neutralization, to cope with the legitimation problems
Faced with the instability pervading New York's urban images, the second
that homelessness raises. major response to homeless-ness-the neutralization of its effects on viewers-
Exemplary of the "social problem" approach is a widely circulated report
attempts to restore a surface calm that belies underlying contradictions. To legiti-
issued in june 1987 by the Commission on the Year 2000. Obedient to its govern-
mate the city, this response delegitimates the homeless. In the spring of 1988
mental mandate to forecast New York City's future, the panel described New York
Mayor Ed Koch demonstrated the neutralizing approach while speaking, fittingly,
as "ascendant," verifying this image by pointing to the city's "revitalized" economy
before a group ofimage makers, the American Institute of Architects (AlA), con-
and neighborhoods. Conspicuous poverty and patent stagnation in other neighbor-
veped in New York to discuss (even more appropriately) "Art in Architecture."
hoods nonetheless compelled the commission to remark on the unequal character
Answering a question about Grand Central Terminal-landmark building and
of this rise: "We see that the beneftts of prosperity have pass-ed over hundreds of
. ' public place-Koch, too, emphasized the dual significahce of New York's ·urban
thousands of New Yorkers." 2 But the group's recorrunendations-prescribing the
spaces by directing his listeners' attention to the presence of the homeless people
same pro-business and privatizing policies that are largely responsible for home-
who now reside in the city's train stations:
less-ness in the first plaCe-failed to translate this manifest imbalance into a recogni-
tion that uneven economic and geographical development is a stmctural, rather
These homeless people, you can tell who they are. They're sitting on
than incidental, feature of New York's present expansion. The panelists' own ex-
the floor, occasionally defecating, urinating, talking to themselves
pansive picture required, then, a certain contraction of their field of vision. Within
many, not all, but many-or panhandling. We thought it would be
its borders, social inequities appear as random disparities and disappear as linked
reasonable for the authorities to say, "You can't stay here unless you're
phenomena. An optical illusion fragments the urban condition as "growth"-be-
here for transportation." Reasonable, rational people would come to
lieved to occur in different locations at varying paces of cumulative development
that conclusion, right? Not the Court of Appeals>'
but ultimately to unfold its advantages to all-emerges as a remedy for urban de-
cay, obscuring a more integrated economic reality that is also inscribed across the
The mayor was denigrating the state court's reversal of an antiloitering law
city's surface. For in the advanced capitalist city, growth, far from a uniform pro-
under which pnlice would have been empowered to remove the homeless from
cess, is driven by the hierarchical differentiation of social groups and territories.
transportation centers. Even had police action succeeded in evicting the homeless,
Residential components of prosperity-gentrification and luxury housing-are
it is doubtful that it could have subdued the fundamental social forces threatening
not distinct from, but in fact depend upon, residential facets of poverty-disinvest-
the station's appearance as an enduring symbol of New York's beauty and effi-
ment, eviction, displacement, homeless-ness. Together, they form only one aspect
ciency. Deprived of repressive powers, however, Koch could protect the space only
of the city's comprehensive redevelopment, itself part of more extensive social,
I by ideological means, proclaiming its transparency, in the eyes of reasonable
L economic, and spatial changes, all marked by uneven development. Consequently,
people, to an objective function-transportation.
1: redevelopment proceeds not as an all-embracing beneftt but according to social
' To assert in the language of corrunon sense that an urban space refers un-
relations of ascendancy, that is, of domination. Consensus-oriented statements such
equivocally to intrinsic uses is to claim that the city itself speaks. Such a statement
I.F as New York Ascendant disavow these relations, impressionistically offering proof of
makes it seem that individual locations within the city and the spatial organization
I growth side by side with proof of decline; both acquire the appearance of discrete
i

i
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51
 UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

THE SoCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE

has. far-reac~1ing implications. Not only does it explicitly acknowledge the partici-
of the city as a whole contain an inherent meaning detennined by the imperative pat~on of d1verse social groups in the production of the environment, it argues
to fulfill needs presupposed to be natural, simply practical. Instrumental function agams~ an environment imposed from above by state institutions or private inter-
is the only meaning signifted by the built environment. This essentialist view sys- ests, d1~tated by the necessities of control and profit but legitimated by concepts
tematically obstructs-and this is actually its principal function-the perception of efficiency and beauty. Describing the city as a social form rather than as a collec-
that the organization and shaping of the city as well as the attribution of meaning tion and organization of neutral physical objects implicitly aff1rms the right of cur-
to spaces are social processes. Spatial forms are social structures. Seen through t~e rently excluded groups to have access to the city-to make decisions about the
lens of function, spatial order appears instead to be controlled by natural, mecham- ·S~aces they use, to be attached to the places where they live, to refuse marginaliza-
cal, or organic laws. It is recognized as social only in the sense that it meets the twn. It refers to a concrete social reality suppressed by dominant urban spaces,
purportedly unif1ed needs of aggregated individuals. Space, severed from its social sketches the terms of resistance to those spaces, and envisions the liberation of the
production, is thus fetishized as a physical entity and undergoes, through inversion, ~nvironment in what Henri Lefebvre calls a "space of differences." s In place of the
a transformation. Represented as an independent object, it appears to exercise con- Image of the "well-managed city," it proposes the construction of a "work of life"
trol over the very people who produce and use it. The impression of objectivity is suggesting that such a vital work is extinguished by discourses that separate peop{e
real to the extent that the city is alienated from the social life of its inhabitants. endo~:d with "eternal" needs fro~ an environment supposedly built to meet
The functionalization of the city, which presents space as politically neutral, merely them,_ ~t restores the subject to the city:)The struggle to establish the validity of
utilitarian, is then filled with politics. For the notion that the city speaks for itself Ledrut s defimtwn of the city is, then, irrevocably fused to other controversies
conceals the identity of those who speak through the city. ab~ut t.he city's form and use. "The definition of urban meaning;' Manuel Castells
This effacement has two interrelated functions. In the service of those groups mamtams, describing the inscription of political battles in space,
whose interests dominate decisions about the organization of space, it holds that
the exicrencies of human social life provide a single meaning that necessitates will be a process of conflict, domination, and resistance to domination
proper :ses. of the city-proper places for its residents. The prevailing goals of the directly linked to the dynamics of social struggle and not to the repro~
existing spatial structure are regarded as, by defmition, beneftcial to all. The ideol- ductive spacial expression of a unified culture. Furthermore, cities and
ogy of function obscures the confhctual manner in which cities are actually defmed space being fundamental to the organization of social life, the conflict
and used, repudiating the very existence of groups who counter dominant uses of over the assignment of certain goals to certain spatial forms will be
space. As the urban critic Raymond Ledrut observes, "The city is not an object one of the fundamental mechanisms of domination and counter-
produced by a group in order to be bought or even used by others. The city is an domination in the social structure.4
environment formed by the interaction and the integration of different practices. It is maybe
4
in this way that the city is truly the city." Koch's assignment of a directing purpose-transportation-to Grand Cen-
Ledmt's defmition of the city as the product of social practice, negating its tral Terminal in order to prevail over what he portrayed as a parasitic function-
I
I
hypostatization as a physical entity, strongly opposes the technocratic defmition of
the city as the product of experts. The city, Ledrut insists, is not a spatial framework
shelter for homeless people-encapsulates this means of domination. First it'se-
questers a single place from broader spatial organization. But the real effi~acy of
external to its users but is produced by them. These competing definitions are the functionalization of the city as a weapon in struggles over the use of urban
\ themselves a stake of political struggle. Deceptively simple, Ledrut's formulation
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 UNEVEN DEVEL()l'MENT
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Exhortations to the authority of objective use are considered in Situationist

space rests on its ability to deny the reality that such struggles produce spatial
pronouncements to be one of two mechanisms shielding the capitalist conquest of
organization in the f1rst place. Yet the presence in public places of the homeless-
the environment from challenge. The other is aesthetics, which the Situationists
the very group Koch invoked-represents the most acute symptom of a massive
characterized, along with urban planning, as "a rather neglected branch of crirni-
and disputed transformation in the uses of the broader city during the 1980s. Far
nology. " 9 Their appraisal is still pertinent for New York, where notions of beauty
from a natural or mechanical adjustment, this reorganization was shaped in all of
and utility furnished the alibi for redevelopment. Under this protection, the condi-
its facets by prevailing power relations. It included the transformation of New York
tions of everyday life for hundreds of thousands of residents have been destroyed.
into a center for international corporations and business services with attendant
The reciprocity between discourses of beauty and utility is illurninated by the fact
changes in the nature of employment. The shift of manufacturing jobs elsewhere,
that Koch's question and answer session at the AlA convention replaced, at the last
frequently overseas, was accompanied by a loss of traditional blue-collar jobs and
minute, a prepared speech that he was to deliver not on the well-managed city,
th.t; rise of poverty-level wages in low-echelon service-sector or new manufactur-
but on the beautiful one. The substitution does not indicate a reversal of priorities.
ing jobs. By the close of the decade, even mass-media analyses routinely noted this
Both urban images are equally instrumental for the redevelopment process. In the
change as a cause·ofhomelessness, although they usually-viewed it as a technologi-
name of needs and corresponding functions, Koch engaged in narrow problem
cal inevitability. Since, under capitalism, land and housing are commodities to be
solving about the uses of public spaces. His espousal of the city that speaks for itself
exploited for profit, the marginalization of large numbers of workers engendered
permitted a remarkable silence about the incompatibility of true functionality and
a loss of housing for the poor as New York devoted more space to profit-
a social system in which production "is accomplished not for the fulfillment of
maximizing real-estate development-high-rent office towers, luxury condomini-
needs in general, but for the fulfillment of one particular need: profit." 10 Indeed,
ums, corporate headquarters-that also provided the physical conditions to meet
as Jean Baudrillard warns, "any system of productivist growth (capitalist, but not
the needs of the new economy. Today's homeless, therefore, are refugees from
exclusively) can only produce and reproduce men-even in their deepest detenni-
evictions, secondary and exclusionary displacement-the conversion of their
nations: in their liberty, in their needs, in their very unconscious-as productive
neighborhoods into areas they can no longer afford?{More broadly, the homeless
forces." 11 Within such a system, if a person "eats, drinks, lives somewhere, repro-
are products of wage and property relations and of go~emmental policies allocating
duces himself, it is because the system requires his self-production in order to
spatial resources to the uses of big business and real estate while withdrawing them
reproduce itself: it needs men." 12 In bourgeois society, when people such as today's
from social services such as public housing') The homeless were also produced by
homeless are redundant in the economy-or needed to cheapen labor costs-they
technical decisions of state and municipal planning agencies about land uses, deci-
are converted from residents of the city into predators on the "fundamental" needs
sions that increasingly reinforced an economically and racially segregated spatial
ofNew Yorkers. No longer required as productive forces, the homeless themselves
structure by directing low-income groups toward the city's periphery. To elucidate
have no requirements.
the specific historical, rather than mythical, reasons for today's homeless residents,
The stunning reversals enacted in the name of utility-invoking to demon-
the homeless should, more accurately, be called "the evicted." Koch's attempt,
strate natural needs the very group whose existence testifies to the social mediation
exemplified in his address to the architects' convention, to extract New York's
of needs-also take place in the name of beauty. The mayor's prepared speech on
urban spaces from the very social relations that create them further marginalizes
the government's relation to aesthetics celebrated the city's preservation of histori-
the poor. Having first been expelled from their apartments and neighborhoods,
cal landmarks, architectural heterogeneity, and neighborhood context, mobilizing
they are now denied, by means of what the French Situationists termed "a black-
a protectionist discourse of permanence and continuity under whose aegis patterns
mail of utility, " 8 a right to the city at all.

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TllB SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE

g~
Discourse about "the public" ,· s firequent1y cast as a pled d b I
of development progressively threatened historical action, diversity, and entire actors in the real-estate market-d . . rna e Y t 1e principal
orations 1. . . eve1opers, financial mstttutions, landlords cor-
conununities with elimination. Such inversions are possible because commitments P spac , fr
lie ' P0 ltlCians-to
h rescue , for N ew y,orkers, a Significant
. . '
quantity of "pub-
to beauty and utility, presupposed to lie outside sociomaterial conditions, present e .om t e ravages of "overdevelopment" R . .
areas, paid for with public funds fi . h . . outmely, for mstance, public
themselves as incontrovertible evidence of public accountability. As further proof , urms pnvate redevelopme t · .
amenities necessary t , . . n projects wtth the
of the advantages of New York's "ascendancy," Koch's planned speech stressed his o maXImize profits. 14 In other cases ci . .
. ' ty regulatwns reqmre
administration's in~erest in the aesthetics of the city~its revitalizatio:n of the mu-
corporations to build ·
pnvate1y owned atnums 1 .
density allowances The r 1 . . . or P azas m exchange for increased
nicipal art commission, programs of flexible zoning regulations, planning controls, . esu tmg Sites are designated "publi
nomena . h c·" spaces.
. Th ese phe-

prob~:,:va;~::~o~
design review panels, and public art. "Once again;' the speech asserted, "public nurror eac other as facets of th . . .
13
resent individual answers to the of public space. They rep-
art has become a priority." confronted with the need t £ il' . Y mumctpal governments
o ac ttate capttal accumulatio d ·u . .
REDEVELOPING "THE PUBLIC"
sponsiveness to residents' demands fo . . . . n an su mamtam re-
the city Private bl' . . r parttctpatton m decisions about the uses of
· pub),·cpu lS w1dely c 1 b
tween the a d1c space
. e e rate d as an mnovative
. partnership be-
It is not difficult to un~erstand why an increase in public art commissions accom- n pnvate sectors- 1
Such an alliance we are told "f edrrdoneous y supposed to be distinct spheres.
panied New York's ascendancy. As a practice within the built environment, public ' ,textenetoth fi ·
would benefit all New y k 'd e con IguratiOn of the entire city,
art participates in the production of meanings, uses, and forms for the city. In this or rest ents. Yet under current .
sian of space for "the p bl. " Circumstances, the provi-
capacity, it can help secure consent to redevelopment and to the restructuring that . u lC attests to the wholesale withdrawal f , fr
constitutes the histori~al form of advanced capitalist urbanization. But like other social controL Clearly, the local state can meet with only r . d o d space .om
success in harmonizing its goal s o f meetmg . .
capital's de lmtte d an
d precanous
. .
institutions that mediate perceptions of the city's economic and political opera-
democratic legitimacy since the two o I b. . man s an mamtaming
g as are, o ~ecnvely, m conflict. Not surpris-
tions-architecture, urban planning, urban design-it can also question and resist
ingly, therefore New York'
those operations, revealing the suppressed contradictions within urban processes. reconcile th ' al s ne_w pubhc spaces, materializations of the attempt to
Since these contradictions stamp the image of the city with a basic instability, . ese go s, are the objects of contests over uses and ar
public art can be, in an Althusserian sense, a "site" as well as a "stake" of urban deSigned for accessibility to all R h h e, moreover, hardly
. . at er, t rough a multitude ofle al h .
symbohc means they permit a b . g , P ys1cal, or
struggle. while excluding, others. ccess y certam social groups for selected purposes
It is also predictable that, along with demonstrations of the new city's beauty

~~ose th~
and utility, intensified talk of"the public" went hand in hand with the accelerating When disputes do arise that threaten to e .. . .
such exclusions, rhetoric about "the pub!. " . pohttcaltmplications of
privatization and bureaucratization ofland-use decisions in New York. Wholesale lC jUStllleS partlCUla 1 ·
ral. Because "the bl. , . d . r exc ustons as natu-
appropriations ofland by private interests, massive state interventions that deterri- pu IC 1S efined etther as a unity h
thing as a field . d or, w at amounts to the same
torialize huge numbers of residents, and inequitable distribution of spatial re- , compose of essential differences dilemmas 1 .
sources by government agencies insulated from public control: these acts governing public spaces can be attributed to the inevitable di, . p agnmg the use of
to harmonize the "n t 1" d.ffi sruptwns attendant on the need
society. Heiohtened ~i~erars·ty I. er~ncesdand diverse interests characteristic of any
New York's landscape require a legitimating front. Citing "the public;' whether
attached to art, space, or any number of other objects, ideas, and practices, is one lS VleWe ' even fu r th er, as a d"tstmcttve
. . feature of
! means of giving the uneven development of New York democratic legitimacy.
b 1

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THE $OC1AL PRODUCTION Of $PACE

value systems." 15 Negt and Kluge describe how, increasingly, the pseudo-public
modern urban life, whose problems, in turn, are understood to result from a sup- sphe.re has yielded to a public sphere that is privately owned, detemllned by profit
posedly inevitable technological evolution undergone by human society. Neu- ~otlves~ and characterized by the transformation of the conditions of everyday life
tralizing concepts of diversity are wielded to defeat genuine diversity and to mt~ objects of production. Within this public sphere-which Negt and Kluge,
depoliticize conflicts. "The public," employed as an imprecise and embracing unlike Habermas, do not measure against a supposedly lost ideal-"the public" is
rubric, substitutes for the analysis of speciftc spatial contests, ascribing discord to defined as a mass of consumers and spectators. 16 Against both the pseudo- and
quasi-natural origins. Exclusions enacted to homogenize public space by expelli~g private public spheres, grounded in relations of exclusion, homogenization, and
specific differences are dismissed as necessary to restore social harmony. The dis- ~rivate property, Negt and Kluge envision the construction of an oppositional pub-
course of the public thus disavows the social relations of domination that such he sphere, an arena of political consciousness and articulation of social experience
expulsions make possible. that challenges these relations.
Exclusions and homogenization, undertaken in the name of the public, char- Recently artists and critics have sought to initiate such a challenO'e within art
acterize what the German ftlmmaker Alexander Kluge calls the "pseudo-public practice by constructing what is sometimes termed a cultural or aes;hetic public
sphere;' his term for the public sphere that ]Urgen Habermas has famously theo- sphere. The idea that art cannot assume the existence of a public but must help
rized as a category of bourgeois society. Kluge and Oskar Negt describe a series of produce one and that the public sphere is less a physical space than a social form
permutations undergone.by the bourgeois public sphere, especially its transforma- nullifY, to ~ considerable extent, accepted divisions between public and nonpublic
tion in the interests of maximizing profits. But, according to Negt and Kluge, the art. Potentially, any exhibition venue is a public sphere and, cQnversely, the location
bourgeois-or, as variously labeled, the representative, classical, or traditional~ of artworks outside privately owned galleries, in parks and plazas, or simply out-
public sphere was a pseudo-public sphere from its inception. Although idealized doors hardly guarantees that they will address a public. While in these ways the
by Habermas as a spatiotemporal terrain where citizens participate in political dia- concept of a public sphere shatters the category of public art, it also raises serious
logue and decision making, the bourgeois public sphere for Negt and Kluge actu- questions for art conventionally so categorized and, especially, for work commis-
ally represses debate. This repression originates in the strict demarcation drawn in sioned to occupy New York's new public spaces. Given the proliferation of
bourgeois society between the private and public realms. Because economic gain, pseudo- and private public spaces, how can public art counter the functions of its
protected from public accountability by its seclusion within the private domain, "public" sites in constructing the city?
actually depends on publicly provided conditions, the bourgeois public sphere was We can at least begin to answer this question by discarding the simplifications
instituted as a means for private interests to control public activity. But since capi- that pervade mainstream aesthetic discourse about the public. Rather than a real
talism requires the preservation of the illusion that an absolute boundary divides ~atego:, the definition of the public, like the definition of the city, is an ideolog-
the public and private reahns, the contradictions that gave birth to the public Ical arttfact, a contested and fragmented terrain . "'The public, '" as C ratg
· 0 wens
sphere are also perpetuated and "reconciled" in its operations. Conflicts are ho- observes, "is a discursive formation susceptible to appropriation by the most di-
mogenized by transmuting differential interests into an abstract equality supposedly ~ers~-indeed, opposed-ideological interests." 17 But crucial as this perception is,
based on universal reason and by privatizing whole realms of social life. The ho- s1gmficant challenges to dominant interests will continue to elude us unless this
mogenization of divergent concerns can, however, only be effected through exclu- ~asic understanding prompts further inquiries into the precise identity of those
sions: "A representative public sphere is representative insofar as it involves mterests and the concrete mechanisms through which they exercise power. Unless
exclusions." It "only represents parts of reality, selectively and according to certain

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More importantly, the current role of public art in urban politics raises ques-
we seriously respond to Owens's subsequent question-"Who is to defme, manip- tions about some critical perspectives. Beginning in the late 1960s, contemporary
ulate and proftt from 'the public'?" 18 -critical interventions will remain inchoate art and criticism challenged modernist tenets of aesthetic autonomy by exploring
and directionless. A principal issue confronting all urban practices is the current art's functions in mutable social circumstances. Artists initiated this critique by
appropriation of public space and of the city itself for use by the forces of redevel- shifting attention away from the "inside" of the artwork-supposed in modernist
opment. Public art shares this plight. Although its current predicam~n~ is not doctrine to contain ftxed, inherent meanings-and focusing instead on the work's
without historical precedent-most notably in late-nineteenth-century c1v1c beau- context-its framing conditions. Site-specificity, an aesthetic strategy in which
tiftcation and municipal art movements-the complexities of the present moment context was incorporated into the work itself, was originally developed to counter-
necessitate a new framework for analyzing the social functions of public art. act the construction of ideological art objects, purportedly defined by independent
essences, and to reveal the ways in which the meaning of art is constituted in
PUBLIC ART AND ITS USES
relation to its institutional frames. Over the years, in what is now a familiar history,
site-specificity underwent many pennutations. Most fruitfully, artists extended the
Most existing aesthetic approaches can neither account for current conditions of notion of context to encompass the individual site's symbolic, social, and political
public art production nor suggest terms for an alternative, possibly transformative meanings as well as the discursive and historical circumstances within which art-
practice. Even when familiar with issues of the public sphere or informed by work, spectator, and site are situated. Insofar as this expansion stressed the social
sophisticated materialist critiques of aesthetic perception, they are generally for- and psychic relations structuring both artwork and site, exclusive concentration on
mulated with little knowledge of urban politics. Needless to say, traditional art- the physical site often signaled an academic fetishization of context at the aesthetic
historical paradigms cannot illuminate the social functions of public art-past or leveL But critical site-specific art, as distinguished from its academic progeny, not
present-since they remain comrnitted to idealist assumptions that obscure those only continued to incorporate context as a critique of the artwork but attempted
functions. Maintaining that art is defined by an independent aesthetic essence, pre- to intervene in the site. The newly acknowledged reciprocity between artwork
vailing doctrines hold that while art inevitably reflects social reality, its purpose is,
and site changed the identity of each, blurring the boundaries between them, and
by definition, the transcendence of spatiotemporal contingencies. Conventional
.paved the way for art's participation in wider cultural and social practices. For
social art history provides no genuine alternative. Frequently attracted to the study . public art, the objective of altering the site required that the urban space occupied
of public art because of what they perceive as its inherently social character, social by a work be un4erstood, just as art and art institutions had been, as socially con-
art historians (in keeping with the discipline's empiricist biases) confine themselves
structed spaces.
to describing either the iconography or the historical "context" of individual One of the more radical promises of public art that attempted to defetishize
works, restricting meaning to the work's overt subject matter and relegating social both art and urban space was that artists and critics would articulate their aesthetic
conditions to a backdrop. Such scholars thus preserve the dissociation of art- opposition to the spaces of art's reception with other fonns of social resistance to
ontologically intact-from discrete social "environments" with which art merely the organization of the city. Taking such a step does not mean, as some realist or
I "interacts." In addition, art history mystifies the social environment just as it does
\: '~activist" positions imply, that art must relinquish its specificity as a political prac-
the work of art. With few exceptions, art-historical discussions of the city are based
I'i' on notions of the city as a transhistorical form, an inevitable product of technologi-
tice. It does, however, entail the recognition that an artwork's identity is always
19 modified by its encounter with its sites. It is, for example, insuffiCient to support

I cal evolution, or an arena for the unfolding of exacerbated individualism.

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 UNEVEN DEVEI,OPMENT

a;~,
of disciplines about differences am
site-specif1city by simply stating, as some critics have done, that a work like Rich- producing the meanings of their envi:::;::;: iirrther, ;'bout the users' role in
ard Serra's Tilted Arc (1981) intervened in the city in order to redefme space as the subjective experience of space outside th . . 1enomeno og!cal readings, placing
to take int h e socwmatenal conditiOns of the city fail
site of scu1pture. 20 The significance of the intervention also depends on how art is
. aryh o ~ect o their study is already ideological.
' o account t at the prim· b. f . '
"The situation of man confi
redefined in the process. Because Tilted Arc did not address the stakes of redefining rontmg t · " ·
other thin s than . e city, wntes Raymond Ledrut, "involves
the city, it exhibited a combination of specificity and generalization symptomatic p ~ schemas of perceptive behavior. It introduces ideology"23
of the split it maintained between critical aesthetic issues and critical urban prob- reCisely because the ideology of spati 1 . .
lems. On the one hand, the sculpture was undoubtedly wedded concretely to its di<;cussions about Tilted Arc des . , ~ use was never mtroduced, critical
remained aloof from the m~st c:~:: ~he ~~~~mence accorded to questions of use,
site: it established itself in relation to the surrounding architecture, engaged and
York tod . fl' b a pu IC Issues about the uses of space in New
reoriented existing spatial patterns, invited viewers into the space of the work, and ay
city· and wh· h· con tcts
.d etween soc·la1groups ab out uses; the social division of the
traced the path of human vision across the Federal Plaza. Perhaps, as Douglas .. • lC rest ents are forcibl y exc1u d e d from usmg . the city at all Th
Crimp argues, setting up Tilted Arc as an example of radicalized site-specificity, the Issues occupy the heart of urban politics. They were also the hid . ese
work metaphorically ruptured the spatial expression of state power by destroying neoconservative assaults on Tilted Arc whi h . den agenda of
the plaza's seeming coh~rence. 21 It might also, as Crimp less speculatively suggests,
uniformly beneficial uses of bl' , ' c , represented as an tmpediment to the
o~
pu lC space became a f; ·1 · h·
have revealed the condition of alienation in bourgeois society. These are the most the supposed usefi.rlness of other kinds br Ol agamst w tch to measure

provocative claims that have been made for Tilted Arc as a practice that confronted the dominant uses of s ace Yet the. p~ IC art t~at celebrate and perpetuate
hearin~ b fip . . . se questiOns remamed unexcavated during the
the material conditions of art's existence. Although they identify a radical potential o ecause, con med Wtthm the boundarie f ..
for public art, they tend, as an interpretation of Serra's work, toward exaggeration. course about the sculpture £1iled to .d h : o cntical aesthetics, critical dis-
' consi er t e 1 uncti f bl' .
For Tilted Arc still floated above its urban site. The lingering abstraction of the porary urbanization-the spatial com f "al on o pu lC art m contem-
ponent o SOC! change Whil h 1"/
s_culpture from its space emerges most clearly in the attitude of the work and its debate frequently included corn le . . .. · e t e 1 ted Arc
aesthetic perception it noneth ~ x mbatenaltst ~ntlques of art's production and of
supporters toward urgent questions about the uses of public space. ' e ess o structed mterrogati f h ..
Indeed, "use" was elevated to a central position in the debates about public production of New York' b
s ur an space.
on ° t e conditiOns of
art generated by the hearings convened in 1985 to decide whether Serra's sculpture . Opening this question requires that we dislodge public art fi . h .
should be removed from its site. 22 The proper use of the site became a banner tion within the parameters of aescl . . rom Its g ettOlza-
under which crusades against the work were conducted. Supporters countered and resituate it, at least partially :ttlhc. disc~~ralse, even c~tical aesthetic discourse,
• I m cntlc urban disco . M .
such a shift · · urse · ore precisely
with alternative uses. Tilted Arc's most astute defenders problematized the assump- . m perspectiVe erodes the borders between . ,
tions about utility that justif1ed attacks on the sculpture, challenging, as does the crucial interfaces between art and b . . the two fields, revealmg
ur amsm m public art Th d£ ·· ·
work itself, simplistic or populist ideas about natural, self-evident uses. Yet in pro- to conceptualize this meeting ground IS . especta . lly urgent . e ·nee or cntlctsm
posing aesthetic uses for the space, isolated from its social function in specific cir- tive forces are performing that task in order t now smcc neoconserva-
cumstances, supporters substituted one ideological conception of use for another, complies with the demand f d 1 o promote a type of public art that
s o re eve opment "In£ , . . .
who has set forth the " . . . act, to Cite JUSt one JOurnalist
perpetuating, as did the work's detractors, a belief in essential, noncontingent uses new cntenon" for public art " bl'
of space. Moreover, the notion that Tilted Arc bestows on the Federal Plaza an as a function not of art b f b . ' pu lC art needs to be seen
, ut o ur amsm. It needs to be thought of.m re1at10n . to,
aesthetic use simply available to all ignores questions recently posed in a multitude

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 UN!.lVEN DEV!.lLOPM!.lNT

THE SOCIAL Pt<ODtJCTION Of· SPACE

directs a viewer's perception. Yet advocates d .

quality that di ti .h h . o specifY, no matter how vaguely, a
rather than insulated from the numerous other functions, activities and imperatives s ngms es t e new pubhc artists: ''All share a d d. .
that condition the fabric of city life." 24 The problem we face, then, is not so much aesthetic concerns. Use-n . _ .. , . . e tcatlon to extra-
the absence of any consideration of the city in current accounts of public art but and sunlight-is a primary ::u:.,': ~:t~ca~ty but as m seating and tables, shade
a ain" 27 A . " . . , We are puttmg functton back into art
rather that these accounts perpetuate mythologizing notions about the city. Typi- g . gam, Thts arclutectural art has a functional b . U l"k
cally, they claim both to oppose cultural elitism and to remain committed to· artistic tionally modern works of aintin aS!S. n 1 e most tradi-
ful to defi ' 1 p_' g and sculpture, which modern artists were care-
quality, a claim that parallels the assertion that the redeveloped citji provides quality
~
me as use ess' m comparison to other ob'ect 0 f . .
public space. Journalists thus promote a type of public art that is fully incorporated architectural art is often very muc h l'k
1 e a wall a c 1
s fl daily hfe, recent
into the apparatus of redevelopment. My desire to approach contemporary public fence." 28 Scott B rt h . ' o urnn, a oor, a door or a
laces ep't . u on, h w ose work-pn many ·1 fiumiture
· designed for public
art as an urban practice is motivated by the imperative, flrst, to respond to concrete . - 1 omtzes t e pheno menon, repeatedly declared that "utility" . h
P
events changing the function of public art and, second, to contribute to the forma- pnncipal yardstick for measuring the value of public art.z9 IS t e
tion of a counterpractice. A counterpractice must, however, possess an adequate The new art, then , is promo t ed as usefi.ll m. the reductive sense of fulfilr
knowledge of the dominant construction within which it works. In the case of supposedly essential human and social needs Just as K oc h deSlgnated
. 1 mg
a1 T: ·
t~
· Grand C
public art, it depends on a critical perception of the city's metamorphosis and of ermmdal a place for travel, this art prescribes places in the city for peopleento-
the role that public art is playing within it. Slt, to stan ' to play' t o eat, to read, even to dream Buildi h" r: .
When Mayor Koch's speechwriters for his talk before the American Institute the new art claims to .fY · ng on t 1S <Oundat!On,
of Architects stated that "once again, public art has become a priority," they were a model of integrationu~~iti~:~o~~a::;~:~~: :~!::::,doj'~;r:~~~~:7en!;"~~f as
drawing attention not only to an increase in the number of public art commissions these artists then transcend the division b . u tty,
but also to enhanced support for a qualitatively different kind of public art. Even usable objects. Through this usefulness y making works that are both art and
, moreover, art 1s supposed! il d
though their reference to art was part of a speech on aesthetics-the beautiful with
n . society and
. with th bl" b Y reconc e
e pu lC eneftt. Use, we are told, ensures relevance· ''As
city-it could equally have supported the mayor's later remarks about utility-the a artist working toward the social good, [the public sculpto ] d .
well-managed city. For the "new public art" illustrates the marriage of the two are used b th 1 r pro uces works that
desi ; e pop~ ace, that inhabit its plazas, that are part of its plans for urban
images in the redevelopment process. gn an econonuc redevelopment-works that rapidly leave the envir
In the eyes of proponents, what distinguishes the new public art and renders of art to enter the realm of artifacts."30 Just as functio . r . d .. ~~ent
it more socially accountable than the old is precisely its "usefulness." "What is the social activity is constricted to n n 1S mnte to utilitanamsm,
useful b" . arrow problem solvmg,so that the provision of
new public art?" asked an art journalist in one of the earliest articles reporting on o ~ects automatically collapses into a social good "The .al . .
the new phenomenon: «Definitions differ from artist to artist, but they are held terest me more than the art o " . .. soci questiOns m-
E . bl A nes, says Burton, descnbmg his furnishings for th
together by a single thread: It is art plus function, whether the function is to provide qmta e ssurance Building
ues Burton £ il . , a..structure w hose function
. m . raising real-estate val-e
a place to sit for lunch, to provide water drainage, to mark an important historical 1 w ill 1ove to eat their lunch
25
date, or to enhance and direct a viewer's perception:' From this indiscriminate there "31 H a s to
. examme.
, " I hope that
• peope
. e continues, Communal and social values are now . .
list of functions it is difficult to ascertain precisely how the new public sculpture What office workers do in their lunch hour is more important ::e~mportant.
differs from previous types. Nineteenth-century war memorials, after all, com- the hnnts of my self-expression."" y pushing
memorate important events, and Tilted Arc, against which the new art defmes itself,
I'
I
I
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65

J
 UNEVEN DEVELOJ?MilNT
THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION Of SPACE

The conflation of utility with social benefit has a distinctly moralistic cast: observing a recent shift in artistic attitudes. "A new kind of partnership is emerging
"All my work is a rebuke to the art world;' 33 Burton states. Critics agree: "[Scott between contemporary artists and the nation's communities," he explained in a
Burton] challenges the art community with neglect of its social responsibility.. · · chapter entitled "New Directions: Expanding Views of Art in Public Places,"
Carefully calculated for use, often in public spaces, Burton's furniture clearly has a "with the result that artists are increasingly involved in significant development
social function."34 All of these purported acts of unification are predicated on prior efforts. In part, this is a consequence of new initiatives within cities. As an ele-
separations and thus conceal underlying processes of dissociation. Each element of ment of major building programs in the last decade and a half, some have sought
the discourse about the new public art-art, use, society-first isolated from the the participation of artists in developing innovative solutions to public design
problems." 37
others, has individ~ally undergone a splitting operation in which it is rationalized
and objectified, treated as a nonrelational entity: art possesses an aesthetic essence; Public art collaborations emerged in the late 1970s and grew to such an
utilitarian objects serve universal needs; society is a functional ensemble with an extent that a decade later they dominated accounts of public art. "This is a season;'
objective foundation. They all surmount specific histories, geographies, values, and wrote Michael Brenson in 1988, "that is bringing the issue of artistic collaboration
relations to subjects and social groups, and all are reconstituted as abstract cate- to a head. Over the past few years a great deal of hope has been invested in the
gories. Individually and as a whole, they are severed from social relations, fetish- partnership between sculptors and architects, and between scuiptors and the com-
ized as discrete objects. This is the real social function of the new public art: to munity. There is a widespread feeling that this is the future for p~blic sculpture
present as natural the conditions of the late-capitalist city into which it hopes to and perhaps for sculpture in general." 38 The consistent invocation of"the commu-
nity" in passages such as these typifies the terminological problems pervading dis-
integrate us.
The supreme act of unification with which the new public art is credited, cussions of public art and endowing the new public art with an aura of social
however, is its interdisciplinary cooperation with other professions shaping the accountability. That Beardsley's book consistently describes government-funded
physical environment: "The new public art invariably requires the artist to collabo- art as community-sponsored is especially ironic since the "new initiatives within
rate with a diverse group of people, including architects, landscape architects, other cities" and "major building programs" that he cites as the impetus for collabora-
artists and engineers. So far, most of the public artists have had few problems ad- tions frequently comprise state interventions in the built environment that destroy
justing to the collaborative process; indeed, many have embraced it with enth~si­ minority and working-class communities, dispersing their residents. "Commu-
asm." 35 Another critic writes: "Few might have guessed that these collaboratlons nity" conjures images of neighborhoods bound together by relation~ of mutual
would so seriously affect the art, design and planning professions in such a short interest, respect, and kinship; "community-sponsored" implies local control and
time." 36 Yet given that the new public art rallies all of the notions that currently citizen participation in decision making. But it is community, as both territory and
inform redevelopment, it is hardly surprising, if not in fact completely predictable, social form, that redevelopment destroys, converting the city into a terrain orga-
that such work would be rapidly incorporated into the process of designing New nized to fulfill capital's need to exploit space for profit. If anything, clashes, rather
York's redeveloped spa_ces. Presented as beautiful, useful, public, and expertly pro- than agreement, between conununities and state-imposed initiatives are likely to
duced, the work advertises these new environments as images of New York's as- characterize urban life today.
cendancy. Indeed, the rise of collaborative public art accompanied the acceleration Inaccuracies of language, demonstrating indifference to urban politics, re-
of urban redevelopment almost from its inception. In 1981 John Beardsley con- semble other distortions pervading discourse about public art collaborations, con-
cluded his survey of "community-sponsored" art projects, Art in Public Places, by fusing the terms of aesthetic politics as well. Just as these misrepresentations

67
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 UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

THE Soct,\L PRODUCTION OF Sl'ACE

represents the gentrification of site art-it's been successfully, even

appropriate urban discourse, they use the vocabulary of radical art pra~tice to invest brilliantly, tamed, its sting removed. You can sometimes miss the good
the recent marriage of art and urban planning with a social justiftcatwn. The new old days when artists were fierce individualists wrestling the wilderness
public art is deemed "anti-individualist;' "contextualist;' and "site-specif1c:' Col- to its knees, like Dan'l Boone with the bear; the "otherness" of art out
laborative artists frequently voice a lack of concern with private self-expresswn and on the American desert touched some mythic nerve. But times have
thereby express their opposition to the autonomy and privilege of art. As part of changed. The two traditions-the gentrified and the wild-can't be
urban design teams, they also reject notions of public art as "decoration" becat~se, mixed.·10
as they contend, they are not merely placing objects in urban spaces but crean~g
the spaces themselves. If writers such as Beardsley single out new initiati~es within Thls statement constructs false dualisms that displace important differences.
cities as one factor contributing to the growth of public art collaboratwns, they What has been eliminated from the new "site-specific" art is not "individualism"
fmd a second crucial factor in developments within contemporary art itself: "In as opposed to teamwork but rather political intervention in favor of collaboration
part, [the shift to public art partnerships} follows as well from the increasi~gl:' inter- With dominant forces. The measure ofjust how depoliticized this art has become-
disciplinary character of contemporary art .... There is a pronounced sh1ft m these and how political it actually is-under the guise of being "environmentally sensi-
roiects from the isolated object to the artwork integrated with its environment tive" is the author's presumption that gentrification is a positive metaphor for
Pand' from the solitary creator to the artist as a member of a pro£esswna. 1 »39
team. changes in art practice. As anyone truly sensitive to New York's social landscape
Clearly, the new public art is born of recent tendencies within urbanism realizes, her prior description of gentrification as the domestication of wild fron-
and art practice. To say so tells us very little. Genuine explanation depends on tiers profoundly misapprehends the phenomenon. Gentrification only appears to
understanding the nature of each of these developments and their interaction. The result from the heroic conquest of hostile environments by individual "pioneers."
new art's promoters misconstrue both sources of the new public art. The difference In truth, as Neil Smith writes, "It is apparent that where the 'Urban pioneers'
between their version of site-speciflcity and its original meaning is obvious and venture, the banks, real-estate companies, the state or other collective economic
needs only to be summarized here. . . actors have generally gone before. In this context it may be more appropriate to
The commitment to developing an art practice that neither diverts attennon view the James Rouse Company not as the John Wayne but as the Wells Fargo of
from nor merely decorates the spaces of its display originated from the political gentrification." 41 The depiction of gentrification-a process that replaces poor,
imperative to challenge the apparent neutrality of those spaces. _co~textuali.st art usually minority, residents of frequently well-established neighborhoods with
intervened in its spatial environment by making the social orgamzanon and tdeo- middle-class residents-as the civilization of wild terrains is n~t only naive about
logical operations of that space visible. The new public art, by contrast, moves economics. It is ethnocentric and racist. The use of this conceit in art criticism
"beyond decoration" into the fteld of spatial design in order to create, rather than epitomizes the arrogance of an aesthetic discourse that claims to respond to urban
question, the coherence of the site, to conceal its constitutive social conflicts. Such environments but lacks any commitment to comprehend them.
work moves from a notion of art that is "in" but independent of its spaces to one Instead, absorbing dominant ideology about the city, proponents of the new
that views art as integrated with its spaces and users but in which all three elements public art respond to urban questions by constructing images of well-managed and
are independent of urban social relations. Simply combining twin fetishisms, this beautiful cities. Theirs is a technocratic vision. Insofar as it discerns a real prob-
]: public art is instrumental for redevelopment. One critic, specifying "a right v:ay lem-the loss of people's attachment to the city-it reacts by offering solutions
1
and a wrong way to insert art in public places;' describes a collaborative art proJeCt that can only perpetuate alienation: the conviction that needs and pleasures can
1I. in New York that, she believes, exemplifles the right way because it

l 69
li 68

l
 THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION Of SPACE
UNEVEN DEVHOPMENT

be gratified by expertly produced, professionally "humanized" environments. The Their interdisciplinary ventures differ, however, from the new collaborative and
incapacity to acknowledge that the city is a social rather than a technical form useful ones. Instead of extending the idealist conception of art to the surrounding
renders this vision helpless to explain a situation in which the same system that city, they combine materialist analyses of art as a social product with materialist
produces, for profit and control, a city dissociated from its users, today, for the analyses of the social production of urban space. As a contribution to this work,
same reason~. literally detaches people from their living spaces through eviction urban studies has much to offer since it explores the concrete mechanisms by
and displacement. Faced with such circumstances, the technocratic view is left which power relations are perpetuated in spatial forms and identifies the precise
with limited options: encouragement of these actions; disavowal; dismissal of terms of spatial domination and resistance. Since the late 1960s, the "social produc-
homelessness as an example of how the system fails rather than, more accurately, tion of space" has become the object of an impressive body of literature generated
how it currently works. The belief that homelessness represents such an isolated by urbanists in a variety of f1elds: geography, sociology, urban planning, political
social ''failure" can generate a resigned abandonment of the most troubling facts economy. Critical spatial theories share a key theme with critical aesthetic thought,
of city life, justifYing support for the use of the city for economic growth, modi- and the two have unfolded along a similar trajectory. Initially, each inquiry ques-
fied, perhaps, by degrees of regulation. One urban designer, dedicated to institu- . tioned th& paradigm dominadng its respective disdpline. Just as radical art practice
tionalizing urban design as a technical specialty and arm of public policy, freely challenged formalist dogma, radical urban studies questioned mainstream ecologi-
acknowledges, for instance, that gentrification and historic preservation displace cal perspectives on urban space. 4 ~ "The dominant paradigm," writes sociologist
"earlier settlers" in city neighborhoods. He even suggests measures to "mitigate Marc Gottdiener,
the adverse effects of social change in historic districts" but succinctly concludes
that "the dynamics of real estate in a private market always mean that someone loosely identified as urban ecology, explains settlement space as being
profits at someone else's expense. On balance, the preservation and restoration of produced by an adjustment process involving large numbers of rela-
old neighborhoods has to be considered valuable for the economic health of a city, tively equal actors whose interaction is guided by some self-regulating
even if there is hardship for individuals." 42 invisible hand. This "organic" growth process-propelled by techno-
Confident that the dominant forces producing to day's city represent the col- logical innovation and demographic expansion-assumes a spatial
lectivity-while members of displaced social groups are mere individuals-and morphology which, according to ecologists, mirrors that of lower life
equally confident, despite references to "social change;' that such forces are inunu- forms within biological kingdoms. Consequently, the social organiza-
table, interdisciplinary urban design teams-which now include public artists- tion of space is accepted by mainstreamers as inevitable, whatever its
fashion the mental a~d physical representations of New York's ascendancy. To do patterns of internal differentiation. 44
so, they must suppress the connection between redeveloped spaces and New
York's homelessness. The ecological perspective describes forms of metropolitan social life in terms of
the adaptation of human populations to environments in which certain processes
THE SOCIAl. UsES OF SPACE
remain constant. Employing biologistic analogies, this view attributes urban
growth patterns to laws of competition, dominance, succession, and invasion
Public artists seeking to reveal the contradictions underlying images of well- and thus explains the morphology of the city as the outco~e of seminatural pro-
managed or beautiful cities also explore relationships between art and urbanism. 45
cesses. Even when the ecological legacy of environmental determinism has been

70
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 UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT
THE SoCIAL PHOPUCTION Of S?ACE
'

Such a statement only makes sense, however, in light of a theory of spatial

complicated or discarded altogether, prevailing tendencies within urban studies
organization as a terrain of political struggle. Urban studies, far from a monolithic
continue to view space as an objective entity and to marginalize the role of the
discipline, is characterized by debates on "the politics of space" far too complex to
wider social system in producing urban spatial form. But just as critical art practice
receive justice within the scope of this essayY Still, it is necessary to outline, how-
in the late 1960s and 1970s sought to defetishize the ideological art object, critical
ever briefly, why space is on the political agenda today as it has never been before.
urban studies did the same with the ideological spatial object-the city as an eco-
Henri Lefebrve, who coined the phrase "the production of space," attributes the
logical form. The two inquiries investigated the ways in which social relations '
significance of space, at least in part, to changes in the organization of production
produce, respectively, art and the city. and accumulation under late capitalism. New spatial arrangements assure capital-
· Having insisted, however, on the relationship between· society and art, on
ism's very survival. Because, according to Lefebvre, production is no longer iso-
the one hand, and society and space, on the other, both critiques rejected the idea
lated in independent units within space but, instead, takes place across vast spatial
that this relationship can be reduced to simple reflection or interaction. If formal-
networks, "the production of things in space" gives way to ''the production of
ism could reenter aesthetic discourse in the notion that art inevitably mirrors so-
space."48 D ue to th.1s growth of space and to revolutions in telecommunications
ciety, so idealism could return to spatial discourse in the formulation that space
and information technology, "the planning of the modern economy tends to be-
mirrors social relations. But "two things can only interact or reflect each other if
come spatial pl~nning." 49 Lefebvre's premise has some clear implications. Individual
they are defined in the first place as separate;' observes Smith. "Even having taken
cities cannot _be defined in isolation from their relationships with other places,
the first step of realization, then, we are not automatically freed from the burden
relationships that take place within and across various geographic levels: global,
of our conceptual inheritance; regardless of our intentions, it is difficult to start
regional," urban. The spatial restructuring ofNew York can be comprehended only
fro\n an implicitly dualistic conception of space alld society and to conclude by
within a global context that includes the internationalization of capital, the new
demonstrating their unity. " 46 Indeed, by means of such separations, not only are
international division oflabor, and the new international urban hierarchy. so Cities
space and art endowed with identities as discrete entities, but social life .appears to
such as New York occupy the upper ranks of this hierarchy. They are centers for
be unsituated, to exist apart from its material forms. Space and art can be rescued
decision making and administrative control of finance capital and global corpora-
from further mystification only by being grasped as socially produced categories in
~ions. Productive activities and low-level clerical jobs are exported, permitting sav-
the flrst instance, as arenas where social relations are reproduced, and as themselves
mgs on labor costs along with enhanced flexibility and control. But the corporate
social relations. center itself emerges not only through global restructuring but through a
Framing my remarks about kindred developments in two distinct fields is a
restructuring within the city. New concentrations ofluxury housing, office build-
belief that they share a common purpose. Both attempt to reveal the depoliticizing
ings, and high-status entertainment and recreational facilities serve the new work-
effects of the hegemonic perspectives they criticize and, conversely, share an im-
force and destroy the physical conditions of survival for blue-collar workers. This
perative to politicize the production of space and art. T~ese similar goals do not
restructuring is paradoxical, entailing simultaneous deindustrialization and reindus-
merely offer an interesting academic parallel. Nor, as in- standard conceptions of
trialization, decentralization and recentralization, and internationalization and pe-
interdisciplinarity, do they simply enrich each other. Rather, they converge in the
ripheralization. Crucial to understanding the character of New York, however, is
production of a new object-public art as a spatial activity. Understanding the
the insight that within the flnance and service center, as on the global level, indi-
fusion of urban space with prevailing social relations ·reveals the extent to which
vidual spaces have no intrinsic substance: their character and condition can be
the predominant tendency within public art to design the landscape of redevelop-
explained only in relation to other city spaces.
ment fully implicates art in contemporary spatial politics.

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 UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT
THE SOCIAL PROD~JCTION OF SPACE

metropolitan land markets. According to Smith, the profitability of investment in

To a great extent, specific spatial relations within the city correspond to the
the built environment depends on the creation of what he calls a "rent gap." 53 The
broader circumstances of accumulation under advanced capitalism. Today, accu-
rent gap describes the difference between the current and potential value of land.
mulation occurs not by absolute expansion but through the internal diti:erentiation
The devalorization of real estate, through blockbusting, red lining, and abandon-
of space. It is, then, a process of uneven development. The idea that uneven spatial
31 ment of buildings, creates a situation in which investment by real estate and finance
development is "the hallmark of the geography of capitalism" combines insights
capital for "higher" land uses can produce a profitable return. Redevelopment is
of geography with a long and embattled tradition within Marxist political econ-
the consequence of both the uneven development of capital in general and of
omy. Theorists of uneven development explain capital accumulation as a contra-
urban land in particular. Whether or not one agrees that the creation of a rent gap
dictory process taking place through a transfer of values within a hierarchic~lly
is sufficient to produce redevelopment, Smith's thesis discloses the concealed rela-
unified world system. "In this whole system," writes Ernest Mandel,
tion betvveen processes such as gentrification and those of abandonment. The de-
cline of neighborhoods, rather than being corrected by gentrification, is in £1.ct its
development and underdevelopment reciprocally determine each
precondition. But the theory of uneven urban development also helps us under-
other, for while the quest for surplus-profits constitute's the prime mo-
stand the construction of the image of the redeveloped city. To portray redeveloped
tive power behind the mechanisms of growth, surplus-prof1t can only
spaces as symbols of beneficial and uniform growth, declining spaces must be con-
be achieved at the expense of less productive countries, regions and
stituted as separate categories. Growth as redifferentiation is disavowed. Conse-
branches of production. Hence development takes place only in juxta-
quently, the repressed "other" of spaces of ascendancy has a concrete identity in
position with underdevelopment; it perpetuates the latter and itself·
2
the city's deteriorating areas and in the immiseration of residents.
develops thanks to this perpetuation. 5 Uncovering the economic determinations of spatial redifferentiation in New
York does not, however, illuminate the operations of space as a determining weight
Urban geographers and sociologists routinely include uneven development among
on social life or as ideol.ogy. For Lefebvre, ·advanced capitalism creates a distinctive
the features distinguishing the production oflate-capitalist space. Smith has exten-
and multivalent space that "is not only supported by social relations, but ... also
sively analyzed it as a structural process governing spatial patterns at all scales. His
is producing and produced by social relations." 54 Capitalist space or what Lefebvre
work can help us comprehend the spatial restructuring of New York in the 1980s
calls both "abstract space" and "dominated space" serves multiple functions. It is,
since it explains phenomena such as gentrification and redevelopment as manifesta-
at once, a means of production, an object of consumption, and a property relation.
tions of the broad, yet specific, underlying process of uneven development affect-
It is also a tool of state domination, subordination, and surveillance. According to
ing land use in the city. Lefebvre, abstract space possesses a distinctive combination of three qualities: it
Smith theorizes two factors responsible for uneven development at the urban
is homogeneous or uniform so that it can be used, manipulated, controlled, and
scale. Following David Harvey, he applies to explanations of urban space theories
exchanged. But within the homogeneous whole, which today spreads over a vast
maintaining that overaccumulation crises prompt capital, in an attempt to counter-
area, it is also fragmented into interchangeable parts, so that, as a commodity, it
act falling rates of proftt, to switch its investment from crisis-ridden spheres of the
can be bought and sold. Abstract space is, further, hierarchically ordered, divided
economy into the built environment. Gentriftcation and redevelopment represent
into centers and peripheries, upper- and lower-status spaces, spaces of the govern-
this attempt. But uneven development in the city arises not only in response to
ing and the governed. All three features of abstract space require that space be
such broad economic cycles but also because of corresponding conditions within

75
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 THE SOCIAL Pt\OOUCTlON Of SPACE UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

objectifted and universalized, submitted to an abstract measure. Abstract space can Lefebvre's intricate fOrmulations about the preeminence of space in social
function as a space of control because it is generalized from specificity and diversity, conflicts have provoked extensive criticism, including charges of"spatial fetishism,"
from its relation to social subjects, and from their specific uses of space. "vagueness," and "reproductionism," especially from orthodox Marxists. Lefebvre
Above all, numerous contradictions haunt this space. As a global productive first became familiar to English-speaking readers through Manuel Castell's The Ur-
force, space is treated on a universal scale, but it is also, in Lefebvre's words, "pul- ban Question in which the author opposed Lefebvre in a debate on the theory of
verized" by relations of private property and by other processes that fragment space. 58 Ahhough Castells later returned to many of Lefebvre's ideas, which by
it into units. For Lefebvre, this contradiction corresponds to the basic contra- that time had been embraced by numerous Anglo-American urbanists, Lefebvre's
diction of capitalism outlined by Marx between the forces of production-the emphasis 6n social reproduction makes him vulnerable to criticism from leftist
socialization of geographical space, in this case-and the social relations of critics who continue to privilege production as the determining base of social life
production-the private ownership and control ·of space. But Lefebvre's and therefore as the fundamental location and objective of emancipatory struggle.
universalization-pulverization contradiction also represents a conflict bet\Veen the In ad4ition, Lefebvre:s rejection of reformist measures to ameliorate urban ·prob-
need to homogenize space so that it can serve as a tool of state domination and to lems coupled with his refusal to propound doctrinaire solutions frustrate both
fragment space so that it can facilitate economic relations. liberal critics and those leftists searching for a single explanatory factor or a precon-
But while abstract space homogenizes differences, it simultaneously pro- ceived model of alternative spatial organization. For Lefebvre, however, the model
duces them. Lefebvre's account of this contradiction is compelling: while capitalist is itself the tool of technocratic spatial knowledge that,_p_rqducing repetition rather
space tends toward the elimination of differences, it does not succeed in its homog- than difference, helps engineer the production of abstract space. One principal
enizing quest. As the globalization of space creates centers of decision making and value of his critique is precisely that it does not prescribe a new orthodoxy of
power, it must expel people: "The dominant space, that of the spaces of richness urban planning. Moreover, for Lefebvre meaning is not fixed in objective eco-
55
and power, is forced to fashion the dominated space, that of the periphery." nomic structures but is continuously invented in the course of what Michel de
Relegating groups of people and particular uses of space to enclosed areas outside Certeau calls "the practice of everyday life"-the use and undoing of dominated
the center produces what Lefebvre calls an "explosion of spaces." As abstract space space by those it excludes. 59 Lefebvre's analysis of the spatial exercise of power as
imposes itself on the social space of everyday life, a multitude of differences appear. the conquest of differences, while thoroughly grounded in Marxist thought, rejects
"What is different," writes Lefebvre, "is, to begin with, what is excluded: the edges economism and opens the possibility of advancing the analysis of spatial politics
56
of the city, shanty towns, the spaces of forbidden games, of guerrilla war, of war." into feminist, anticolonialist, and radical democratic discourse. Even if one dis-
The spread of abstract space continuously heightens the contradlction bet\Veen the agrees with his humanist belief in a previously integrated social space, Lefebvre
production of space for profit and control-abstract space-and the use of space has, more thoroughly than anyone of whom I am aware, theorized how the organ-
for social reproduction-the space of everyday life, which is created by but also ization of urban space functions as ideology. He thus provides a starting point for
escapes the generalizations of exchange and technocratic specialization. Abstract cultural critiques of spatial design as an instrument of social controL
space represents, then, the unstable subordination of social space by a centralized For Lefebvre, space is ideological because it reproduces prevailing social rela-
space of power. This constitutive instability makes it possible for users to "appro- tions and because it represses conflict. Abstract space gives rise to, and is produced
priate" space, to undo its domination by capitalist spatial organization. This activ- by, contradictions, but spatial organization is also the medium through which con-
ity, an exercise of what Lefebvre refers to as "the right to the city," 57 includes the tradictions are contained. "One of the most crying paradoxes of abstract space,"
struggle of expelled groups to occupy and control space.

76 77
 THE SOCIAL PROOUCriON OF SPACE UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

writes Lefebvre, "is that it can be simultaneously the birthplace of contradictions, city in the cautious manner of the cultural critic described by Walter Benjamin.
the milieu in which they are worked out and which they tear up and finally, the Confronted with "cultural treasures"-"docurnents of civilization"-Benjamin's
instrument which allows their suppression and the substitution of an apparent critic unveils the barbarism underlying their creation by brushing their history
coherence. All of which confers on space a function previously assumed by ideol- "against the grain." 62 Likewise, we can brush New York's spatial documents of
ogy." 60 Professions such as urban planning and design-and, now, public art- ascendancy against the grain, revealing them to be documents of homelessness.
assume the job of imposing such coherence, order, and rationality on space. They First, however, it must be acknowledged that they have a history.
can be regarded as disciplinary technologies in the Foucauldian sense insofar as
they attempt to pattern space so that docile and useful bodies are created by and THE SOUL OF BATTERY PARK CITY

deployed within lt. In performing these tasks, such technologies also assume the
contradictory functions of the state. Called upon to preserve space for the fulfill- "In Battery Park there was nothing built-it was landfill-so it was not as if there
ment of social needs, they must also facilitate the development of an abstract space was a history to the place. This was a construction site." 63 The sentiment that New
of exchange and engineer the space of domination. Consequently, urban prac- York's waterfront development lies not Only on the edge of the city but outside
titioners who view planning as a technical problem and politics as a foreign sub- history is widespread, here voiced by a public artist who recently cooperated as
stance to be eliminated from spatial structures are involved in, and simultaneously part of an urban design team creating a "site-specific installation" 64 called South
mask, spatial politics. Cove, a park located in a residential area of Battery Park City. South Cove is only
The contours of New York's redevelopment cannot be conceptually manip- one of several collaborative "artworks" sponsored by the Fine Arts Committee of
ulated to fit exactly within the mold of Lefebvre's description of late-capitalist the Battery Park City Authority, the state agency overseeing what has become "the
space. Yet his concept of abstract space, coupled with that of uneven development, largest and most expensive rea:l estate venture ever undertaken in New York
helps clarify the terms of urban spatial struggle. Materialist analyses of space enable City. " 65 The elaborate art program, whose ambition matches the scope of the real-
us to evaluate the effects of cultural practices, such as the new public art, which estate program, "will be," most critics agree, "New York's most important show-
are engaged in that struggle on the side of real estate and state domination. They case for public art." 66 As a massive state intervention in New York redevelopment
also suggest ways in which public art can enter the arena of urban politics to under- and, con~urrently, exemplar of the governmental priority now accorded public art,
mine that domination, perhaps facilitating the expression of social groups excluded Battery Park City elicits virtually unanimous accolades from public officials, real-
by the current organization of the city. Participation in urban design and planning estate and business groups, city planners, and art and architecture critics alike. The
enmeshes public art, unwittingly or not, in spatial politics, but public art can also apotheosis, individually, of urban redevelopment and of the new public art, it also
help appropriate the city, organized to repress contradictions, as a vehicle .for illu- seals their union. Dominant aesthetic and urban discourses dissemble the nature of
minating them. It can transform itself into a spatial praxis, which Edward Soja has the alliance. Typical of the art world's role in this process is John Russell's response
defined as "the active and informed attempt by spatially conscious social actors to to the unveiling of designs for a major Battery Park City art collaboration-the
reconstitute the embracing spatiality of sociallife." 61 Against aesthetic movements public plaza of the World Financial Center, the project's commercial core. Com-
that design the spaces of redevelopment, interventionist aesthetic practices menting on the interaction between art and urbanism represented by this ev:ent,
might-as they do with other spaces of aesthetic display-redesign these sites. For Russell starts by defining the essence of Battery Park City as aesthetic-the en-
if official public art creates the redeveloped city, art as spatial praxis approaches the counter between land and water:

78 79
 THE SOCIAl PRODUCl'lON OF SPACE UNEVEN ])F,VEU)PMENT

Battery Park City is just across the water from the Statue of Liberty, as work of art in an aestheticist sense-as, that is, essentially independent of social
everyone knows, and it therefore occupies a particularly sensitive posi- life-he in fact frees the new public art to do exactly the opposite of what he
tion. In every great city by the sea there comes a moment at which claims: to ignore the city's social processes and their effect on the everyday life of
land meets with moving water. If the city is doing a good job, whether residents. The purported metamorphosis of Battery Park City and, by extension,
accidentally or by grand design, we feel at that moment that great of all New York into an artwork conceals the city's social metamorphosis. If, then,
cities and the sea are predestined partners. Their interaction can turn the new art relinquishes its status as an aesthetic object isolated from "life," it does
whole cities into works of art. 67 so only to confer that mystifying status on Battery Park City itself.
Similar mystifications pervade descriptions of all facets of Battery Park City.
Having intimated that maritime cities are shaped by transcendent forces, Surpassing even the usual promotional enthusiasm with which the mass media
Russell invents romantic precedents for Battery Park City, first in a lineage of sea- announce the progress of New York real-estate developments, articles and
side cities-St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Venice-and then in the great paint- speeches about the completion of Battery Park City treat it as a symbol of New
ing, mu<;ic, and literature that they inspired. But the meaning of Battery Park City York's rise from "urban decay," "urban crisis;' and "urban fiscal crisis." Battery
is determined less by its natural topography-land meeting water-than by cul- Park City exemplifies multiple victories-of public policy, public space, urban
tural discourses, including ideas drawn from art history about the nature of another design, and city planning.
encounter-that between art and the city. Art history has several traditional ways
of describing this relationship. The city can be a work of art. The city, or the The phoenix-like rising of their [major corporations'] collective new
experience of the city, influences the subject matter and form of works of art. And, home [Battery Park City] is demonstrating that predictions of lower
of course, there are artworks situated in the city-public art. Russell mobilizes all Manhattan's demise were unduly hasty-like forecasts for other down-
three categories, beginning, as we have seen, with the first. But he also implies that towns across the nation, 70
Battery Park City's natural destiny to be an aesthetic object generates reciprocal
possibilities for revitalizing art as well. Fulfilling its task of effecting the city's meta- For this is the real significance of Battery Park City-not the specific
morphosis into an artwork, art itself will be transformed: '"What [the Battery Park designs of its parks or its buildings, good though they are, but the
City Fine Arts Committee] did was to redefme the respective roles of architect, message the large complex sends about the import~nce of the public
art and landscape designer in the planning of large-scale building projects. Instead realm. 71
of being assigned pre-existing spaces in which to present works of art, the artists
are to function from the outset as co-designers of the spaces." 68 Battery Park City ... is close to a miracle .... It is not perfect-but
With this assertion, Russell enters the discourse about public art. Celebrating is far and away the finest urban grouping since Rockefeller Center and
the "new notion of public art," he describes the new art as work that is inunersed one of the better pieces of urban design of modern times.7 2
in, rather than aloof from, metropolitan life: "The general thrust of the plan was
away from the hectoring monumentality of 'public sculpture' and toward a kind A major governmental success and an example of what government
of art that gets down off the pedestal and works with everyday life as an equal can do. 73
partner." 69 But because Russell has already defmed Battery Park City as itself' a

80 81
 THE Socit\L PRODUCTION OF SPACE

In short, an "mban dream" 74 and, in Governor Mario Cuomo's succinct assess- of the project's unfolding. Restoring the housing question to representations of
ment, "a soaring triumph." 75 Battery Park City is crucial, since Battety Park City's design collaborations conceal
The project's physical foundation on a manufactured landftll generates still the ramifications of this issue by placing political questions outside the province of
other optimistic tropes. Battery Park City is fresh, untrodden territory unencum- beauty and utility. The organization of housing provision vividly embodies the
bered by hi<;torical fetters and past failures, a glittering token of New York's ability political contradictions of contemporary urbanization. As the central expenditure
to reverse deterioration, an emblem of hope. Ironically, the image bestowed on oflow-income families, housing most acutely reflects New York's social polariza-
land that has been literally produced figuratively severs the space from the social tion. Withdrawal of housing from poor and minority residents forcibly denies
processes that constituted it. Such conceits inadvertently convert Battery Park them a right to the city. To illuminate Battery Park City's role in the development
City's imaginary landfill into a palpable symbol not of the city's triumph but rather and distribution of housing is, then, to apprehend the project as a graphic emblem
of the mental operation that fetishizes the city as a physical object. The landfill not of New York's triumph but of its uneven development.
bespeaks the triumph of the technocratic city produced by powers that surpass When, in May 1966, Governor Rockefeller first proposed Battery Park City
people. From the project's inception, it was described as the creation by urban as a "new living space for New York" and part of his overall program for Lower
professionals of a "community." It provides, according to one planning critic, "the Manhattan redevelopment, the plan included 14,000 apartments: 6,600 luxury,
urban functions and am<;nities-shops, restaurants, schools, parks, rapid transit, ~,000 middle-income, and 1,400 subsidized low-income units. 79 Mayor Lindsay
utilities, public and recreational facilities-that make a real community. " 76 "We also wanted to develop Lower Manhattan, but .solely for high-income residents.
see plan making and implementation," reads the master plan, "as interrelated parts On April 16, 1969, Rockefeller and Lindsay presented a compromise plan allocat-
of the same process: successful city building." 77 So attenuated are the bonds tying ing only 1,266 out of 19,000 units to the poor." About 5,000 middle-income
the landfill to its social foundations that, unsurprisingly, Battery Park City almost units were included, with the remaining apartments earmarked for luxury use.
speaks for itself, stressing its origins in a technical achievement: "It is what it calls Charles]. Urstadt, then ch.:1.irman of the Battery Park City Authority, speaking as
itself: a city. It begins by making its own land." 78 the state's mouthpiece and anticipating protest against the small proportion oflow-
Of course, Battery Park City does have a hi,rory. It did not spring full-blown income housing, announced that the housing mix was "not immutable." 81 Indeed,
from the water nor, as public relations accounts present it, from the imagination in the political climate of the late 1960s numerous liberal groups demanded greater
of such "visionaries" as Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Mayor John Lindsay, proportions of low-income !tousing in Battery Park City in exchange for their
who then bequeathed their "dreams" to Governor Cuomo and May()r Koch. It support of Lindsay's reelection that year. Manhattan borough president Percy E.
emerged, instead, from a series of conflicts over the use of public land and espe- Sutton, calling the proposed development the "Riviera on the Hudson," 82 stated
cially over the socioeconomic composition of city housing. Successive alterations that "it will use scarce public land resources and public powers to benefit mainly
in architecture and design comprise another historical dimension of the project. groups and social classes fully capable of meeting their housing needs without pub-
Intersecting these narratives, Battery Park City in its nearly complete present form lic aid." 83 More radical elements~tenant groups in particular~also voiced oppo-
synchronically occupies a key position in New York's historically constituted struc- sition. Yet Lindsay believed, as expressed in the 1969 Plan for New York City, that
ture of spatial relations. Long ove;rdJ.Ie, an exhaustive critique of Battery Park City New York had to remain a "national center" in order to ensure the city's qverall
has yet to be undertaken. Here, I want to retrieve enough of the project's history prosperity. "He saw preservation and enhancement of the central areas for the elite
so that we can see the ways in which art and design intervened at a critical moment as crucial to the whole future of the city." 84 Placing low-income housing in Battery

82 83
 UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT
THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION Ol' SPACE

proportions do not indicate the full extent of the authority's class-biased action.
Park City was, in Lindsay's words, "equivalent to putting low-income housing
Officially designated limits for establishing loW-, middle-, and luxury-income
in the middle of the East Side of Manhattan." 85 Nonetheless, Lindsay needed the
housing eligibility always demand scrutiny, since, for one thing, housing costs in-
support ofliberal Democrats, and in August he reversed his stand, asking that two-
crease, and, for another, income standards are constantly adjusted. By 1972, as
thirds of Battery Park Ciry's 15,000 apartments be built for low- and middle-
sociologist Maynard T. Robison points out, "the cost of'rniddle-income' housing
income tenants.s6 At a City Planning Commission hearing, a Lindsay aide stated
was such that its residents would be quite well off." 92 Amendments that year to
that the mayor believed that "the social benefits to be gained from having an eco-
the Master Lease also eliminated the requirement that each of Battery Park City's
nomically integrated community in lower Manhattan far outweigh 'the financial
residential builclings reflect the income mix of the entire project. This meant that
burdens.' ••s7 Two months later, the Board of Estimate approved the revised Battery
low-income housing could be segregated.
Park City plan, although representatives of the East Side Tenants Council and City
Between 1972, when the first Battery Park City bonds were issued, and
Wide Anti-Poverty Committee on Housing still protested the liberal decision, ar-
1979, a year before the first payment on the bonds came due, the proposed housing
guing that "the low-income New Yorker who most needs new housing was being
mix remained stable but little progress was made on implementing the project.
forgotten by the Battery Park City planners:' ss Several months earlier, Jack Rand
Site development on the ninety-one-acre landfill continued. Various construction
of the East Side Tenants Council had charged in a letter to the New York Times
deals were worked out, only to collapse. Robison, who has extensively investigated
that the authority was discriminating between Manhattan and Brooklyn in the
the unfolding of Battery Park City from its inception until 1979, attributes the
39
clistribution of low-income housing. lack of activity to two interrelated factors. First, he believes, all of the principal
Under the legal arrangements for the approved plan, the city of New York,
actors in the Battery Park City project-government officials, fmancial instittl-
owner of the land, would lease it under the terms of a Master Lease to the Battery
tions, real-estate developers-wanted to build a luxury district for corporate and
Park City Authority, which would control its development. The Master Lease
real-estate investment. The site, however, presented several obstacles impeding de-
went into effect in June 1970. The authority planned to issue tax-exempt bonds
mand for expensive housing in the area: surrounded by unattractive and decaying
to finance the project, with payment on the bonds to be made out of the revenues
terrain, it had no park, stores, restaurants, or entertainment and recreational facili-
generated by development. The authority also intended to select private developers
ties. The question for the major groups involved in Battery Park City was, it seems,
to build all of Battery Park City's housing, but, because of construction and hous-
not whether the public sector should encourage the privatization of the city by
ing market conditions, developers were unwilling to assume the risks involved
subsidizing the rich and guaranteeing business profits but "how to do so in the
without government support. The city moved to provide it. In 1972, "a consensus
face of pressure to use public resources and the site to benefit groups other than
developed that several provisions in the original Master Lease ... would be cum-
the elite."n
bersome, time-consuming or overly costly in the executio.n of the physical con-
By 1979, the turning point in Battery Park City's evolution, the answer had
struction of the project, or would impede the marketability of the completed
90 appeared in the form of the "fiscal crisis." Sanctioned by orthodox explanations of
facilities and the administrative operations of the Authority." Thus, the City
the mid-1970s crisis in New York's public fmance, the state ultimately transferred
Planning Commission and the Board of Estimate endorsed changes to "eliminate
Battery Park City's spatial resources to the private sector. Leasing the land to private
or modify the inevitable conditions:' 91 These changes reduced the proportion of
developers, the authority sought to attract them through substantial tax abate-
low-income housing to approximately twelve percent. Thirty percent of the units
ments, exemptions, and financial incentives to use Battery Park City for office
were to be luxury and fifty-six percent middle-income. But even the changed

85
84
 THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OJ' SPACE UNEVf>N DEVELOPMENT

towers and luxury condominiums. The authority also undertook the task of site system, not as the natural result of inevitable economic forces. In this sense, the
development for these projects, creating parks and other amenities to convert the dominant construction of the category "urban fiscal crisis" is ideological. It pre-
area into an elite district as quickly as possible. In 1979 the inunediate fiscal prob- sents crises as natural and then uses that naturalizing premise to justify transferring
lem hcing the Battery Park City Authoriry was the likelihood that, because it had resources to the private sector and withholding them from the services most
not yet generated sufficient revenues, it would have to default on the first payment needed by the poor. It thus perpetuates the conditions that it purports to explain
of principal-due November 1, 1980~of its outstanding bonds. City and state and vividly demonstrates the unequal weight of public and private interests in mu-
officials, developers, and urban planners agreed that Battery Park City's "failure" nicipal finance policies.
resulted from the project's overly ambitious conception and from New York's In 1979 the ideology of crisis justified such inequitable measures in Battery
current fiscal troubles. 94 A "workout" plan, they believed, must be informed by Park City, aimed at providing the project's "last chance." 98 To rescue Battery Park
knowledge of "the city's tough urban realities." 95 Thus, Battery Park City's situa- City, a new legal framework, fmancial scheme, and master design plan were
tion assumed, just as the fiscal crisis itself did, an aura of inevitability that fostered adopted to "make something useful" out of the site.')9 Principally, the goal was to
acceptance of inequitable solutions. attract private financing. To do so, the new plan provided substantial tax abate-
Crises in public finance are not caused by inexorable economic laws, how- ments and other financial incentives and relocated Battery Park City's commer-
ever, but by specific economic relations. Critics of conventional definitions of ur- cial zone, previously relegated to the landfill's southern end, to a central location.
ban fiscal crisis stress va0ring alternative explanations, but, in general, they position The plan eliminated all subsidized low-, moderate-, and middle-income housing
it within the broader economic crises of capitalist countries. 96 Local crisis is insepa- as well.
rable from larger crises of the public sector during which social services are cut To facilitate these changes, the new plan also included an altered legal ar-
back in order to aid business. Some economists analyze urban fiscal crisis as a rangement, a variant of a widespread strategy by which government encourages
reflection of the inability of municipal governments to raise revenues in a new era the private sector and cushions it from direct public controL According to an
of capital mobility and flexible accumulation. City governments, reacting to forces agreement worked out between the administrations of Governor Hugh Carey and
that are to a considerable extent outside their control, adopt policies oriented· Mayor Koch, the state used its power of condemnation to bring the Battery Park
toward attracting private investment. Peter Marcuse, emphasizing the uses of "ur- City land under the direct ownership of the state Urban Development Corpora-
ban fiscal crisis" as a concept, points to two constituent factors. 97 The first is the tion. In this way, the city yielded much of its legal control over the project. Indeed,
problem inherent in capital accumulation, which, to counteract falling rates of the purpose of the maneuver was "to free the project from the welter of city
profit, constantly seeks to cheapen labor costs and automate production. To ac- regulations." wo
complish these goals, capital shifts locations. The state, however, must bear the But what, in this case, is meant by "the welter of city regulations?" The shift
social costs of capital mobility: infrastructure provision, facilities for the working oflegal ownership ofBattery Park City from the city government to a state author-
population, the redundant workforce left behind when businesses move elsewhere. ity actually ensured, under the guise of antibureaucratic efficiency, that developers
Consequently, Marcuse identifies a real tendency to crisis within the economic would be liberated, as far as possible, from the constraints imposed by existing
and political systems but suggests that there is also a fraudulent crisis that justifies democratic procedures for regulating land-use and planning decisions in New
government policies transparently serving private interests. Both the real crises and York: community board reviews, public hearings, and City Planning Commission
the fraudulent one, however, should be perceived as processes in a particular social approval. Authorities-public corporations empowered to issue bonds in order to

86 87
 THf, SOCIAL PRODUCTION Ol' SPACE UNEVEN DEVELOI'MENT

undertake economic activity-are. one of the few popularly accepted forms by agents of public policy in the late 1960s, exactly when Battety Park City was first
which the United States government engages in economic ventures. As Annmarie proposed. Alexander Cooper Associates, an urban design firm that later, in the
Hauck Walsh concludes in an exhaustive study of government corporations, they 1980s, engineered major redevelopment projects in New York and New Jersey,
are largely protected from public accountability. Justified by the claim that their prepared the third component of the Battery Park City "workout;' the project's
quasi-independent status makes them less vulnerable to political influence, authori- new master plan, complying with the mandate to make the project "more attrac-
ties are in reality less accessible to government regulation, community interests and tive for investment and responsive to current planning approaches." 105 The draft
local pressures. Removing Battery Park City from city ownership helped remove it plan outlined the basic design that ultimately determined Battety Park City's final
from the demands to which municipal government is especially sensitive. "Hybrid form. Earlier, both principals of the finn, Alexander Cooper and Stanton Eckstut,
creatures," says Walsh, authorities are "corporations without shareholders, political had been leaders of Mayor Lindsay's Urban Design Group. In 1971, Cooper served
jurisdictions without voters or taxpayers." 101 An interrogation of the authority as executive director of the Urban Design Council, precursor of the Urban Design
form of public business cannot be separated from other questions about decision Group of which Cooper was, for a time, also director. It is a measure of the extent
making and resource allocation since, organized and run according to business to which planning and aesthetic discourses block comprehension of the urban so-
principles, authorities frequently undertake projects on the basis of financial viabil- cial context that in 1969, during the height of agitation for low-income housing
ity rather than public service. Financing through the bond market-with its atten- in Battety Park City, the mayor's Urban Design Council, along with the Municipal
dant imperatives to guarantee the security of bonds and, further, to make them Art S9ciety, endorsed the strongly contested Battery Park City plan without men-
profitable on the secondary market-also affects the type of enterprises promot~d tioning the housing controversy at all. 106
by authorities. The significance of these criteria can be grasped in the fact that m More than ten years later, designers again marginalized housing as an issue
May 1980, following the adoption of the new Battety Park City Plan, Standard in "successful city building" when they devised Battery Park City's master plan.
and Poor, a leading fmancial rating agency, granted Battery Park City's new bonds Directing the appearance, use, and organization of Battery Park City land, the
102
the highest possible credit rating, thus assuring their successful sale. Indeed, the discourse about design and the actual spaces that the planners produced also as-
new plan predicted financial result.;; so successfully that later in the same year, sumed the task of rewriting the site's history, not so 1nuch concealing social reality
Olympia and York Properties was conditionally approved as developer of Battery as tra·nsposing it into design. For if Battery Park City's plan became a medium for
Park City's entire commercial sector. Eventually, the commercial structures materi- evacuating history as action and conflict, it did so by reinventing history as spec-
alized, aided by tax advantages and low-interest loans, as the World Financial Cen- tacle and tradition. Thus, in 1979, the moment when Battety Park City changed
ter. By April 1982, Battety Park City had become New York's "newest prestige most definitively and when New York entered its accelerated phase of restructur-
address." to 3 "As a result of economic forces no one could have foreseen;' the New ing, development proceeded under a master plan stressing continuity, permanence,
York Times reported, "luxury-level housing for upper-middle income or higher- and invariance. Just when decisions about land use became increasingly privatized
104
income people is at present the only kind that can be built." and were withdrawn from public control, designers resurrected talk about public
The Battery Park City scheme released physical planning and land-use deci- space in a form that represses its political implications. Just when Battery Park City
sions from "bureaucratic" entanglements only to submit them to the control of a was given over to the needs of profit, ensuring not only that low-income housing
technocracy amenable to redevelopment-New York's urban design professionals. needs would be unmet but also that more people would become homeless through
Urban designers had, in fact, been welcomed into New York City government as raised property values in the city, emphasis intensified on designed spaces that

88 89
 UNEVEN DEVJ'il.Ol'MENT
THE SoCIA!. PRODUCTION Of SPACE

would allegedly fulfill essential human needs. With the construction of Battery tion." 110 In city planning rhetoric, "history" became so malleable that the notion
Park City as the epitome of abstract space-hierarchical, homogeneous, frag- that Battery Park City has no history was exchanged for the notion that Battery
mented-designers mobilized a discourse about diversity, history, and site- Park City has always existed.
specificity. Early in the process, the Battery Park City Authority incorporated The Cooper-Eckstut plan, sanctioned by fiscal crisis ideology, stated un-
public art into the master plan: in 1.982, "as part of its commitment to good de- equivocally that "the mechanism for providing large numbers of subsidized
sign," the authority established the Fine Arts Program "to engage artists in the middle- and moderate-income housing-as originally envisioned-does not now
planning and design of the community's open spaces." 107 Besides South Cove Park, exist .... The State is not in a position to sponsor moderate-income housing and
collaborative ventures between artists, architects, and landscape architects now there is no technique for meeting the needs of this income group." 111 Low-income
include the plaza of the World Financial Center, the South Gardens, and West housing received no mention, despite the designers' contention that a revised plan
Thames Street Park. Numerous other "public" works·were selected because they could "pursue a planning concept more in keeping with development realities .
are considered to be "sensitive;' if not intrinsic, to their sites. without sacrificing the amenities that make the project desirable." 112 When Gover-
The 1979 master plan discarded the original futuristic plan for Battery Park nor Cuomo took office in 1983, however, he voiced concern about the fact that
City, which had been adopted, with Lindsay's support, in the late 1960s. Replacing public land was being given over on a grand scale to luxury housing and commer-
the old arrangement, which emphasized Battery Park City's architectural disjunc- cial development. According to Meyer S. Frucher, president of the Battery Park
tion from the rest of Manhattan, the Cooper-Eckstut design, labeled "A Realist's City Authority, the governor told him to give the project "a souL" The soul, which
Battery Park City," 103 aimed to integrate Battery Park City-physically, visually, Cuomo has since defined as Battery Park City's "social purpose;' materialized in
functionally-with New York, making it a supposedly organic extension not onJy 1986 in the form of the Housing New York Corporation, a state agency empow-
of adjacent neighborhoods in Lower Manhattan but of the rest of the city. The ered to issue bonds backed by Battery Park City revenues in order to finance the
layout extended-and slightly reoriented in the direction of the water-Manhat- provision of low- and moderate-income housing in New York City. The first
tan's rectilinear grid, subdivided the land into smaller development parcels, and phase of the plan, which contributed its funds to Mayor Koch's program to rehabil-
relocated the commercial area. Further, the plan emphasized the use of traditional itate city-owned properties, consists of the renovation of 1,850 apartments in Har-
architectural elements and street furniture for the waterfront esplanade and other lem and the South Bronx, with one-third of the units reserved for the homeless.
public spaces, objects copied from past structures in old New York neighbor- Battery Park City's "soul," offered as proof of the benefits of public-private part-
hoods-Central Park, Gramercy Park, Madison Avenue, and the Upper West nership, has also been loosely extended as a rubric under which all of the project's
Side-to confer the status of tradition. "We wanted to make it look as though "public" benefits-its art and open spaces-are grouped. No doubt the govern-
nothing was done;' explained Eckstut. 109 In addition, the new plan created a sys- ment agencies and officials most deeply implicated in Battery Park City would like
tem of conventional blocks to allow developers to take on small parcels and estab- people to view the "soul" of the project as, indeed, its animating principle. Yet
lished flexible controls that do not prescribe final designs for individual buildings. even without examining the details of the city's housing plan-what percentage
All of these features were adopted to assure, within the framework of an intensified of the units will actually serve the homeless, how they will be nm and maintained,
redevelopment program, the diversity and sense of historical memory that mark a whether as part of cross-subsidy programs they will, primarily, encourage redevel-
city produced over time. History, then, was to be simulated in a compressed time opment-several realities frustrate this contention. First, it begs the question of
frame and diversity isolated in physical style and in the realm of historic "preserva- whether low- and moderate-income housing should be provided by channeling

90 91
 THE SOC!AL PRODUCTION OF SPACE UNEVEN DEvELOPMENT

public resources toward large-scale redevelopment. Since redevelopment, as part Surely, within what the artist calls "our own context"~New York's social
of broader restructuring, produces homelessness, no matter what palliatives are polarization, uneven development, and homelessness, all exemplified by Battery
administered to mitigate and push out of sight its worst effects, we are being asked Park City-to posit that a "need for protected spaces" is met in Battery Park City
to believe that the housing crisis can be cured only by publicly encouraging its can only perpetuate such injustices. To recognize this operation, however, art dis-
causes. Second, the assertion that the Battery Park City plan is a triumph for the course must renounce its own humanist myths and acknowledge its own specificity
public sector places the government squarely in .support of the spatial relations that within historical sites. For the weight of Battery Park City's past, as well as its
the plan reinforces-luxury enclaves in the city center shielded from areas for the current position within the urban structure, enables us to "know very well;' just
poor and minorities on the periphery. Such an assertion supports the idea that as Barthes knew about the character of work in capitalist society, that shelter in
public resources should be directed toward the production ofNew York as a segre- New York "is 'natural' just as long as it is 'profitable."' 116 Suppressing this realiza-
gated city. tion, Battery Park City's "soul"-its public art and spaces-mentally released
It is, of course, true, as one expert observed about Battery Park City's low- through universalizing notions about beauty and utility, from the material condi-
and moderate-income housing program, that "advocates of low-income housing tions of the project's existence, performs the function of myth. Like the other
will take housing wherever and however they can get it." 113 But this should not portion of the "soul"-the low-income housing physically removed from Battery
obscure, through either resignation or a false sense of victory, the realization that Park City-it attempts to reconcile conflicts arising between the belief that the
the Battery Park City program confirms not the triumph of public policy but rather city should serve social needs and the experience of New York's domination by
the manner in which New York's preeminent space of wealth, power, and decision business and real estate. It is hardly surprising, then, that accounts of the useful
making has been forced to fashion the dominated spaces, too, thus corroborating public art at Battery Park City fuil to comment on major transformations in the
Lefebvre's description of the contradictions of capitalist space. In keeping with project's social uses. No matter how much it speaks of the space's coherence, then,
Lefebvre's evaluation of urban planning, the spatial design of Battery Park City this art fractures the social picture. For, apparendy integrated and diverse, Battery
suppresses this contradiction by substituting an image that presents the area's ab- Park City is homogenized and hierarchized. Represented as harmonious, it con-
stract space as natural, traditional, diverse, and, moreover, functionally integrated ceals domination. "Historical;' it rejects time, converting the past as a product of
with the entire city. Public art collaborations and the discourse that validates them social struggle into interchangeable fragments of the city's architectural remains.
also assume these tasks. Paramount among their methods is the assertion that the "Public," it transforms public space into places where selected New Yorkers are
sp~ces they produce are useful. "It seems," says a public artist at Battery Park City, permitted to do what a New York Times editorial called "their public thing." 11 7 In
"that there are archetypal needs that are met regularly in different cultures-needs the end, Battery Park City's art and design do try to integrate the area with New
for protected spaces, places of distraction. I am interested in poking at these potent York but with a redeveloped New York-ghettoized and exclusionary.
situations and trying to fmd ways of creating equivalents within our own con-
text." 114 The humanist myth rehearsed in this statement about universal conditions A BEAUTIFUL AND USEFUL WEAPON
and needs aims, as Roland Barthes observed more than thirty years ago, "to sup-
press the determining weight of History: we are held back at the surface of an In the winter of 1987-88, Mayor Koch ordered that homeless people living in
identity, prevented precisely by sentimentality from penetrating into this ulterior public places must be examined by authorities and, if judged mentally incompe-
zone of human behavior where historical alienation introduces some 'differences' tent, forcibly hospitalized. Coinciding with these events, which occurred in the
which we shall here quite simply call 'injustices."' 115

92 93
 UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT
TH!.l SOCIAL PROOUCT!ON (H $PAC!.l

more easily through the city, a mobility necessitated by their lack of permanent
housing and their mode of subsistence. Besides easing the job of scavenging, the
cart offers a degree of shelter. Engineered so that it can expand or fold into a
variety of positions, it furnishes minimal ltcilities for eating, sleeping, washing,
defecating, and sitting. Sketches of the vehicle demonstrating different aspects of
its operation were displayed at the Clocktower along with the model. AJso shown
were preliminary drawings revealing alterations made by the artist at various stages
of the vehicle's evolution as he responded to comments and requests from the
consultants.
In a separate area of the gallery, Wodiczko simulated an outdoor urban land-
scape by projecting onto the walls slides depicting public spaces in New York City:
Tompkins Square, City Hall Park, and the area directly outside the Municipal
Building. Using montage techniques, he inHltrated the city spaces with ghostly
images of the vehicle being maneuvered through these urban spaces by its potential
users. The images were enlarged from sketches and their spectral appearance is the
result of two technical procedures: the drawings were printed white on black,
and, blown up, their outlines became slightly blurred. By visualizing the vehicle
· stallau·ou of the Homeless Vehicle at the Clocktower, New York, 1988
. k o, m
K rzyszto fwd
o tcz in municipal spaces, the projected images thematically related homelessness to the
(photo courtesy KrzysztofWodiczko).
action and inaction of local government, accusing the city not only of failing to
cure the problem but of producing it. But Wodiczko's slides also associated home-
middle of a season that is always the most difficult for people without homes, lessness with more dispersed apparatuses of power in the city. The proposal adopted
the Clocktower, a city-owned exhibition space in Lower Manhattan, prese.nt_e~ a the conventional form of architecture, city planning, and urban design proposals:
118
oposal for a public artwork called the Homeless Vehicle Project. The exh1b1t1on the visual projection of proposed objects and spatial alterations onto an image or
~ ~
consisted of several elements combined in a presentation that reproduced the tra 1- model of the existing urban context. Generally, such projections show the positive,
tional format in which urban planning and architecture proposals are unveiled to benign, or, at the very least, unobtrusive effect of the proposed changes on the
the public. The show's nucleus was a prototype of a stark, industrial-loo~ng o_b- potential sites. Modifying this convention and creating images that merge physical
ject-a vehicle designed by the artist Krzysztof Wodiczko in consultatwn w1th · and social sites, Wodiczko's slide presentation both commented on and established
several homeless men. Constructed of aluminum, steel mesh, sheet metal, and its difference from the official role that environmental disciplines play in New
Plexiglas, the vehicle's purpose is to facilitate the existence of one segment of. the York today. These disciplines-examples of what Lefebvre calls "traditional spatial
evicted population: individuals who live on the streets and survive by collectmg, . knowledge"-engineer redevelopment, eject people from their homes, and banish
sorting, storing, and returning cans and bottles to supermarkets in excha~ge for the evicted. At the same time, they suppress the evidence of mpture by assigning
deposits. The homeless vehicle would enable this grou~ of residents to Circulate social functions and groups to designated zones within a seemingly organic spatial

95
94
 UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT
THE SoCIAL PRODUCTION Of SPACE

Slide projections of the Homeless Vehicle Project at the Clocktower, New York, 1988 (photos
courtesy KrzysztofWodiczko and Galerie Lelong). proliferation of a shelter system not simply as a temporary adjunct to but in lieu of
substantive construction of decent permanent housing. Questioning government
housing and shelter policies does not obviate the need for advocates to support,
hierarchy. Wodiczko's presentation, by contrast, symbolically lodged the homeless
under crisis conditions, the construction of low-income housing ''wherever and
in the urban center, concretizing the memory of social disruption and envisioning
however they can get it." It simply means that advocacy of housing and even shel-
the impact of the evicted on the city. 119 Taped conversations between Wodiczko
ters must be framed within a critique that also voices the terms of substantive
and people without homes about the vehicle's design played continuously during
change-social ownership of housing, opposition to the privileges of private prop-
the exhibition, and the gallery distributed a text containing transcripts of the con-
erty-and discloses how policies offered as solutions frequently exacerbate or
versations and an essay "about the project coauthored by Wodiczko and David
merely regulate the problem. Currently, government stresses "temporary" shelters
V. Lurie.
Dictated by the practical needs and direct requests of men who live and that, given the lack of new public housing construction, tacitly become permanent.
work On the streets, the Homeless Vehicle Project implicitly expressed support for Alternatively, government manufactures cumbersome financing schemes by which
a grossly inadequate number oflow-income units are provided without direct pl,lb-
people who, deprived of housing, choose-against official coercion-to resist be-
lic expenditure, as a means of facilitating redevelopment and, frequently, for private
ing relegated to dangerous and dehumanizing shelters. The homeless vehicle, in
gain. At the same time, the city continues to channel large subsidies to business
no way offering itself as a solution, nonetheless challenged the city's solution: the

97
96
 UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT
THE $oe>AL PRODUCTION Of SPACE

KrzysztofWodicz.ko, Homeless Vehicle Prototype, 1988 (photo courtesy KrzysztofWodiczko

KrzysztofWodiczko, design and drawing of the Homeless Vehicle, 1987 (photo courtesy and Galerie Lelong).
KrzysztofWodiczko).

active New York residents whose means of subsistence is a legitimate element of

and developers, thus disavowing and perpetuating the relationship between home-
the urban social structure. It thus focuses attention on that structure and, altering
lessness and the city's economic transformation. the image of the city, not only challenges the economic and political systems that
Described by one critic as "an insidious form of institutionalized displace-
evict the homeless but subverts the modes of perception that exile them.
ment purporting to be humane while incarcerating thousands whose only 'crime'
The homeless vehicle is, then, both a practical instrument and a symbolic
is poverty," 120 the shelter system is, however, not only necessitated by restructuring
utterance. There is no contradiction between these identities. One of the vehicle's
and real-estate development but itself participates in New York's spatial division
practical functions is, after all, precisely to give a voice to-to gain social recogni-
into core and peripheral areas. By increasing the visibility of the evicted who, in
tion for~people without homes. But by openly combining practical and rhetori-
reality, already inhabit urban space, the homeless vehicle dramatizes the right of
cal functions, Wodiczko 's vehicle speaks to a question central to debates among
the poor not to be isolated and excluded. Heightened visibility, however, is only
the homeless and their advocates and faced by all cultural practices addressing New
the necessary, not the sufficient, condition for this dramatization. Indeed, visibility
York's environment: How is it possible to recognize and respond to homeless-
can also be used, as it is by conservative urban critics, to strengthen demands for
ness as an emergency situation without fostering, as do some proposals designing
the removal of the evicted. But the homeless vehicle represents the evicted as

99
98
 UNEVliN DliVELOPMENT
THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION Of SPACE

Traveling position

Washing, sleeping and resting position (day)

Metal nose operates as emergency exit,
sto:age for basin and other objects and tools, or, when open, as
basm or barbecue

KrzysztofWodiczko, design and drawings of the Homeless Vehicle, 1988. - ,..,....... '\
\)

101
100
 UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT
TnE SociAL PnonucnoN OI' $PACE

Collecting position

Sleeping position (night)

Toilet position Metal grid over u-.mslucent roof,
security flashing light installed, vehide chained

equipment for the homeless, an acceptance of the current situation and a conceal-
ment of its causes? One answer is that as art refers to a practical function, it must
also reveal its status as a signifYing object, thereby stressing that no element of the
built environment performs a function that is simply natural and prior to represen-
tation. Functions are socially produced, often by the very objects that seem merely
to fulfill them. Indeed, if practical plans to help the homeless survive on the streets
do not call attention to the social construction of their own function-and do not Resting position while traveling and collecting

identify the forces producing homelessness-they are likely, no matter how well
intentioned, to become vehicles of the functionalist rhetoric that legitimates
tion epitomizes this tactic.121 Observing that Los Angeles's Skid R 1. . h.10
redevelopment. th CRA' . ow 1es w1t
Openly cooperative, of course, are those plans sponsored by redevelopment e s 1,500-acre Central Busmess District Redevelopment Project, the CRA
associations themselves, groups who proffer charitable projects as evidence of rede- announced a plan to dire, ct a portwn
· o f fh e tax revenues generated from the new
velopment's benef1ts or of corporate philanthropy. A proposal sponsored by the development
. and fro m nsmg· · property values toward programs to aid the inhabit-
Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) of Los Angeles and exhibited in 1986 · · " as the proposal's text put it, "that skid rows will
ants of Skid Row, " recognizmg,
at New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture's "Homeless at Home" exhibi-

103
'!02
 UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT
THE SOCIAL Pt~OOUCT!ON OF SPACE

less invisible or reinforcing an image of them as passive objects, the homeless ve-
hicle illuminates their mobile existence. Instead of severing or cosmeticizing the
link between homelessness and redevelopment, the project visualizes the connec-
tion through its intervention in the transformed city. It facilitates the seizure of
space by homeless subjects rather than containing them in--prescribed locations.
Instead of restoring a surface calm to the "ascendant" city, as reformist plans try to
do, it disrupts the coherent urban image that today is constructed only by neu-
tralizing homelessness. Consequently, the homeless vehicle legitimates people
without homes rather than the dominant spaces that exclude them, symbolically
countering the city's own ideological campaign against the poor. In a minor, yet
exemplary, gesture in this crusade, Mayor Koch, as we have seen, tried to eject the
homeless from Grand Central Terminal by aiming against them the weapon of
functionalism. The terminal's objective function, he insisted, is to serve the needs
of travel, and it is impeded by the stationary homeless. The homeless vehicle retali-
ates by announcing a different function for the urban environment: the fulfillment
of the travel needs of the evicted. It foregrounds a collateral system already built
by these residents to support their daily lives. Yet the vehicle does not simply pit
"- fWd. k · "..<a] des1·an for Homeless Vehicle, resting position, 1987 (photo courtesy one use or group against another. It subverts the rhetoric of utility, silencing the
ruzyszto o tcz o, UUc> :::>"" •

KrzysztofWodiczko). city that seems to speak for itself-the instrumental city-by disrupting the city's
silence on the subject of social needs. For the homeless vehicle's function, far from
always exist" and seeking to "reduce the impact of Skid Row on the ~djacent general or inevitable, is clearly a socially created scandal. The work strikes at the
" Pn·marily, these pro;ects try to shelter the redeveloped oty from heart of the well-managed city, an image that today functions for the needs of
d owntown area. ~

the adverse effects of the homelessness it causes and, simultaneously, to co~nte~act profit and control.
the system's legitimation crisis by presenting homelessness as a transh1stoncal At Battery Park City, collaborative public art helps create this image under
the guises of utility, beauty, and social responsibility-of forging a rapprochement
problem.
The Homeless Vehicle Project also proposes a way to alleviate some of the worst between art and life. But the homeless vehicle, too, is useful and collaborative. A
aspects of evicted people's lives. But in so doing, it stren~he~s, r~t.her than redu~es, skilled professional has applied sophisticated design principles to an object of
their impact on the central business district. The projects cnt1cal force. spn~gs everyday life that, intruding upon space, practices a mode of urban design. But
from the interaction between its practical and signifying purposes, a rec1proc1ty these superficial similarities underscore profound differences. Responding to an
concretized in the design of the vehicle, which, on the one hand, recalls Bauhaus emergency, the homeless vehicle is quick and impermanent. Implicit in its imper-
· a1· d on the other, resembles a weapon. The vehicle thus becomes a manence is a demand that its function become obsolete and a beliefin the mutabil-
fu nctwn tsm an ,
tool used against the apparatus of redevelopment. Instead of rendering the home- ity of the social situation that necessitates it. Battery Park City appears to stabilize

105
104
 THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION 0!' S!'ACE UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

this situation, but such stationary and monumental spaces become the target of the emancipation of the environment. "In order to change life," writes Lefebvre, "so-
Homeless Vehicle. While Battery Park City art employs design to enforce domi- ciety, space, architecture, even the city must change." 123 Such a possibility will, of
nant social organization, the homeless vehicle uses design for counterorganization, course, not be realized in isolated acts of detournement. Still, by upholding the "right
rearranging the transformed city. The shelter system, peripheralization of low- to the city," the Homeless Vehicle Project corroborates Ledrut's definition of the city
income housing, deterritorialization of the poor-these aspects of contemporary ("an environment formed by the interaction and the integration of different prac-
spatial relations are fashioned by Battery Park City art that, producing the privi- tices") and thus anticipates the construction not simply of beautiful or well-
leged spaces of the central city, retains its own privilege as an object outside the managed cities-they are, after all, only by-products-but of a "work of life."
political realm. It converts social reality into design. The homeless vehicle, a ve- Through this imaginative act, the project contributes as well to the construction
hicle for organizing the interests of the dominated classes into a group expression, of an oppositional public sphere that counters the dominant relations organizing
employs design to illuminate social reality, suPporting the right of these groups to public space. The production of such a public practice cannot, in f1.ct, be separated
refuse marginalization. from the production of New York City as a living work. Yet the Homeless Vehicle
In the essay accompanying the exhibition of the Homeless Vehicle Project, Project also testifies to the degree of knowledge about urbanism and to the as-
Wodiczko and Lurie stress the significance of collaborative relationships between tuteness, even stealth, of operation required by public art if it is to accomplish
professional designers and the vehicle's users: "Direct participation of users in the these goals. For, given its reliance on corporate and civic approval, public art, like
construction of the vehicle is the key to developing a vehicle which belongs to its New York itself, will no doubt develop unevenly.
users, rather than merely being appropriated by them." 122 Countering the technoc-
racy of design, they seem to allude to the difference between a vehicle planned
specifically by and for the evicted and the adaptation by the evicted of supermarket
shopping carts. Only through the collective production of objects by their users,
Lurie and Wodiczko suggest, might people resist domination. Yet the homeless
vehicle's substitution of an actively produced object for an appropriated one sug-
gests the need for a more sweeping change-the production by users of their living
space. Just as the project negates the abstraction of function from specific social
relations, it challenges the abstraction of the city from its inhabitants. At the same
time, however, the vehicle suggests that even under current circumstances produc-
tion is not confmed to those who manufacture the city but includes those who
use and appropri~te it.
Appropriating the sp<,}.ce of the city-reclaiming space for social needs
against space organized for profit and control-and diverting it, in a manner sirni-
lar to what the Situationists called ditournement, from its prescribed functions, the
homeless vehicle responds to ordinary needs and horrifying realities yet, in a mix-
ture of fantasy and reality that some critics fmd "disturbing;' offers a vision of the

106 107
 REPRESENTING BERLIN

In 1985, the large survey exhibition "German Art in the 20th Century" opened
at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. 1 On the threshold, visitors found them-
selves face to face with two canvases painted by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner on the eve
of World War !-Berlin Street Scene (1913) and Friedrichstrasse, Berlin (1914). The
effects of the encounter were, of course, not uncalculated. This inunediate con-
frontation with Kirchner's impassioned city paintings-and with the prostitutes
they depict-solicited the audience to accept a version of German art history insti-
tutionalized at the Royal Academy as a chronicle of the durability of expression-
ism: its emergence in the early twentieth century, suppression by the Nazi regime,
and postwar, post-occupation resurfacing. The exhibition plan conformed to this
tripartite chronology. Expressionist works dominated, filling numerous galleries at
the beginning and end of the show. Sandwiched between these flourishing ep-
ochs were, first, an artistically fallow fascist period, then a Cold War interlude of
"Parisian-style abstraction." "German Art in the Twentieth Century" thus set up a
stark opposition-expressionism versus both fascist and foreign oppression-that
defined expressionism as Germany's national artistic style and equated it with indi-
vidual and collective salvation.
But, like all historicist continuities, this representation of modern German
art as part of an unfolding, if periodically repressed, romantic continuum is
 RHPRt:SENTlNG BEHLlN
THE SOCIAL PR{)DOCTlON 01' SPACE

expressionism ensured the continuation of oppressive social conditions in the

world. But, as Raoul Hausmann wrote, the term photomonta,~;es-designating

works composed of ready-made, rnechanically produced images and typography

that were cut up and reassembled, works using mass-media photographs to shatter
the media's own messages, arousing viewers from passive aesthetic contemplation,
encouraging collective reception, and reaching out to new audiences through new
channels of distribution- "translated our aversion to playing artist.".;
Heartfield, during his dada period, also tied expressionism to bourgeois ide-
ology; later, his photomontage campaign against Elscism, conducted on the covers
and in the pages of AIZ, linked Nazism to the logic qf capitalism. His work was
explicitly antiexpressionist and antifascist. Its presence at the Royal Academy
would have seriously disrupted an art-historical narrative that polarizes expression-
ism and Nazism, associating expressionism's survival with the country's liberation.
The decision to include only art that conforms to conventional modes of aesthetic
production and reception cannot be dismissed, then, as a practical response to the
inevitable pressures of curatorship, permitting, as one organizer explained, "the
concentration and concision necessary to the exhibition." 5 Neither can it be neu-
tralized as a vagary of individual taste nor exalted as a liberty taken in the name of
cultural pluralism. It was, rather, a defensive operation launched against the very
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Friedrichstrasse, Berlin, 1914 perception by the museum public of the troublesome material that formed the
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Berlin Street Scene, 1913
(Staatsgalerie Stuttgart). exhibition's structuring absence.
(Brli.cke Museum, Berlin).
The restriction of German art to painting and sculpture served still other
ends that, like the thesis of the triumph of expressionism, were foreshadowed by
founded on its own repressions, consigning to a separate domain ~he art practices
the Kirchner street scenes at the entrance. Because Heartfield and the dada move-
re its coherence. The exhibition's subtitle, "Painting and Sculpture 1905-
tl u t ru Ptu . . · · h ment that spawned his work were centered in Berlin, their removal made it pos-
19 85;' marks such a repression. With a single categorical stro~e, It 1nntts tv.re~uet -
to traditional aesthetic media and so exe1ses the revolutionary sible to associate Berlin primarily with expressionism, even to suggest that Berlin
century G erman art ,
is an "expressionist city." Dada's absence cleared the stage for an uncontested dia-
photomontage production of Berlin dada as well as John Heartfteld s photom~~-
logue between mutually supportive aesthetic and urban discourses that, respec-
c AIZ- Arbeiter 1/lustrierte Zeitung (Workers' Illustrated Newspaper).
tages 10r .
Th!S 1s
tively, define expressionism as a transcendent artistic style and Berlin as a
no trivial exclusion. Dada artists used photomontage largely t~ repudt~te expres-
mythical metropolis.
sionism's subjectivist forms of social protest, forms historically mvest~d m the me-
. of painting. For dadaists, expressionism was a "sentimental resistance to the Indeed, in placing Kirchner's icons of BrUcke grosstadt- "big-city" -painting
drum . " d h fl "
· " "a moral safety valve" part of Germany's "spirit busmess, an t ere ore a at the origin of a remodeled tradition of modern German art, the curators posi-
umes, · ' . h ld":> tioned urban expressionism as Germany's consummate artistic achievement and
"2 "Engulfed in esthetically surpassmg t e wor ,
compensatory p l1enomenon.

110 111
 THE SOCIAL Pll.OOUCT!ON OF SPACE

REPnl'.SENT!NG llEI\LIN

Berlin as its privileged location. Implying a natural bond between the two, the
exhibition's opening foretold its end-the galleries of canvases by neoexpressionist
painters credited with rediscovering Germany's national artistic heritage in West
Berlin decades after the end of World War II. As "German Art in the 20th Cen-
tury" moved inexorably toward its close, it thus attempted to fulfill yet another
agenda: to furnish the most lavish pedigree to date for German neo- or, as some
critics called it, pseudo-expressionism of the 1980s. 6
In this respect, the Royal Academy exhibition crowned and also signaled the
demise of a legitimating process begun in the late 1970s. At that time, a common
strategy for endowing "the new German painting". with the authority of artistic
tradition consisted of categorizing its various branches on the basis of such standard
art-historical criteria as geographic location, chronological period, group identity,
iconography, and style. The resulting typologies invariably reserved a category for
a group of paintings that were not only produced in Berlin but, it was claimed,
"represented" Berlin and, more broaclly, the "urban situation." Labeling this work
"urban," supporters tried to invest it with social relevance even as they resurrected a
concept of the urban as vague and regressive as the aesthetic ideas that the painting
embodies. That such claims were made at a moment when new· urban conflicts
had erupted in Berlin, as they had in other Western cities, compels one to question
how this alliance of urban and aesthetic thought defmed the social process of ur-
banism and the space of that process, the city. Rainer Fetting, Van Gogh und_Mauer, 1978 _
Why were we routinely asked to believe that Rainer Fetting's oil painting of
van Gogh standing in front of the Berlin Wall is a significant, indeed emblematic,
depiction of Berlin in the 1980s?7 On what grounds was Fetting's image of the ban realit_Y? What institutional events and art-historical discourses produced these
artist's romantic alienation and not, say, Hans Haacke's multimedia installation constructwns? Whose interests in contemporary urban struggles do they ulti-
mately serve?
Broadness and Diversity of the Ludwig Brigade elevated to this position? Haacke's work,
after all, addressed political, economic, and cultural issues specific to its Berlin
site. Why-to raise even more complex questions-was Rainer Fassbinder's play
Garbage, the City and Death, which addressed alliances between real-estate specula-
tors and city government, prevented from opening in Frankfurt due to alleged Helke Sander in her 1977 fll D · II . . d .
' m le a settlg re uzterte PersOnlichkeit- REDUPBRS
I

anti-Semitism while canvases of mythologized street figures presented in the form (The All-round Reduced Personality-REDUPERS) t 11 h .
f , e s t e story of a group
of primitivist stereotypes were internationally celebrated as representations of ur- ~ women who are producing a photographic documentary about West Berlin
What the women see," Sander later explained, .

112
113
 REPR!'SENTING BHRLIN
TnE Soct1\L Pt<ouucTtON Of SPACE

neoexpressionism quintessentially embodied that condition because of its intrinsic

connection to the archetypal modern city.
Far from an essential bond, however, this link was forged discursively. It was
reinforced throughout the 1980s by a series of exhibitions in London and Berlin
of which "German Art in the 20th Century" could be considered the culmination:
The trajectory of these exhibitions reveals permutations in the organizers' prin-
ciples, changes that end in reversal: having started out with a purported commit-
ment to art practices that question aesthetic neutrality, the curators retreated,
following the political tenor of the period, to an uncritical affirmation of art's au-
tonomy and redemptive powers. Yet one element remained constant. The Berlin
site, common to strongly contrasting, even opposing, art practices, was used to
support both positions. It thus gave an appearance of continuity to what was actu-
ally a capricious exhibition history.
In 1979, the Whitechapel Art Gallery presented "13° E: Eleven Artists
Working in Berlin;' one of a number of London events devoted that year to con-
Helmut Middendorf, Electric Night, 1981. temporary art in Berlin. The Whitechapel show coincided with, and declared its
firm opposition to, an exhibition of contemporary German critical realism and
German art of the 1920s being held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts under
who don't view reality through ideological blinders-does not serve
the title "Berlin: A Critical View." The Whitechapel catalogue attacked what it
to uphold the existing image of Berlin. West Berlin is different from
called the "official" standing of critical realism, manifested in the Berlin Senate's
other cities, among other things because a wall leads around it, and
financial support of the ICA show and its refusal of funds for the Whitechapel
because an elaborate system of ideological interpretations has been de-
event. Judging by the number of international exhibitions and publications that
veloped for the special status ofBerlin. This is what the women realize
8
followed, the Whitechapel show introduced a pertinent topic. 9 Nicholas Serota,
after reflecting on their encounter with the city. the Whitechapel's director, maintained in his catalogue introduction that "1Y) E:
Eleven Artists Working in Berlin" intended to explore what it means to represent
Stressing the historical features that distinguish Berlin from other cities, most no-
Berlin. The show was prompted, he wrote, by interest in "the work of artists using
tably its division by the Wall, Sander's film also suggests that Berlin is internally
art as a means of social enquiry or political struggle," 10 and the artists were chosen
f1ssured by other differences and social antagonisms. The experience of the city
because their work addressed social questions and the conditions of artistic produc-
varies, for instance, with the gender of its residents. In striking contrast to Sander's
tion in West Berlin. The title of Christos Joachimides's lengthy catalogue essay,
insistence on Berlin's differences and therefore on its historical and ideological
"The Strain of Reality: West Berlin and the Visual Arts 1963-1978;' promised that
specificity, celebrants of the city's 1980s art scene asserted that circumstances in
the text would examine relationships between the city's social reality and its art.
Berlin typify a universal, though intensified, urban experience. Insisting that Berlin
Instead, platitudes about Berlin's isolation and hazy references to numerous West
symbolizes something called "the urban condition;' they concluded in turn that

'115
114
 THE $OC!bL PRODUCTION OF $p,\CE REPRESENTING BER!.!N

Gennan "crises" provided a backdrop for a simple enumeration of artists and in turn they might be exhibited to museumgoers in the form of plaques or institu-
events. tional reports. They confer an aura of high purpose on the museum's activities and
No doubt Joachimides seemed a logical choice to "establish a context" for at the same time create an exalted image of the trustees-images that depend on
the art displayed at the Whitechapel since the gallery's director envisioned the show the doctrine that art itself embodies transcendent values. Haacke's work interfered
as "extending the discussion begun in the important manifestation Art into Soci- with the museum's self-presentation. It appropriated the list of the Guggenheim's
ety-Society into Art organized by Christos Joachimides and Norman Rosenthal at trustees and, like the museum, exhibited it to the public, but for entirely different
the ICA in 1974." 11 Committed to investigating the ideological functions of Ger- purposes: Guggenheim Board of Trustees questions the purity of the institutional
man art, "Art into Society" had brought together the work of seven German artists guardian<> of culture and casts doubt on art's autonomy The first panel simply
who were testing new strategies of aesthetic intervention in economic and political reproduces the Guggenheim's own list. Subsequent panels rearrange and expand
conditions. Participants challenged the modernist precept that art, by definition, the data contained in the Guggenheim list, infiltrating it with precisely the kind
transcends the contingencies of social and historical life. But they also rejected the of information that inventories of trustees exclude and that, more broadly, museo-
notion that art's social meaning can be reduced to its depiction or reflection of logical discourse relegates to a realm outside art altogether. For instance, Haacke
strictly external social realities-an idea that leaves art itself politically neutraL included information about the oppressive, sometimes violent, economic and po-
Hans Haacke's contribution to "Art into Society," Solomon R. Guggenheim litical dealings of the corporations with which the Guggenheim's guardians were
Museum Board of Trustees (197 4), was based on the premise that the meaning of a affiliated. Allowing such material to appear through the very vehicle of its repres-
work of art does not derive from a property :intrinsic to the work but is formed sion-the apparatus of the art institution-Haacke's work reframed the museum.
in relation to the work's framing conditions-the modes of its presentation, its Guggenheim Board cif Trustees encouraged viewers to challenge the museum's fic-
institutional supports (see pages 184-190). The idea that art's significance is not tional closure, to question art's purported independence from social life, to per-
absolute but contingent on its presentational contexts simultaneously challenges ceive that the celebrated autonomy of high culture is a socially constructed
the idea that art institutions are neutraL Not only are these institutions themselves relationship of exclusion, and, more concretely, to interrogate the hidden links
historically contingent, but they construct what they seem merely to present. They between economic power and "the institutions, individuals and groups who share
are social institutions. in the control of cultural power." t2
With Guggenheim Board of Trustees, Haacke helped develop a new kind of Other artists in "Art into Society-Society into Art" stressed the importance
artWork that incorporates art's institutional contexts into the work itself, thereby of rejecting traditional modes of art production, distribution, and reception. As a
giving literal form to the idea that the identity of an artvvork is inseparable from whole, the exhibition registered the artists' desire to investigate the historical rather
the conditions of its existence. The Guggenheim piece was a forerunner of what than essential, the social rather than individual, conditions of art and to expose the
would become known as "institutional-critical" art, which both uses and subverts mechanisms of power operating behind the art institution's facade of aesthetic
the presentational apparatus to uncover the social relations that structure apparently neutrality.
neutral aesthetic spaces. The seven brass-framed panels that compose the Guggen- Given Serota's statement that "13° E: Eleven Artists Working in Berlin"
heim piece are ironic imitations of a single element of this presentational appara- hoped to extend the concerns of"Art into Society-Society into Art," it is surpris-
tus-the list of members of a museum's board of trustees and their prestigious ing that the Whitechapel show gave such a prominent position to what the cata-
affiliations. Ostensibly, trustee lists exhibit the museum's organizational structure; logue called "a new form of expressive figurative painting in Germany." 1:1 For this

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 THE SOCIAl f>ROPUCT!ON OF SPACU REPRESENTING 13ERLIN

new painting and its validating criticism embraced the very ideas so emphatically shows. No longer was the bond between the att and the city formed by the artists'
rejected by the earlier exhibition, attempting to resuscitate the full idealist mythol- inquiries into Berlin's social conditions. On the contrary, it was generated by their
ogy of studio production-individual creation, originality, universality-and to retreat from those conditions:
resurrect the authority of traditional art institutions-gallery and museum. This
contradiction notwithstanding, an awareness of neoexpressionist painting was cited Outside, an environment of horror, made up of the German past and
as a major 6ctor motivating the Whitechapel show, which, in fact, introduced present. Inside, the triumph of autonomy, the architectural "Gesamt-
German neoexpressionisrn to London. As the introduction claimed, "the moment kunstwerk" which in masterly and sovereign manner banishes reality
... was propitious." 14 Since the Whitechapel project made no attempt to theorize from the building by creating its own .... For us the question is how
the relationship between art and social conditions in Berlin but simply linked the does an autonomous work of art relate to the equally autonomous
two by association, it imparted an aura of political engagement to the work in the architecture and to the sum of memories which are present today. 16
exhibition. The Berlin site was used to secure a place for the new German painting
as part of a socially radical art practice to which the exhibition was ostensibly dedi- Berlin is thus transformed into the eternal site of art practices that are independent
cated. T'his claim was furthered by positing a unity to the diverse works at the of "reality." Under the banner of representing Berlin, Joachimides supported the
Whitechapel, based on their distance from critical realism. Opposing the rigidity notion, only recently challenged in contemporary art practice, that the aesthetic is
of that style and, moreover, of the Berlin Senate, the Whitechapel exhibition an- a sphere divorced from the sociaL
nounced its commitment to personal freedom, freedom from government control,
and a freedom embodied, by extension, in the new Berlin painting.
By 1981 "expressive" painting had apparently won the contest to represent
Berlin. In London it was ensconced at the Royal Academy as part of an interna- Sheltered within the Martin-Gropius-Bau were canvases by a group of artists
tional blockbuster, "The New Spirit in Painting." The following year, Joachimides known variously as "the violent painters," "painters of the new vehemence," or,
and Rosenthal curated the huge "Zeitgeist" exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau simply, "the boys from Moritzplatz." In 1977, the artists who formed the group's
in Berlin, now with the enthusiastic patronage of the Berlin senator for science and nucleus-Rainer Fetting, Helmut Middendorf, Salome, and Bernd Zirruner-
cultural affairs as well as numerous other governmental agencies and corporations. opened th~ Berlin cooperative Galerie am Moritzplatz, where they held their first
"Zeitgeist" dispensed with any pretense of diversity. The show consisted almost solo exhibitions as well as numerous collective shows. In 1980, the Haus am
entirely of expressionist works. The history of these two exhibitions is familiar and Waldsee in Berlin featured their work in an exhibition entitled "Heftige Malerei"
does not need to be rehearsed here. It is important to note, however, that "Zeit- (Violent Painting), and under this heading the group soon gained international
geist" 's curators asserted more vigorously than ever that an essential relationship recognition as leading contributors to the German renaissance of painting.
tied the art on view to the exhibition's location. "Is it merely a coincidence that Like other renaissance men, the Moritzplatz boys tried to establish a continu-
Berlin is the site of this event," Joachimides mused, "or are there inner affinities to ity between their work and German artistic tradition, turning in particular to pre-
the art of which [sic] ZEITGEIST is showing?"" Yes, he responded, there is in- war Briicke expressionism. Appropriating the earlier movement's iconography, 'they
deed such an affinity, but he shifted its basis from that proposed in the earlier filled their paintings with variations on standard Briicke motifs-amciety-ridden

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 THE SOCIAL PROOU(;l'ION OF SPACE REI>RESCNT!NC I3ERJ.IN

artists with models, primitivize.d nudes, tribal ftgures and artifacts, Berlin streets- Recourse to authority and tradition inevitably reversed this direction. The
and updated the BrUcke's cafe, circus, and cabaret scenes with images of contempo- new German painters were placed within a historical continuum by shutting out
rary "subcultural" entertainment spots-discotheques and music clubs. They also materialist inquiries and freely discarding the critical dimensions of recent art. Be-
adopted the high-contrast color, spatial dislocations, distortions of scale, harsh cause revisionist accounts attempted to recover a national artistic experience as a
brushwork, and primitivizing style of Briicke painting, repeating the painterly codes natural cultural reservoir from which to draw inspiration, it was not surprising
of "spontaneous," "unrnediated" expression. They placed themselves, then, within that they marginalized twentieth-century art practices that questioned the belief in
national and local traditions-German painting in prewar Berlin. unmediated experience or the tenet that meaning is fixed, transcendent, and di-
Art historians and critics embellished these fictions, applauding the artists for rectly available in works of art. Such marginalizations, accomplished equally
rediscovering German modernism following its eclipse fust under the Nazi regime through omission and incorporation, included the absence of any serious consider-
and then under years of American cultural dominanCe. Fragile threads of suppos- ation of the implications of Berlin dada and Heartfield, the exclusion. of _overtly
edly uninterrupted continuities were unearthed. K. H. HOdicke, .the Moritzplatz politicized practices such as that of Haacke, as well as the ina-ppropriate assimilation
painters' teacher, provided one coveted linkage. As a third-generation ExpressiOn- of the contemporary work of such artists as Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke to
ist, HOdicke had studied with the last of the original Expressionists, Max Pechstein a German painting represented as monolithic. Descriptions of recent German art
and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, at the Hochschule der Kunste in Berlin. 17 Filtered frequently conflated heterogeneous movements. Perhaps the crudest, thou~h by
through this history, Berlin emerged as a city in which expressive painting had no means unusual, example of this strategy is the work of one German promoter
never died and, consequently, as a place where the sovereign self celebrated in of Moritzplatz painting who grouped the movements of the late 1960s and early
expressionism also remained eternally alive. Descriptions of Berlin as "a painterly 1970s-minimalism, conceptualism, critical realism-under a single unifYing
city" became commonplace. characteristic: emotional distance from subject matter. 20 This appraisal made it pos-
These postwar histories were highly selective-ignoring major develop- sible to characterize violent painting's retreat into subjectivism and emotionalism
ments in German twentieth-century art antagonistic to expressionism-or confus- as a radical gesture.
ingly pluralistic-identifYing "trends" without theoretical distinction. Superficial For the violent painters, however, tradition was most consistently invented
and misleading dichotomies between, for instance, abstraction and figuration or in the subject of the "big city," a theme with which, it was claimed, they were
intellect and emotion obstmcted recognition of more significant differences in deeply involved. Supporters depicted the painters' "savage" brushstrokes, "halluci-
postwar art practice. Alternative -approaches were readily available, however. In natory" colors, "expressive" distortions, and iconography as fundamentally "ur...:
1977 Benjamin Buchloh had analyzed European art differently, proposing that the ban." Their use of figurative imagery was cited as evidence of the artists' willingness
most radical development in European art discourse of the 1960s was a shift from to confront concrete reality. Fetting and Middendorf, to situate themselves within
aestheticism to a consideration of the historical, social, and political circumstances a lineage of big-city painters, produced hectic, BrUcke-influenced street scenes
that condition modes of artistic production and perception. 18 Buchloh, focusing while Zimmer painted nature scenes intended to express the notorious antiurban
on the politicized practices of the 1960s and 1-970s, the()rized a change in concepts, longings of the city dweller. Writers absorbed this work into an art-historical cate-
categories, relationships, and methods of art-from a formalist paradigm to one of gory-urban expressionism-and identified it with the most famous examples of
historicity. This new dimension ofinquiry, he argued, "demanded from the critical this work: Kirchner's Berlin street scenes executed between 1913 and 1915 and
viewer a different kind of opening up of traditional fields of vision." 19

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 TH!i So<:!AL PRODUCTION Of SPACE REPRESENTING DJ::RLIN

generally considered the artist's mature contribution to German culture. Art jour- then confines itself to studying how artists react to an urban environment projected
nals and catalogues routinely related the Moritzplatz group to Kirchner. HOdicke as essentially external to painting. According to one historian of city painting who
was extolled for reaching back to Kirchner, "newly discovering the city as artistic has attempted to classify these reactions in visual images of modern Paris, Berlin,
Muse" and imparting this source of inspiration to his students who, dubbed "chile. and New York, "One cannot expect those attitudes to be highly precise."24
dren of the big city," were named Kirchner's legitimate heirs. 21 The rubrics "urban Once dismissed as inevitable, however, the "imprecision" of artists' attitudes
expressionism" and "Grosstadt painting" not only offered violent painting a safe toward the city remains uninterrogated. As a consequence, imprecision is repeated
niche in German artistic tradition; they helped define it as an art of social critique, at the level of art-historical analysis. In this respect, mainstream social art history
a reflection of social conditions, and an act of social protest. resembles mainstream urban sociology. For, as French sociologist Manuel Castells
But on what premises did art history base its initial claim that urban expres- observes, sociology, too, has long been interested in the city. And not only has
sionism is a critical social statement? What beliefs about both art and the city au- sociological discourse been imprecise about the city, but, according to Castells, this
thorized expressionist city paintings to be considered the authentic representatives explains the popularity of the theme: "If there has been an accelerated develop-
of the urban experience? And what theory of social life does the category "urban ment of the urban thematic," he writes, "this is due very largely to its imprecision,
experience" uphold? which makes it possible to group together under this heading a whole mass of
Urban expressiohism is a subdivision of a broader art-historical discourse questions felt, but not understood, whose identification (as "urban") makes them
about paintings of the modern city. Primarily characterized by the creation of arbi- less disturbing; one can dismiss them as the natural misdeeds of the environment." 2s
trary, eclectic, frequently whimsical typologies of "city painting," this discourse as Imprecision in art-historical literature about the city cannot, then, be treated as
a whole, but especially the literature about urban expressionism, consists with few inevitable nor as a mere defect in otherwise sound, if underdeveloped, views of
exceptions of efforts to detect in artists' paintings and writings responses to city the urban, an error that can be corrected by developing more sharply focused
environments that themselves remain only superficially examined. This exemplif1es empirical categories of"city painting." Rather, as Castells argues, imprecision per-
the empiricist bias of traditional social art history, which assumes that its objects of forms a social function. If we want to understand this function, typologies of city
study-in this case, city painting-are the ground, rather than the effect, of its painting need to give way to an account of the cultural production of the category
own disciplinary activity. Opposing what it calls a "formalist" refusal to deal with "city painting." For, the gr:eater the clarity of types, the more successfully they
art's "content" or "context;' social art history has frequently been attracted to obscure the fact that the term "city painting" dOes not transparently describe a
paintings of the city because it believes that this subje~t matter is an intrinsically purely objective field. It is a discursive construction. Imprecise social analysis is the
social iconography. Like certain literary scholars, social art historians have aS~umed ideological core, not an accidental by-product, of the discourse about city painting,
that the city is "by any definition, a social image." 22 But because this formulatio.n which defines its objects of study as, on the one hand, the urban environment,
presupposes the existence of nonsocial images, it repeats the very form/ content divorced from a theory of the city's social production and, on the other hand, city
dichotomy that it sets out to challenge. It simply replaces the formalist model o( painting, divorced from any theory of the social production and effects of visual
aesthetic autonomy and transcendence of urban conditions with a model of inter- representation. Naturalizing conceptions of the city parallel art history's traditional
action between two discrete objects: art-itself socially neutral-and its content, conception of art as the expression of sovereign individuals whose essential Selves
the city, which is inherently and properly sodal. 23 Maintaining a fundamental sepa- precede involvement in social life. Both ideas are apotheosized in urban expres-
ration between art and the city-between culture and society-social art hjstory sionism-the attempt to transform the city subjectively and recover authenticity

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THE SoCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE REPRESENTING BERLIN

in what is conceived of as an inevitably alienating urban environment-and both meaning of art played an integral role in an aesthetic procedure that evacuated
treat urban phenomena in terms of individual experience. urban history:
To approach city paintings as products of preexisting individual imagina-
tions, expressions grounded in preexisting experiences, or even as reflections of a Free the experience of shock from any automatism; found, on the basis
preexisting social reality is to deny that the painted city is a representation-a site of that experience, visual codes and codes of action transformed by
where images of the city are set up as reality. Treating city paintings as vehicles the already consolidated characteristics of the capitalist metropolis
that simply convey meaning, conventional approaches foreclose questions about (rapidity of transformation, organization and simultaneousness of
the role that these images play in producing meaning-the meaning of the city as communications, accelerated tempo of use, eclecticism); reduce the
well as the experiences and identities of city dwellers. Yet as early as 1973, in a artistic experience to a pure object (obvious metaphor for object-
book titled Progetto e Utopia and translated three years· later as Architecture and Utopia, merchandise); involve the public, unified in an avowed interclass and
the architecture historian Manfredo Tafuri had offered a different model, interpre- therefore anti-bourgeois ideology: these are the tasks that all together
ting early-twentieth-century paintings of the city as social practices that produce were assumed by the avant-garde of the twentieth century. 29
effectsY' Tafuri drew on Walter Benjamin's essay "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire,"
which argues that the .human perceptual apparatus changes in response to new Avant-garde aesthetic revolutions generated repeated shocks, but for Tafuri
spatial configurations linked in turn to socioeconomic changes. Benjamin devel- these shocks were anything but autonomous. On the contrary, they echoed the
oped a theory that establishes relationships among various social, economic, and continual technical revolution that is the law of industrial production. Nor, in
spatial phenomena that for him characterize modernity: the experience of"shock"; Tafuri's view, did avant-garde movements passively reflect this law. Continually
the behavior of people in the urban crowd; the urban morphology set in motion breaking with the past, the avant-garde helped present it as a natural, not historical,
by Haussmann's transformation of Paris; and the capitalist mode of production. 27 law of development and so actively encouraged adaptation to oppressive social cir-
For Tafuri, as for Benjamin, the modern city has a specific historical identity; it is cumstances. First, says Tafuri, expressionism registered trauma as natural and there-
"objectively structured like a machine for the extraction of surplus value" and "in fore as something that must be endured. Later, the constructivist art of assemblage
its own conditioning mechanisms ... reproduces the reality of the ways of indus- transfonned shock into a whole "new principle of dynamic development." 30 Tafuri
,,,. trial production." 28 But Tafuri speculated about a topic that Benjamin did not ex- described this trajectory: "The picture became a neutral field on.which to project
plicitly address: the response of avant-garde art movements to the city as subject the experience of the shock suffered in the city. The problem now was that of teaching
matter. Tafuri contended that, starting with the expressionist protest, the early- that one is not to 'suffer' that shock, but to absorb it as an inevitable condition
twentieth-century avant-garde performed a dual function. It invented visual codes of existence." 31
to embody urban experience and simultaneously dissociated that experience from Like historians of urban expressionism, Tafuri treated experience as some-
its basis in the capitalist mode of production. Tafuri argued further that not only thing that simply befalls individuals and is unmediated by representation. Unlike
did the paintings' iconography and visual codes block an awareness of the histor- these historians, however, he tied modern urban spatial form to capitalist social
ical specificity of modern urbanism, but these codes were deployed in art objects structures and, in this way, attempted to historicize urban experience, counter-
themselves defined as autonomous. In other word'i, modernist ideas about the acting the way in which it has been Q"!:tu~alized in modernist painting. True, the

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 R.EI'RESENTING Bt:RUN
THE SOCIAL PRODUCTtON OF $PACE

protest against, and subjective transformation of, an urban experience considered

idea that urban experience is ultimately determined by relations of production
inevitably alienating. Kirchner's street scenes are routinely portrayed in these terms,
repeats the very essentializing gesture that Tafuri has challenged as ideologicaL Still,
as a "transcription in painting of ecstatic nervousness ... like colorful stroke storms
his critique offers a useful starting point for rethinking the discourse about urban
that release enormous psychic tensions." :H
expressionism since it does not ask what city paintings express •. but, rather, what
Less ingenuous historians uphold the conventional model of urban expres-
they do. sionism but mobilize "sociological" evidence to confirm the existence of a univer-
Failing to raise this question, art historians of urban expressionism have
sal "urban personality." Some have drawn on Georg Simmcl's famous 1903 essay,
mythologized the conditions of city life as inevitable and established the universal-
"The Metropolis and Mental Life." 35 Indeed, Simmel's presence haunts most his-
izing premises later mobilized to support German "violent painting." Urban ex-
tories of Berlin expressionism; his terminology is echoed, more or less distantly.
pressionism, these historians tell us, was inaugurated by the BrUcke artists' contact
Consider, for example, Donald Gordon's classic description of Kirchner's street
with Berlin, where by 1911 the group's principa1 members lived. "In Berlin;'
32 scenes as manifestations of a ~'metropolitan psyche." 36 Other historians rely explic-
writes Eberhard Roters, "German Expressionism became urban:' His account of
itly on the "Metropolis" essay to explain human behavior in the modern city and
urban expressionism's birth is typical: its supposed manifestation in paintings. Invariably, however, writers isolate the es-
say from the body of Simmel's writings, from its philosophical context, and from
The Expressionist trend linked up with the rhythm and motoricity of
the developing fteld of twentieth-century urban sociology within which it occu-
the big city, bringing something new into being-Urban Expression-
pies a key position. Uncritical and, as we shall see, highly selective references to
ism .... The encounter between the Expressionism of the Briicke art-
Simmel's text have given art-historical accounts art appearance of sociological au-
ists and big city life was comparable to an effervescent reaction, in
thority, surrounding them with an aura of social criticism. Yet these accounts actu-
which Expressionism lost its innocence. The pathos of Urban Expres-
ally reproduce uncritical ideas about the city and, moreover, support a mystifying
sionism, an emotion provoked by that mutually influential exchange,
social theory in which the city figures prominently.
reflected an accumulation of values that enhanced emotive elements
"The Metropolis and Mental Life" appeals to historians of expressionism
and combined to generate a highly emotional aura: rhythm, dynamics,
33
because it defines the urban situation in terms of the individual's confrontation
motoricity, agitation, tension, ecstasy.
with external society. Simmel's analysis of metropolitan life has been used to sup-
port the idea that all forms of expressionism, including New York abstract expres-
Raters's description hyperbolically outlines some of the principal elements com-
sionism, are intrinsically urban. Painterly gestures, assumed to be manifestations of
prising what has become the standard model of urban expressionism: individuals
the individual artist's presence, concentrated expressions of his feelings, are de-
confront an external urban reality and have an experience; the city's essence is its
scribed as "solutions" to "the urban problem." A solution, however, depends on-
natural dynamism, excitement, and tension; this environment of intensified ner-
indeed it is built into-how a problem is framed. Art-historical accounts portray
vous stimulation produces an urban sensibility or personality in its inhabitants-
the urban problem as the struggle of individuals to resist absorptio~ into a "mass
agitated, neurasthenic, alienated, exhilarated; the heightened emotions produced
identity. " 37 German artists, it is said, "looked for a figure strong enough to refute
in the individuals are deposited on the surface of expressionist paintings in the
the banality of mass society." 38 Art history has thus conscripted Sinunel to trans-
form of intense color, radiating and agitated brushstrokes, and energetic contours
form the urban problem into a specifically modern form of what expressionist
that, like a seismograph, register the artist's presence; the paintings thus embody a

127
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 REl'RESENTlNG BERLIN
THE SOCIAl, PRODUCTION OF SPACE

tions. Simmel viewed the modern city as the locus of what he considered the
discourse frequently defmes as the artist's fundamental problem: the essential battle
salient characteristic of modern life: increased tension between the inner life of the
between free individuals and their subordination by the constraints of a strictly
individual and objective culture. Objective culture is the complex of products and
external "civilization." formations external to the self and objectified throughout history. Simmel defined
An essay in the catalogue of a 1977 exhibition about images of the city in
subjective culture as the domain of the individual's assimilation of the objective
early-twentieth-century painting exemphftes how Simmel has been appropriated
culture and attributed the dissonance of modern life to an increasing gap between
to establish a point of convergence between kindred concepts of the urban and
the growth of objective culture and the individual's cultural level. The city is the
the aesthetic. arena of this clash. Analyzing the mechanisms that city dwellers develop to adapt
to their environment, Sinunel concluded that the metropolis is the site of an inter-
'The deepest problems of modern life flow from the attempt action between two kinds of individuality: the full expression in the individual of
of the individual to maintain the independence and individual- a "general human quality," on the one hand, and a unique, romantic individualism,
ity of his existence against the sovereign powers of society, on the other. The increase in external stimuli in the city intensifies the individual's
against the weight of the historical heritage and the external emotional life. This intensification, coupled with the unique social relationships
culture and technique of life.' And these problems were at their
that result from the city's spatial distribution and its concentration oflarge numbers
most acute in the modern metropolis. Or so Georg Simmel, the Ger-
of people creates a crisis for the individual personality. But these distinctively urban
man philosopher and sociologist, argued in an essay of 1. 903 on The
features also supply the conditions-the loosened social ties and fragmentation
Metropolis and Mental Life. He might have added, and on good grounds, resulting from a vastly broadened social formation-for the full development of
that many of the deepest problems of modern art flowed from just
individualism.
this source. 39 Still, for Sirnmel the "metropolitan type" is not simply an effect of the city's
size and its large numbers of people. Nor is the city merely the terrain of a timeless
The problem for early-twentieth-century city painters, the text continues, "was to
struggle between individual and society. The urban personality also develops in
fmd an image with sufficient force to restore the position of the individual against
40 response to what Sinunel viewed as the specific historical elements of modernity-
. the modular forms of the city and the routine life of the masses!' Moreover, the
struggle of the city dweller _was one and the same with the artist's struggle: "At
an advanced economic division of labor and the establishment of a money econ-
omy. In a famous passage, which plays a key role in Walter Benjamin's analysis,
the same time there was another and overriding priority, which was to preserve
Simmel describes the urban personality's characteristically "blase attitude": "There
the autonomy of painting against those very forces which the artists felt compelled
is perhaps no psychic phenomenon which has been so unconditionally reserved to
to acknowledge." 41 the metropolis as has the blase attitude." 42 He first attributes this posture of in-
Simmel's analysis of the modern city was considerably more complex than
difference, aversion, and reserve to "the rapidly changing and closely compressed
art-historical texts acknowledge. In these texts, "The Metropolis and Mental Life"
contrasting stimulation~ of the nerves" experienced in the city, but
undergoes the same reductions that it .has suffered in mainstream urban sociology.
Sociological literature about urban expressionism has so far remained overtly obliv-
"
This physiological source of the metropolitan blase attitude is joined
ious of the history of urban thought with which it shares so many presuppositions,
by another source which flows from the money economy. The essence
just as it remains oblivious of the urban thought that challenges these presupposi-

129
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 THE SoCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE REI'RESEN'I'tNG BERLIN

of the blase attitude consists in the blunting of discrimination .... This was considered the product of a "human nature" expressed in the city's spatial
mood is the faithful subjective reflection of the completely internalized form. As Park asserted at the beginning of his landmark 1916 essay, "The City:
money economy. By being the equivalent to all the manifold things in Some Suggestions for the Study of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment"
one and the same way, money becomes the most frightful leveler. For the city "is a product of nature, and particularly of human nature" and, therefore,
'
money expresses all qualitative differences of things in terms of "how a "laboratory" for studying human nature. 47 Using Darwin's work to demonstrate
much?" Money, with all its colorlessness and indifference, becomes that forces analogous to those shaping plant and animal communities also govern
the common denominator of all values; irreparably it hollows out the the evolution of human communities, Park believed that human nature is mani-
core of things, their individuality, their specific value, and their fested in the competition for survival. As the struggle for survival distributes
incomparability. 4 :> different animal and plant species among different habitats, so in human communi-
ties competition gives rise to a division of labor that, in turn, generates the city:')
For Simmel, then, several characteristics of the city-size and number of people, spatial organization and land-use patterns. Urban form thus corresponds to an or-
preponderance of the "objective spirit," division oflabor, and the fact that it is the derly distribution of functions, an "equilibrium" toward which ecological commu-
main seat of the money exchange44 -fashion the urban personality. nities aspire.
Simmel's description of city life in terms of human adaptation to environ- Ecological systems are, however, never static. According to the urban ecolo-
mental forces itself has a history. It entered American urban discourse through the gists, change occurs either in the "normal" course of the community's life or when
work of Robert Park and his student, Louis Wirth, leading figures in the Chicago some new element enters to disturb the status quo. Cyclical and evolutionary,
School of urban sociology. Park had attended Simmel's popular Berlin lectures in change brings about new stages of adaptation and, while it is continual, tends to
1899 and 1900, and Wirth later described Simmel's "Metropolis and Mental Life" reestablish equilibrium. Here, too, biology provided a fertile source of concepts
as "the most important single article on the city from the sociological stand- for explaining changing spatial configurations. Urban ecologists regularly described
point." 45 But the Chicago School transformed Simmel's writings in two significant patterns of city growth as the spatial expression of "laws" of competition, exten-
ways: they combined his ideas with other intellectual influences, most notably the sion, concentration, dominance, succession, and invasion. 48 The view of the city
theories of Charles Darwin, and, partially as a result of adapting their version of as a functional organism and evolutionary unit thus fostered a conception of urban
,.
,_,, Darwinism to urban life, they abandoned Simmel's emphasis on the determining spatial form as the inevitable outcome of growth and progress. 49
,,' effects of a money economy. The urban ecologists believed that human beings differ from plants and ani-
The Chicago sociologists developed a comprehensive urban theory based mals, both in their ability to ''contrive and adapt" 5° the environment to their needs
on human ecology, the social theory that accompanied the institutionalization of and in their possession of a culture. Ultimately, however, culture too is environ-
sociology as a full-fledged discipline in American universities. 46 Applying a hard- mentally determined. For within Park's perspective, specific cultures develop only
science model to the study of urban social life, the Chicago School forged a con- at a point where the biotic struggle for existence has produced different areas
cept of"the urban" within an analysis based on a biological analogy. These writers within the city in which are located partkular functional groups. In these places,
defined their object of observation ~s the process by which human populations which the Chicago School, appropriating a term from plant ecology, called "natu-
adapt to an external environment, producing an "ecology"-a space internally ral areas," people develop bonds based on common goals and values.
divided into separate areas forming a functional social system: the city. Adaptation

130 131
 THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE REPRESENTING BERLIN

While Park and other f1rst-generation members of the Chicago School dimensions of Simmel's thought. For while Wirth insisted that urbanism must not
stressed the differentiation of "socially-cohesive" cultural areas within the city, be "confused" with industrialism and modern capitalism, it was, as Peter Saunders
Park's student Wirth, returning to Simmel, assigned a specific cultural content to points out, "precisely such a confusion that characterized Simmel's approach." 52
the city as a whole. Combining human ecology with Simmel's analysis of the urban Yet, in keeping with ecological tenets, art history has posited a social content to
personality, Wirth's highly influential 1938 essay, "Urbanism as a Way of Life;' the city understood as a transhistorical fonn or, what amounts to the same thing,
formulated a conception of a singularly "urban culture" produced by the city as has described modern urban conditions as the inevitable outcome of a quasi-
'an ecological form. Wirth defined urbanism as a constellation of traits forming the natural, technological progression, thereby perpetuating beliefs in an essentially
characteristic style of life in cities. Size, density, and heterogeneity of population alienating-hence individuating-city life that engenders an "urban personality."
determine urban culture or social life and also give rise to a distinctive urban per- Centered on its exacerbated individualism, the "metropolitan type" has in turn
sonality: "schizoid,'' aggressive, individualistic, disorganized. Wirth then interpre- provided the discipline with pseudo-sociological support for its conception of"the
ted differences among cities in terms of three transhistorical variables. Setting out artist" as exemplar of the sovereign human self who subjectively transcends social
to pinpoint the essence of "the urban," he constructed his object of study by sepa- conditions-including the urban condition-an idea that forms the basis of ex-
rating relevant from irrelevant phenomena. "In formulating a definition of the pressionism in art. 53
city," he warned,

it is necessary to exercise caution in order to avoid identifying urban-

ism as a way of life with any specific locally or historically conditioned In the late 1960s and early 1970s, certain urban [email protected] extensively criticized eco-
cultural influences which, while they may significantly affect the spe- logical interpretations of the city precisely because urban ecology tended to disso-
cific character of the community are not the essential determinants of ciate spatial organization from the specificities of industrialism and modern
its character as a city. capitalism. These scholars had· their own objections to Sirnrnel. Still, they set out
It is particularly important to call attention to the danger of con- to restore the very confusion in his analysis that, thirty years earlier, Wirth had
fusing urbanism with industrialism and modern capitalism.... Differ- sought to correct. Motiyated in part by ghetto uprisings in U.S. cities and by the
ent as the cities of earlier epochs may have been by virtue of their growth of urban social movements contributing to the events of 1968 in Europe,
!,.
development in a preindustrial and precapitalistic order from the great urban theorists examined urban ecology as a form of spatial knowledge that sup-
cities of today, they were, nevertheless, cities. 51 ports an oppressive status quo by representing urban conditions and conflicts as
natural and universal. Against this "traditional knowledge of space," urban geogra-
Historians of urban expressionism have absorbed in an oversimplified form phers and sociologists developed what Henri Lefebvre calls a "critique of
concepts that until recently dominated sociological ideas about the urban and have space" 54-a politicized spatial knowledge that treat.s existing spatial forms as insep-
thus consistently, if u-Uknowingly, heeded Wirth's advice. There is some irony iU. arable from particular social structur7s.-and as, therefore, susceptible to change. 55
their doing so, however, since it distances them from Simmel, the very figure In 1973, David Harvey's Social Justice and the City, a virtual manifesto of the
whose ideas they ostensibly embrace. Although art historians invoke Simmel's new urban studies, drew a contrast between Park's and Ernest W Burgess's ecolog-
theory of the metropolis to authorize expressionism as the consummate, aesthetic ical image of the spatial organization of American cities and the description of
representative of the urban situation, they nonetheless, like Wirth, marginalize key

132 133
 REPRESENTING BERtiN
THE SOCit\l PRODUCTION 01' SPACE

over, falsely unified the public "in an avowed interclass ... ideology." The similar-
Manchester given in Friedrich Engels's Condition if the Working Class in England in
ity between the two writers is not surprising. Universalizing categories of the urban
1844.s6 Focusing on these authors' depictions of impoverished ghettoes, Harvey
and the aesthetic have long been entangled in the discourse of urban expressionism.
pointed out that Engels and the urban ecologists describe the same pattern of urban
But just as urban scholars challenged the legacy of urban ecology, so aestheticism
land use and the same tendency toward ghetto formation but explain these phe-
has hardly gone unquestioned by contemporary artists and critics. On the contrary,
nomena differently. For Engels the "social cohesiveness" of the ghetto does not
for nearly three decades new theories about the politics of urban space have been
· spring, as it does for the ecologists, from biotic forces of comp_etition producing
matched by new theories about the politics of aesthetic space and by the develop-
equilibrium and "natural areas" and from the ineradicable passions of Park's "hu-
ment of art practices that contest autonomy by exploring the artWork's inseparabil-
man nature." It arises instead from the economic inequities that structure industrial
ity from its spatiotemporal contexts. 61
capitalism. Echoing Marx, Harvey distinguished the ecological approach, which
Yet by the close of the 1970s "new vehemence" painting and the cultural
accepts the inevitability of ghettoes, from a "revolutionary" urban theory whose
57 apparatus that validated it as a resurgent urban expressionism had reacted against
purpose, he argued, is "to eliminate ghettoes:'
these parallel shifts in urban and aesthetic spatial thought. In the artistic sphere,
A year earlier, Manuel Castells had contended that the Chicago School's
neoexpressionists reasserted neutralizing assumptions about art's autonomy and
"urban culture" is "strictly speaking, a rr:tYth, since it recounts, ideologically, the
transcendence of social circumstances. At the same time, immediately following
history of the human species." ss Castells defined "the myth of urban culture" as
the development of new urban conflicts in Berlin, they intensified talk of ''the
ideology in Marx's sense of the term: the category "urban culture" expresses the
urban" in a form that repressed its politiCal implications. Aspiring to express the
truth that urban life is alienating and at the same time obstructs the ability to
urban, they launched a veritable offensive against understanding it, speaking in-
recognize and transform the social causes of that truth because it gives urban expe-
stead about the aggressions that inevitably "take root in the isolation and anonym-
,,
rience a natural origin-the city construed as an ecological form. "The 'city,'"
ity of metropolitan life." 62 Resuscitating the discourse of urban expressionism,
,,,, wrote Castells, "takes the place of explanation ... of the cultural transformations
.·.,., these artists described Berlin as an "energy field" that generates the "grand ges-
that one fails to (or cannot) grasp and control. ... The urban ideology is that
' tures, violent colors, aggressive images" of expressionist paintings63 and revived a
specific ideology that sees the modes and forms of social organization as character-
primitivist iconography, presenting the city as a scene of "primal" conflicts in
istic of a phase of the evolution of society, closely linked to the technico-natural
59 paintings promoted as embodiments of sovereign self-expression. The city was re-
conditions of human existence and, ultimately, to its environment." He con-
peatedly constmcted as a universal, eternal environment where archaic rituals are
'• dudes: "The social efficacity of this ideology derives from the fact that it describes
enacted and where, as one Moritzplatz painter put it, "the unifYing element is
the everyday problems experienced by people, while offering an interpretation of
the self." 64
them in terms of natural evolution, from which the division into antagonistic
Regression to urban ideology was only one aspect of a more comprehensive
classes is absent." 60 retreat from historical inquiry that characterized neoexpressionism, a retreat fre-
Castells's observations about the neutralizing effects of mainstream urban so..,.
quently presented as historical investigation and even clothed in a rhetoric of his-
ciology, particularly how its definition of the urban conceals class conflicts, closely
torical justice. Recourse to "the urban experience" to glorifY the "violent painters"
recall Manfredo Tafuri's remarks about the effects of twentieth-century aesthetic
corresponded to the prevalent contention that other German neoexpres·sionists
discourse. Tafuri argued that "the expressionist protest," supported by modernist
ideas of aesthetic autonomy, portrayed urban experience as inevitable and, more-

135
134
 Tl-IE SOCIAL PRODUCTION Of SPACE REPRESENTiNG BERLIN

were symbolically confronting the problematic weight of German culture and ex- specific "urban situation": the Kreuzberg section of West Berlin where the Mo-
piating the Nazi past "The new German painters;' it was said, "perform an ex- ritzplatz painters lived and worked. While the author viewed Kreuzberg as an
traordinary service for the German people. They lay to rest the ghosts-profound unchanging painterly theme---the quintessential "expressionist city" -the area
as only the monstrous can be-of German style, culture and history, so that the differed significantly from the Berlin of Kirchner's day. According to numerous art
people can be authentically new. They are collectively given the mythical opportu- publications, Kreuzberg possessed three principal artistic attractions: inexpensive
nity to create a fresh identity. " 65 More than two decades earlier, however, analyz- rents for large studio spaces; a tension-filled atmosphere and desolate surroundings
ing the slogan "coming to terms with the past;' Theodor Adorno had questioned that inspire an artistic retreat to an "internal" world of images; and an environ-
this desire to forget Gennan history. "One wants to get free of the past," said ment of anonymity that liberates the individual. .Exploiting Kreuzberg as a thrilling
Adorno, "rightly so, since one cannot live in its shadow, and since there is no end environment for artists, these descriptions exemplified a disturbing tendency in
to terror if guilt and violence are only repaid, again and again, with guilt and the international art press of the 1980s to romanticize impoverished urban
violence. But wrongly so, since the past one wishes to evade is still so intensely neighborhoods. 70
alive." 66 Apologists for violent painting revealed this exploitation most strongly not
Following Adorno, Gertrud Koch later described the popular idea of"work- when they ignored Kreuzberg's social problems but when they cited these prob-
·!'I:
., ing through the past" as "the process of converting fascism and Nazism into myth, lems in order to weave them into the fabric of the neoexpressionist zeitgeist. In
: 1'·
,., which began in the mid 1970s. Part of this remodeling of reality is the extinguish- one of many tributes to Ber~in's new painters, for instance, Wolfgang Max Faust
ing of concrete memories ... and the displacement of those memories by mythic listed "minorities" and "the latent violence produced by the concrete disasters of
re-interpretations." 67 According to Adorno, this process only leads us to forget public housing" as two ofth~ainters' most important "big-city" subjects. 7 t Rou-
"the continued existence of the objective [economic] conditions that brought tinely, writers on Moritzplatz painting tried to demonstrate the art's social signifi-
about fascism in the first place." 68 Mythic continuities extinguish history, past and cance by mentioning certain features of Kreuzberg: it was in direct proximity to
present, in several ways. They deny historical transformations. At the same time, the Berlin Wall; it was the home of the majority of Turkish Gastarbeiter (guest
as Adorno warned, they disavow the persistence of oppressive social conditions workers) in West Berlin; and it was the scene of bitter conflicts between an official
,.,, underlying apparent change and liberation. They also mask concrete social con- urban renewal policy and alternative movements such as the squatters. Kreuzberg's
flicts beneath a seeming coherence. historical situation included, then, the Cold War and escalating militarism. Its his-
For advocates of neoexpressionism, "the urban condition" provided such a torical_y:rban condition consisted of rampant real-estate speculation, vast unem-
mythic continuity, with the attendant neutralizations of history. Slipping freely be- ployment, and the social and political problems ~aised in the capitalist center by its
tween past and present, neoexpressionists linked Moritzplatz painting to Kirclmer's -longstanding imperialist :policies in the south.
street scenes by scorning the changes that had taken place in the years separating At the time, Kreuzberg housed one-third of Berlin's foreign workers, mostly
pre-World War I Berlin and the Cold War city of the 1980s. An article in a German Turks, who comprised thirteen percent ofWest Berlin's population. This group of
magazine typifies this suppression: "No city has more right to talk about paintings foreign workers was first actively recruited by the West German Federal Labor
since there the tradition of painting was never interrupted even when the word Office in the mid-1950s when Germany had exhausted its own postwar indUstrial
'painting' seemed to vanish from art history. The reason is that Berlin provides a reserve army and began to tap the latent surplus population of southern Europe
theme for painting-the urban situation." 69 Yet the topic of this article was a very and, later, Eurasia for labor to ·fuel the "economic miracle." From inception, the

136
 THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE
REPRESENTING I3ERL!N

official guest-worker system was an institutionalized program of discrimination, reached its height in 1981 when the pohce forcibly evicted occupants in violent
attempting to make the foreign workers mobile, temporary, and silent. 72 Nonethe- confrontations.
less, the import of foreign labor created a new population of permanent ethnic Faust was probably referring to guest workers and squatters when he wrote
minorities in West Germany which, with the advent of economic crisis, became that minorities and the concrete violence of housing struggles were two of Mo-
the target of government attempts at repatriation and of assaults by right-wing ritzplatz painting's urban subjects. But in what sense can these phenomena be
parties for whom guest workers are useful scapegoats as the cause of Germany's claimed as the theme of, or even as an influence on, Moritzplatz work? In the
economic problems. Strikingly underrepresented in the developing service sector, absence of paintings about these subjects, we can only assume that, for Faust, the
these workers became largely dispensable, thus facilitating attempts to export un- expressionist stylistic and iconographic signifiers of violent, "urban" emotion-
employment and other social problems by expelling "foreigners." visible painterly gestures, angular forms, high-contrast color, frenzied figures, anx-
Gastarbeiter have, of course, been subject to disCrimination in housing and ious expressions, crowded canvases-can be equated with, indeed protest against,
have tended to live in the worst inner-city conditions. Left predominantly to the specific historical forms of urban social violence. This presumption, that intense
forces of the housing market, their pressing needs have been manipulated by specu- emotions are themselves an inherently "?ig-city subject," repeats the basic tenets
lating landlords. In Kreuzberg, for example, wben landlords abandoned buildings, of urban expressionism, and Faust's allusions to urban political struggles primarily
stopped services, and forced out tenants in hopes of reaping profits from future confirm the notion that violence is an eternal feature of city landscapes.
reconstruction projects, the landlords could easily rent underserviced apartments Laudatory attitudes toward the artists' images of minorities have equally
to Turkish foreign workers desperate to find temporary quarters anywhere. This troubling implications. For amid conditions, produced by a recent episode of impe-
,·.•:
desperation was engendered in part by government regulations that frequently rialist domination-the situation -or gu~st workers-the new vehemence painters
made the foreign workers' right to bring their families to West Germany contin- produced images of foreigners that resurrected the conventions of early-twentieth-
gent on each worker's ability to provide adequate housing. century primitivism, whose problematic relation to, even legitimation of, modern
In 1979 the complex housing situation in West Berlin that took advantage imperialism had long been questioned in art discourse. Numerous painters appro-
,..,,
'~

of foreign workers also produced the squatters movement: organized groups of priated non-Western peoples, described as "different sensuous cultures,'' 73 as fan-
'"··
people appropriated abandoned buildings and cooperatively put them into work- tasy images. Fetting's self-portraits as a seminude "Indian," for example, conflated
ing order as an alternative to official reconstruction and profitable luxury modern- the artist with the "other" in order to protest sexual "repression." Such outdated
ization. Squatters, forming self-help networks and tenants' rights offices, also exoticism in coded representations ultimately subjugated "foreign" groups as mir-
protested the City Senate's plans to tear down housing and proposed that public rors of the painters' own aesthetic regressions.
funds be allocated to tenants (instead of to landlords) to restore buildings. Im- It was, however, the most unusual feature of Berlin's urban landscape-the
plicitly, the squatters defined the Berlin housing question in terms different from Wall enclosing the western part of the city-that figured most conspicuously in
those posed in official urban renewal debates. Su~h debates framed an opposi- Moritzplatz painting and in apologies for the work, where the Wall was routinely
tion between the use of existing building stock, on the one hand, and new devel- converted into a symbol of two universal conditions: urban and artistic. The
opment, on the other. The squatters intervened by placing this controversy within group's emblem was Fetting's Van Gogh and the Wall (1978), a painting tbat depicts,
the context of the city's socioeconomic structure-questioning the rights of as one supporter put it, "van Gogh, the incarnation of expressionism ... trans-
privately owned real estate, the commodity form of housing provision, and the planted to Berlin, at the symbol of Ge~an reality."" The Wall thus appeared in
allegiances of the state in allocating urban resources. The squatters' movement this painting as a figure of an ongoing spiritual situation-the heroic disease of

138 139
 RtlPUESENTlNG BERLiN
THE SOCIAL PltODtJCTION OF SPACE

artistic alienation exemplified by van Gogh-just as the physical isolation of Berlin ical terminology to bolster the pretensions of work that actually withdrew into a
served as a metaphor of the artist's romantic isolation. Neoexpressionist discourse supposedly private realm of timeless meanings, psychological generalities, and self-
regularly transformed the division of the city into a concrete symbol of the suppos- expression-"an internal world of images"-attempting to transform its specific
edly schizoid character of the urban personality or of the urban segmentation of site into a universal one and to present itself as a spiritual transcendence of the
social relations. Withdrawn from the contingencies of history, these divisions, it Wall's concrete divisions.
was held, can be overcome in transcendent and redemptive works of art.
Berlin neoexpressionists complemented their depictions of the Wall with
works painted directly on the WalL These works, supplemented by visiting artists,
provoked commentaries that raise significant issues about the intersection of Neutralizing representations of Berlin and of urban space in general did not go
aesthetic and urban politics. The point of intersection is the contested notion of unopposed during the heyday of neoexpressionism. Two artvvorks in particular not
"site-specificity." Initiated in 1982 by Jonathan Borofsky's Running Man, executed only offered politicized counterimages of the city but raised qqestions about the
during the "Zeitgeist" exhibition, the wall paintings by professional artists were political functions of"the new painting." At the same time, these works challenged
confined to the section of the Wall where the institutionalized art world was con- and reconfigured the expressionist model of aesthetic space. The first was exhibited
centrated-between the. Martin-Gropius-Bau and the Ktinstlerhaus Bethanien. in Berlin, the second in New York. Both were site-specific installations situated in
Shortly after these paintings gained notoriety in the mass media, an article in Art urban neighborhoods that were settings of the expressioi?ist revival.
in America described them as "predominantly Nco-Expressionist;' "extraordinary In 1984, the Ktinstlerhaus Betha,nien, a Kreuzberg gallery located about a
political statements;' and "site-specific artworks." 75 A month earlier, another critic hundred yards from the Berlin Wall, presented a work by Hans Haacke titled
had designated Borofsky's paintings "site-specific installations" and nominated Broadrtess and Diversity of the Ludwig. Brigade. Against conceptions of the Berlin Wall
them for the position of exemplary public art.76 Yet the simple juxtaposition of the as a structure dividing isolated realms or symbolizing mythical polarities, Ludwig
adjectives neoexpressionist and site-specific glosses over striking contradictions be- Brigade examined the dialectic of the Wall's dividing and connecting functions,
··::: treating East and West Germany not as entities but as relationships and demonstra-
;1'"• tween the meanings of the two terms and obscures a complex history of aesthetic
debates. Precisely because the Wall paintings fit so securely within the parameters ting that their difference was also an interdependence. Investigating the connec-
.
, .,. of neoexpressionism they failed to confront the specifiCities of their site. Their tions between the two Germanies, Ludwig Brigade questioned the platitude that art
'"
~. "
i~'"
embrace of neoexpressionism put them at odds with, rather than placing them could provide an imaginary and liberating transcendence of the Wall's divisions.
'"'
within, the tradition of critical site-specificity, a practice that arose in the late 1960s Instead, the work made visible the oppressive exchanges already taking place be-
as a challenge to modernist doctrines of aesthetic autonomy and transcendence of tvveen the Germanies-exchanges facilitated by art and fostered by dominant aes-
social relations. Site-specific art practices demonstrated that art is constituted by- thetic ideas. Revealing both the material unities and the social conflicts evaporated
is not independent of-social relations. The painting on the Berlin Wall, by con- by spiritual visions of wholeness, Haacke's project examined the links between art,
trast celebrated the masterful transformation of social life by sovereign subjects and on the one hand, and economic and state power, on the other, realms that-like
so, no matter how vigorously touted as exemplary public art, remained safely the two Germanies-are conventionally separated. Thus, while some critics -ex-
within the boundaries of traditional museological discourse. The inclusion of this tolled the new German painters for spiritually healing symbolic breaches, an aes-
work under the rubric "site-specificity" represented, then, an appropriation of rad- thetic practice such as Haacke's actually sunnounts barriers: the ideological

l40 141
 RE1i'R!lSENTINC BERLIN
THE SoCIAL PRODUCTION Of SPACE

"Durchblick" (Seeing Through). It cast Ludwig in the role of a generous mediator,

a builder of bridges, indeed-if one believed the show's title-a visionary who
was overcoming decades of painful separation between the two German states.
"Durchblick" painted a picture of Ludwig as harmonizing a divided nation
through the power of art and the strength of his own aesthetic vision, an image
that paralleled the claim that the new German painters reconciled oppositions by
artistic means.
Haacke's installation questioned the exact nature of Ludwig's border cross-
ings. Haacke focused on the collector's other activities, particularly his chairman-
ship of the Leonard Monheim Corporation, a company that then produced
chocolates under the brand name Trumpf in both West Berlin and, through special,
secretive arrangements, the GDR. 78 Ludwig Brigade suggested that Manheim's
German-German economic dealings were expedited by the cultural transactions
of another enterprise-the Ludwig Foundation for Art and International Under-
standing-which, among other joint ventures, promoted and Pufdiased East Ger-
man art. While "Durchblick" implied that . Ludw~g's aesthetic exchanges
penetrated the wall and rendered it transparent, Haacke revealed that these ex-
Hans Haacke, Broadness and Diversity of the Ludwig Brigade, installation view at the Kiinstlerhaus
changes reduced the visibility of Ludwig's economic penetrations. Though travel-
'"i' Bethanien, Berlin, 1984 (photo courtesy Hans Haacke).
ing under the sign of transparency-"seeing through"-Ludwig, backed by the
two German states and supported by prevailing discourses about art, emerged in
boundaries drawn around phenomena, giving them an appearance of autonomy Ludwig Brigade as a master of disguise.
),,,, that protects thern from political interrogation. Indeed, that is how he appears in the oil painting that forms one of the
''~::

'""
Ludwig Brigade incorporated the Berlin Wall into a work that, as Walter work's main elements. Across a tall barrier that bisected the gallery and replicated
Grasskamp has written, "probes with emblematic precision the cultural, political the division of Berlin by the Wall, Haacke set up an encounter between two types
and economic import" of its site. 77 Haacke made the site an integral component of visual imagery associated, respectively, with the socialist East and capitalist West.
of the work by staging a confrontation between his installation and a concurrent On one side was Haacke's original painting, a parody of socialist realist art; on the
art-world event that indeed exemplified the conjuncture of cultural, political, and other, an "original" billboard advertising Tmmpf chocolates. The painting shows
economic power in Berlin. Two days before the opening of Ludwig Brigade, an- Ludwig, camouflaged as an old-fashioned German chocolate maker,79 flanked by
other exhibition opened in the city: a show at the Kunsthalle Berlin presenting the two women carrying picket signs that protest the Leonard Monheim Corporation's
businessman Peter Ludwig's collection of East German art. Jointly sponsored by, oppressive labor policies: unemployment due to automatization of the Tru'mpf
the State Art Trading Agency of the GDR and the Ludwig Institute for Art of the plant in West Germany (where a large proportion of employees were female for-
GDR, the Ludwig exhibition, which had originated at Oberhausen, was entitled eign workers) and low wages in East Germany that maximize the company's

143
142
 REI'H~:SENTING BERl.!N
THE SOCIAL PHODUC'ftON Of SPACE

'"i''

''""' Hans Haacke, Broadness and Diversity of the Ludwig Brigade, billboard, 1984 (photo courtesy Hans Haacke).

profits. The placards reveal that relations of exploitation also crossed borders. They
also call attention to the class divisions concealed by a Cold War rhetoric that
portrayed the East/West opposition as the country's sole political division, allowing
Ludwig, agent of the conflicts inherent in multinational capital, to present himself
as an agent of unification.
The picket signs directly contradict Ludwig's benevolent self-presentation,
but Haacke's principal strategy is less direct, an ironic imitation of Ludwig's own
deceptions. Ludwig used art as protective coloration to create a philanthropic and
Hans Haacke, Broadness and Diversity if the Ludwig Brigade, oil painting, 1984 (photo amiable image that hid the true nature of his East German presence; Haacke used
courtesy Hans Haacke).

144 145
 THE SOCIAL Pl~QDUCT!ON OF SPACE REPRESENTING BERLIN

art to mimic-and unmask-the industrialist's own mimicry. 80 Again like Ludwig, socialist realism, which became East Germany's official aesthetic after World War
Haacke appropriated art associated with East Germany, parodying the iconographic II. Yet the work's loose, gestural paint application-classic signifier of free artistic
and compositional codes of socialist realist painting. He posed the two women in expression-also evokes the liberalization of artistic prescriptions that, beginning
his painting as militant workers fighting "the class enemy" -stock figures from the in the early 1970s, accompanied the East German art establishment's official procla-
socialist realist arsenal-so that Ludvvig, holding a mixing bowl inscribed "People's mation of an era of artistic "broadness and diversity." Caricaturing the Eastern
Owned Enterprise, Candy Factory of Dresden;' metamorphoses into the smiling Bloc's sloganeering pronouncements on art's political functions and contrasting this
head of a workers' brigade. The painting parodies an agitprop scene that, in a empty rhetoric with Haacke's own critical content, the painting unmasks the lack
further irony, is dominated by the red and white, diamond-shaped advertising logo of any real criticism of the state in socialist art. Haacke's critique is seen most clearly
for Trumpf chocolates-a corporate trademark camouflaged as a socialist slogan. when his painting is placed next to the photograph he used as the source for his
Trumpf, which translates into English as "tntmp" and is; in both languages, seman- Ludwig portrait. Taken at the Oberhausen exhibition, the photo shows Ludwig
tically and phonetically akin to "triumph," unfurls like a banner across the top of holding the "Durchblick" catalogue and standing with painter Bernhard Heisig,
the canvas. Under this banner, Ludwig masquerades as the friend, not the enemy, then a powerful member of the Artists Association of the GDR. Behind the two
of "the people." men is a flattering Heisig portrait of Ludwig. As the literal background for a cul-
. Haacke plays on the multiple connotations of the word trump, which pre- tural meeting of the two Germanies, Heisig's ingratiating portrait-utterly remote
sides not only over the painting but over the entire work. To a viewer who reads from a critique of either East German government policy or the capitalist enemy,
each element of the painting in relation to the others and to the installation as a indeed as strong an advertisement for Ludwig's interests as the Trumpf billboard
whole, it becomes clear that in Ludwig's German-German deals, his interests- in Haacke's installation-illustrated the obedience of East German art to the desires
the interests of capital-rank, like a trump card, above all others. His cultural alli- of the totalitarian socialist state. "Actually existing socialist art" clearly depended,
ances with the GDR, far from charitable acts of artistic generosity or gestures as Walter Grasskamp puts it, on "politico-economic calculations at higher levels," 81
'''''"' The thick paint and tactile surface of Heisig's canvas, supposed to stand for artistic
toward international understanding, emerge as powerful moves in a game of eco-
nomic domination played within and across the two Germanies. Surrounded by freedom, ironically underscored these artistic restrictions, which, of course, di-
evidence of social conflict, centered beneath the sign of a private multinational rectly served Ludwig's objectives.
corporation yet standing at the forefront of a workers' demonstration, the figure Since such painterly painting was most familiar to viewers in West Berlin as
of Ludwig blending ingredients in a bowl mocks the collector's image as the a hallmark of the neoexpressionist revival, its prominence in Haacke's work en-
bringer of harmony to a divided people. Furnished with the attributes of an old- couraged viewers to speculate about further similarities between the two Germa-
fashioned chocolate maker, the leader of Leonard Manheim is obviously trumped nies. On both sides of the Wall, gestural bntshwork was being promoted as a sign
up in multiple guises as "a good fellow" -representative of German tradition, uni- of loosened repression while supporting, in different ways, existing systems of
fier, cultural benefactor Finally, then, he emerges as a double-dealer who, while power. In Western art, the revival of expressionist brushwork was coupled with a
seeming to liberate Germany from its division and to be a friend of the people- resurrection of the oil medium. In a comment that could serve as an illuminating
East and West-is a member of an oppressive power. caption to the Oberhausen photograph, Haacke later remarked on the correspen-
Haacke's meticulously designed montage also blends together artistic styles dence between the aura of oil painting and that of political power: "The medium
associated with the two German states. It imitates the conventions of Soviet-style as such," declared Haacke, "has a particular meaning. It is almost synonymous with

146 147
 REPRESENTING BERLIN
THE SOCI,\L PRODUCTION OP SPACE

and political power, Haacke's choice of style and medium invited two readings. It
stressed the role of approved East German art in validating the state and Ludwig's
financial dealings, but it also alluded to a complementary role played by the official
celebration of self-absorbed romantic individualism in West German art.
Indeed, Ludwig's interests were advanced not only by East German cultural
authorities but by the aestheticist ideas informing the new West German paint-
ing-which, not surprisingly, the industrialist also collects. For Ludwig's image as
the unifier of Germany through c.ultural exchange can only compel belief if it is
presupposed that art possesses the authority to speak in the name of immutable,
universal truths and thus transcends the historical conditions of its own production
and distribution. Severing the aesthetic from other aspects of the social and dis-
avowing the social relations of art itself, this assumption, promoted in the neoex-
pressionist return to painting, permitted Ludwig to transpose his financial interests
into cultural ones. Neoexpressionist notions that unification is a spiritual operation
independent of action in the social world also supported assertions that Ludwig
could see through the Wall. But these notions repressed the identity of those forces
that, protected by the alibi of art, benefited from such penetration.
It is this dissociative mechanism that Broadness and Diversity of the Ludwig Bri-
gade ''sees through." Encouraging viewers to replace Ludwig's aestheticized vision
with a politicized one, Haacke's work invited its audience to consider relationships
beyond those suggested in the Ludwig portrait. It asked viewers to observe affilia-
tions between the painting and the Trumpf advertisement on the other side of the
barrier. Placing the viewer in a space divided between the two images, it chal~
Bernhard Heisig (left) and Peter Ludwig in front ofHeisig's por-
lenged the committed spectator to unravel a complex and covert web of contacts
trait of Ludwig at the opening of "Durchblick;' Oberhausen,
among economic, political, and cultural forces in East and West Germany. The
1983 (photo Ulrich von Born).
work also posed questions about resemblances between the operations of state-
controlled art in the East and corporate-controlled culture in the West. And these
what is popularly viewed as Art-art with a capital A-with all th~ glory, ~he reflections required viewers to apprehend connections that exist not only between
· d the authority that it commands. Since politicians and busmesses ahke two political systems or two Ludwig factories or even between Ludwig's cultural
p1ety, an . .
present themselves to the folks as if they were surrounded ~y h~lo.s, there are s~~- and economic activities. Viewers also discerned relations between the aesthetic and
larities between the medium and my subjects."sz Haacke s pamung of ~udwig IS political domains, worldly relations severed on the register of everyday appearances
itself executed in oil and strategically employs loose brushwork. Placed m a We~t and in idealist aesthetic thought.
Berlin gallery as part of an installation about the cultural legitimation of econormc

149
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 REPRESENTING BEHLIN
THE SOCIAL PRODUCl'ION Of SPACE

The installation's split format was, ironically, the vehicle for rejoining the standing, the "East Village art scene" helped create an atmosphere favorable to the
aesthetic and political realms. The barrier dividing Ludwig Brigade into its "Easter~" interests of big capitaL For the Lower East Side was also in the throes of gentrifica-
and «Western" halves prevented viewers from adopting a centered, detached posi- tion, an upward change in the area's class composition that, replacing poor resi-
tion from which visually to unify the work. The work's spatial design thus gave dents with members of the upper-middle class, was being celebrated as an "urban
literal form to Haacke's rejection of the claim that Ludwig's aesthetic vision could renaissance." Creating the material conditions to reproduce the city's new white-
see through the Berlin Wall and unite the two Germanies. More than that, the collar labor force, the gentrification process destroyed housing and services for a
architecture of Haacke's installation countered the traditional constructions of aes- traditional working class that once held jobs in the city's quickly declining manu-
thetic space that authorized Ludwig's claim. In modernist models of disinte~est~d facturing industries. The displacement generated a crisis of survival for the redun-
aesthetic vision, the occupant of the centered vantage point escapes irnmers10n m dant group, manifested in the tens of thousands of homeless people living on New
the world because, from this position, he or she can supposedly grasp an image York's streets. Part of a broader attack on working-class living standards-cutbacks
that, itself a self-contained totality, transcends the specific circumstances of its pro- in social services and relatively lower wages-gentrification also expedited the
duction and reception. In the moment of aesthetic contemplation, viewers are flight of capital from sectors where profits were falling to inflated areas such as
thus propelled outside social space, freed from the contingencies of any particular investment in the built environment. A neighborhood whose primary function
situation. Tbe ideahz·ation of the viewing subject-the possessor, like Ludwig, of had been to reproduce a working-class community was, then, fast becoming the
a supposedly transcendent aesthetic vision-depends then on a corresponding ide- "East Village"-a spatial product of the real-estate market. 84
alization of the art object-possessor of a transcendent aesthetic essence-and, As part of the unique packaging of this conunodity, the new conunercial art
further, on a disavowal of the dependency. The spatial organization of Haacke's scene, emerging in its full outlines by 1982, helped facilitate gentrification. 55 The
installation disturbed both tenus of this mutually guaranteeing relationship. Insepa- physical preconditions had been prepared years in advance by the abandonment or
rable from its context, the work simultaneously displaced the viewer from the neglect of the area's existing housing stock and consequent devalorization of real
privileged site of aestheticist vision-a place that stands for the ability to be no- estate. When galleries and artists, assuming the role of the proverbial "shock
where in particular. The act of literally setting the spectator in motion corres- troops" of gentrification, moved into inexpensive storefronts and apartments, they
ponded, then, to his or her political mobilization. For The Ludwig Brigade sugg~ste~ aided the mechanism by driving up rents and displacing residents. Art journals,
that, despite grandiose claims, the disinterested subject of traditional aesthetics IS catalogues, videotapes, and museum exhibitions circulated images of the neighbor-
hood that, in a manner resembling art-world representations of Kreuzberg, trans-
always involved in social conflicts.
formed poverty and "urban decay" into the ingredients of a romantic bohemia
that permitted, it was said, the flourishing of individual freedom. Diverse kinds of
art were shown in galleries in the East Village, but the art originally packaged
In May 1985, about a year after Broadness and Diversity of the Ludwig Brigade ap- under the East Village label and promoted by East Village critics wholeheartedly
peared in Kreuzberg, Louise Lawler mounted an installation called Interesting in a embraced the expressionist revival, consisting largely of paintings embodying a
gallery on the Lower East Side of New York City. Like Kreuzberg, the Lower East return to the artistic goal of liberation through the production of self-expressive,
Side was then the scene of what the mass media and the art press called an "artistic "transcendent" artworks.
renaissance."83 And, like the Ludwig Foundation for Art and International Under-

ISO 151
 REl'RES!lNT!NC BERLIN
THE SoCIAL PRODUCTIOI'l OF SPACE

Louise Lawler, by contrast, belongs to that group of artists whose work dem-
onstrates that the identity of art is socially produced, inseparable from the condi-
tions of its existence. To illuminate the contingency of aesthetic meaning, she calls
attention to modes of artistic display, using the context of an exhibition as part of
the material of her work. She generally locates her projects in the array of equip-
ment used by art institutions to present objects as art-gallery invitations, installa-
tion photographs, press releases, wall labels. She thus employs elements of art's
framing apparatus to question the institution's claim that it merely recognizes and
displays, rather than constitutes, aesthetic values. Appropriating the institutional
apparatus as both target and weapon, Lawler's gallery installations, as one critic
succinctly put it, concentrate on presenting the gallery "rather than being passively
presented by it." 86
When Lawler presented an East Village gallery, she altered it "to infer," as
she wrote in the shoW's press release, "another kind of space, one that is redolent
with the institutionalization of self-interest, where money gets money." Rede-
signing the gallery's interior so that it looked like a bank lobby, she painted the
~ouise Lawle~, Interesting, installation view, Nature Motte Gallery, New York, 1985 (photo
walls with a commercial supergraphic and stenciled the logo "Interesting" in cor-
courtesy Lomse Lawler and Metro Pictures).
porate typography on the gallety's rear partition. Segmented by the edge of a diag-
onal green stripe that divided the partition, the word interest became the
installation's leitmotif. Lawler's conversion of the space did not ingenuously equate implic~tions of self-interest and references to the fmancial interests served by the

art galleries with financial institutions, suggesting that galleries are principal actors East V1llage art scene. It hinted at the acquiescence of that scene in the activities
in the Lower East Side housing market. Neither did Lawler simplistically inform of still more powerful economic interests.
her audience that galleries deal in commodities, thereby reducing the meaning of With trenchant humor, Lawler ilso commented on the relation between
artworks to the economic circumstances of their production. She did attempt to contemporary urban spatial arrangements and the regressive ideas about aesthetic
use the gallery to intervene in the dominant production of meanings taking place space embodied in neoexpressionism. On one side of the gallery she installed a
within East Village galleries and other art-world institutions. While these institu- shelf that resembled the counters where bank customers prepare transactions. In-
tions deflected attention from the role they were playing in urban social conditions, stead _of deposit and withdrawal slips, however, this counter offered press releases
Lawler's installation addressed that role, focusing first on the gallery's interior and refernng to the exhibition's urban context and to what Lawler called the art scene's
then infiltrating it with allusions to the real-estate, housing, and art markets, "use an~ abuse" of the Lower East Side neighborhood. Across the room. hung
which, though conventionally relegated to the gallery's "outside;' were actually three C1bachrome photographs accompanied by a wall text with the standard for-
the conditions of its existence. The word interest-casting doubt on the notion mat and typography of museum or gallery labels. Instead of providing a pedigree
of disinterested aesthetic contemplation-resonated in the redesigned space with

153
!52
 R£PRESF.NTJNC BERLIN
THE SOCIAL PHODOCT!ON OF SPACE

GALLERY

NATURE
MORTE
20-' EAST TENTH ST'tEET
NEW YOii:l: CITY 10003
- 212·420·954.4 -

Dear Reader.
A press reiMse is written :o inform ~nd i0V'igua ~~e press: wet their appe_tites and
1
···m •heir neacs in the right direction. It 1S s.ent t.o cnt1cs. news;>ape:S· magaz nes,
'': '- ' ·ms and corporate advisors. For th1S exMl•tion 1 am tal\':'.9 :h:s press ~tease as ant
;dud~~naltocat:on ol my work. It will be sent to the enl!re ma1hng list and will be part o
:he presentation in me gallery.
An exhibition entitled ~Interesting~ will be at Nature MCrte for .the: n:!onth o_f ~ay.
Nature Mor:e is a gallery in the East Village-the ~emty !orm~ .'t~·~ Art D1s.nct. More
Louise Lawler, wall text accompanying photographs in Interesting, 1985 (photo courtesy Louise
'h"n •he ··•;rst~ {uo•own) ar.d "second~ ($ohol. the '"h1rd Art Otstnc. tS seen as a Th Lawler and Metro Pictures).
' '"m ' endL:s pack~ge. The neighborhood itself 1S used and abused a~ pa~ ol.the art. .e
:rk':appropriately handmade SO~:'irs. at~en;pts to embo<:!y the !a!SlfJca,lon ,hat
conl!ates -wt:o: ·1rc-e' and ·creatwe w1th neg.~. and abandonment . .
The a!lery has bee-n redesigned. altere? to infer ar.other kind of space. one that 1s
redolent ~vith the institutionalization of self Interest, whe;e money gets mone_Y- Three for an artwork, however, this label related an Aesop's fable. The fable, concerning
pictures are included in this instal~aticn-~hotcgraP.hs o, a ~ntemporal)' ObJe<: •. These
photographS represent an expreSSIOniSm ,hat has .o!!ed.-over. responsibility and the wages of greed, narrates the adventures of a dog who carries
Louise Lawler. Apnl 1985 a piece of meat in his mouth. Crossing a bridge, the dog is tricked by his reflection
in the water below and, opening his mouth to snatch the meat that he thinks he
sees there, drops his food into the water. Confused by an illusory image of himself,
he loses his grip on reality.
Like the animals in Aesop's fable, the inanimate object in Lawler's photo-
Er.c
graphs can also be used to tell a tale. This story, too, alludes to the consequences
of illusions about the self. The object is drastically enlarged and dramatically lit
' I
against rich, deeply saturated monochromatic backgrounds-red, green, blue. The
photographs were matted and framed like valuable att photography. But the pho-
tographed object itself is far from a precious commodity. It is, rather, an inexpen-

Louise Lawler, press release for Interesting, 1985.

155
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 REI'RESENTJN{; BERLIN
THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION (H SPACE

Louise Lawler, photograph from Interesting, 1985 (photo courtesy Louise Lawler and Metro
Pictures).

sive Japanese toy called the Gaiking Bazoler. Mechanistic and aggressive little
creatures, Gaiking Bazolers wear exaggerated, cartoonlike facial expressions that
Louise Lawler, photograph from Interesting, 1985
can be altered by attaching different noses selected from a supply of standardized (photo courtesy Louise Lawler and Metro Pictures).
parts. Different facets of their temperaments can also be emphasized, as Lawler did
in her photographs, by viewing the toys from different angles.
Lawler had photographed the Gaiking Bazolers before her East Village show. combined the seductive techniques of commercial photography with methods of
But since her work argues against the contention that immutable meanings reside artistic presentation that create an aura of sanctity around art objects. Her treat-
inside self-contained artworks, she continually reuses pictures in new contexts that ment mimicked the hyperbolic manner in which pseudo·'-expressionist products
inevitably change their meanings. In the Interesting installation, the sham ferocity and the East Village art scene as a whole were artificially inflated by the marketplace
of the conu11ercial novelties, flaunting their "individual" expressions, functioned and propped up by an art discourse that espoused transcendent values while capitu-
as spoofs of East Village art, a commodified and childish expressionism that strained lating to the conditions of the culture industry. 87 The photographs represented, in
to produce startling effects as it repeated habitual and outworn gestures. Lawler's Lawler's words, an "expressionism that has 'rolled-over."'
photographic blowups-and her overblown handling of the Gaiking Bazolers-

157
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 THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION Of SPACC

Lawler's parodic reenactment of this inflationary operation and her deploy-

ment of the Gaiking Bazolers in the East Village installation emphatically deflated
PROPERTY VALUES: HANS HAACKE, REAL EsTATE,
the pretensions of such work. Interesting also punctured the widespread illu-
AND THE MUSEUM
sion that recycled urban expressionism confronts the harsh realities of "the urban
situation." For, as Lawler's (de)fetishized objects suggested, in the context of devas-
tation on New York's Lower East Side, solipsistic exercises in bombastic self-
expression-products of "the urban personality" -gloss over the sources of urban
brutality: the politics of space. They could only serve those powerful interests
whose presence in our cities we have every reason to fear.

"Hans Haacke: Unfinished Business," presented at the New Museum of Contem-

porary Art in 1985-86, was the artist's first one-person exhibition at a New York
City museum. 1 But it was not the first attempt to hold such a show. In 1971 the
Guggenheim Museum had planned an exhibition of Haacke's work that was called
off shortly before it was due to open. At issue then was Haacke's proposal to in-
clude what he termed "real-time social systems" -his two real-estate pieces in
particular-which the Guggenheim judged to be incompatible with the functions
of a prestigious art institution. Fifteen years later Haacke placed the real-estate
pieces at the beginning ofhis New Museum installation and so invited a reconsid-
eration of the circumstances that prompted the cancellation.
Shortly after the Guggenheim incident, describing the interventionist prin-
ciples governing his new projects, Haacke speculated about the scope and duration
of the works' influence: "Works operating in real time must not be geographically
defined nor can one say when the work is completed. Conceivably the situation
into which a new element was injected has passed when the process unleashed at
that moment has gained its greatest potential." 2 For the real-estate pieces, this
process presumably began with the Guggenheim's censorship, intensified in- the
course of the ensuing controversy, and concluded with the subsequent exhibition
of the rejected works in other venues. What, then, was to be gained by extending

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 PROPERTY VALUES
Tnt: SOCIAL PRODUC'l'ION OF SPACE

Instead of subsurning the banned real-estate pieces under avant-garde or re-

that situation beyond the Guggenheim episode? In what sense were the real-estate
alist traditions, art historians could have authenticated them as art by utilizing the
pieces still "unfinished business" in 1985? What, on the other hand, were the
discursive form of the monograph and placing the works within the artist's career.
dangers of such a retrospective investigation? This option, too, would have severed them from historical determination, for, as
Paramount among the risks was the likelihood that, directed toward art his-
Griselda Pollock writes, monographic conventions primarily define works of art as
tory's traditional ends and undertaken according to the discipline's standard proce-
the unique products of sovereign artistic subjects. 3 Although the specificity of
dures, the inclusion of the real-estate pieces would further marginalize-this time
Haacke's work militates against such neutralization, the biographical form can in-
through accornmodation-works initially cast outside the official boundaries of
corporate widely divergent practices. Within its narrative of individualistic creative
art by authoritative decree. Conventionally, art-historical reexaminations try to
development, the real-estate pieces could have been classified as "early political
vindicate repudiated works by assimilating them to art's ontological norm. If, in
works," their flaws or rhetorical errors indicated. In these works, historians could
this spirit, Haacke's project had been submitted to the judgment seat of history by
have found the seeds of the artist's eventual stylistic mastery of techniques and
being referred back to nonnative criteria and stabilized aesthetic categories, it
materials. In his "mature phase," Haacke could then have emerged, predictably, as
would consequently have been withdrawn from the historical conjuncture in
an "exemplary political artist," a new version of the "great artist" who is, in fact,
which it arose as well as that in which it continued to survive.
the real object produced by monographic study. 4
Consigned, for instance, to a homogenized lineage of avant-garde art, the
These approaches resurrect precisely those transhistorical artistic conditions
real-estate pieces could have been linked to a chain of nonconformist artistic ven-
and idealist aesthetic categories-author, style, oeuvre-that artists such as Haacke
tures initiated by nineteenth-century salon scandals. But such an approach, which
challenged beginning in the late 1960s. Against the prevailing dogma that works of
disavows the heterogeneity of avant-garde history and in which the very produc-
art are self-contained entities possessing fixed, transcendent meanings, these artists
tion of outrage becomes the normalizing standard for a work's eventual canoniza-
explored the cultural process of meaning production. They also investigated the
tion, would have masked the impact of crucial historical changes in critical art
changing functions of art in relation to the contingencies of history that had pre-
practice. In equally invariant terms, Haacke's works could have been legitimated
viously been relegated in both formalist criticism and its purported adversary,
by absorbing them into a venerable tradition of realist aftV.lorks united by their
mainstream social art history, to a more or less distant backdrop." From the begin-
objective presentations of unidealized, lower-class themes. Indeed, some of
ning," Haacke says, "the concept of change has been the ideological basis of my
Haacke's advocates at the time of the Guggenheim cancellation based their defense
work." 5 This concern is signaled in the titles of the real-estate pieces: Shapolsky et
of the real-estate pieces on the contention that they utilized the now fully respect-
a/. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real- Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971 and
able techniques of nineteenth-century realism. Whatever the tactical value during
Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real~ Time Social
the struggle with the museum, this argument reduces realism to a mere commit-
System, as of May 1, 1971. The words as of, followed in each title by a precise date,
ment to subject matter and adheres to a long discredited belief in a transparent
are significant for two reasons. First, they suggest something important about the
relationship between realistic representations and the empirical phenomena to
works' subject matter: the documented real-estate operations function elusively,
which they refer. Today critical practices claiming the legacy of realism have exten-
their activities and compositions continually altering. But the titles also allUde to
sively redefined that heritage. Among other pursuits, they explore the mediation
the materialist premises informing Haacke's mode of artistic production: the belief
of consciousness by representations and investigate the conditions of possibility of
that a work's meaning is always incomplete, changing "as of' different temporal
what is perceived to be "real" at a given historical moment.

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 PROPERTY VALUES
THE SoCIAL PuooucnoN OF SPACE

retrieve a crucial moment in the development of contextualist art practice as part

situations, that the work includes the responses it evokes and mutates according to of a struggle for historical memory necessitated in the 1980s by a climate of artistic
the uses to which it is put, and, finally, that this relativity of meaning depends on reaction and widely disseminated neoconservative reconstmctions of contempo-
the position of viewing subjects themselves contingent within history. rary art history. That period was marked by a return in the established art world to
Haacke assembled his real-estate pieces in 1971, several years after minimalist conventional forms and mediums of artistic production. An embrace of the condi- '
artists had initiated a critique of artistic autonomy by investigating the spatial and tions of the art market coupled with a resurgence of ideologies of aestheticism
temporal conditions of aesthetic perception. The minimalists' temporary, site- and self-expression accompanied a resurrection of the authority of traditional art
specific installations incorporated the place of a work's perception into the work institutions. The critical art practices developed during the previous twenty years
6
itself to demonstrate that perception depends on context. But formalism reentered and the contemporary art committed to elaborating their principles were fre-
minimalist art in the assumption that the sites of aesthetic perception are politically quently ignored, falsified, or absorbed under the rubric of a "pluralism" that pro-
and socially neutraL A more decisive shift in contemporary art occurred when claimed art's freedom from history and evacuated its past. An understanding of the
artists broadened the concept of site to embrace not only the aesthetic context of stakes in the Guggenheim Museum's confrontation with Haacke's real-estate pieces
a work's exhibition but the site's symbolic, social, and political meanings as well could help restore the ability to apprehend genuine differences and conflicts in
as the historical circumstances within which artwork, spectator, and place are contemporary art discourse, conflicts with far-reaching ramifications in the politi-
situated. cal f1eld.
Th~se inquiries led in diverse directions. One group of artists pursued an In still another, more specific, sense Haacke's real-estate pieces shed light on
investigation of the institutions that mediate between individual works of art and the 1980s and could, reciprocally, be illuminated from the vantage point of that
their public reception, developing strategies of intervention in institutional spaces decade. They raised questions about a particular interface between economic and
and discourses. Occupying a key place in this critique of art institutions, Haacke's artistic concerns: the connection between dominant aesthetic discourses and the
real-estate pieces-including the official reaction that they provoked-interro- interests of real-estate capital in New York. During the years that had elapsed
gated the museum as such a primary mediating agency, foregrounding how it de- between the Guggenheim episode and the New Museum show, the problems em-
termines and limits the reading of artistic texts. The works also confronted the bedded in Haacke's subject matter-real-estate dealings, deteriorated housing, and
broader social functions of the museum-its points of intersection with specific the role played by the needs of profit in determining New York's landscape-had
economic or political interests and its role in legitimating political realities in a acquired a new urgency. In the late 1970s, as a "solution" to the city's fiscal crisis
society structured on relations of oppression and exploitation. and, moreover, as part of post-Fordist capitalism's reorganization of the domestic
Attempts to reevaluate Haacke's real-estate pieces by removing them to a and international divisions of labor, the city entered a period of accelerated restruc-
realm of sweeping continuities that repress evidence of rupture and multiplicity in turing as a center for international corporations and corporate-related services. The
contemporary art could only have seemed a betrayal of the shifts in aesthetic prac- restructuring entailed an attendant impoverishment and dispersal of the blue-collar
tice that the works the:mselves helped set in motion. Such interpretations distort laborers whose jobs in manufacturing industries had been disappearing from the
the meaning of Haacke's rigorous investigation into the concrete historical factors city's economic base since the 1950s. The physical conditions to support the new
that characterize his works' sites. There were, however, other imperatives that economic structure and facilitate corporate domination of the city had been cre-
compelled a recollection of the real-estate pieces when they reappeared in 1985 ated by city planning policies that promoted privatized construction of corporate
at the artist's New Museum exhibition. Of overarching concern was the desire to

163
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 PROPERTY VALOES
THE SoCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE

for its unacceptability. "It is well understood in this connection," the Guggenheim's
headquarters, office buildings, and luxury apartments that service white-collar in-
director Thomas Messer wrote to Haacke, "that art may have social and political
dustries and workers. Fostering gross speculation and enriching big real-estate de-
consequences but these, we believe, are furthered by indirection and by the general-
velopers, this phase of urban redeveloprnent also engineered the destruction of
ized, exemplary force that works of art may exert upon the environment, not, as
the material conditions of survival-housing and services-for residents no longer
you proposed, by using political means to achieve political ends, no matter how
needed in the city's economy. Redevelopment was, then, one aspect of a more
desirable these may appear to be in themselves." 9 Within the terms of this stock
extensive and continuing crisis for this group, a crisis that included unemployment,
argument, Haacke's work is positioned, on account of its specificity, as "political"
attacks on unions, and cutbacks in social services. in contrast to the "indirect" art authorized by museological discourse and consti-
New York's cultural apparatus played, sometimes unwittingly, a variety of
tuted, by virtue of the comparison, as "neutral." The practical implications of this
instrumental roles in the redevelopment process. For example, commercial galler-
doctrine were readily apparent in New York in the late 1980s, when public art
ies moving into the Lower East Side facilitated gentrification by raising rents and
that addressed its urban environment in aestheticized or narrowly utilitarian terms
upgrading the area's image for other members of the gentrifYing class:' In addition,
reverted to art's official purposes. In so doing, it complied with the demand that
works of art, sometimes even entire museum branches, were routinely placed in
artists remain ignorant of the specific forces shaping their works' locations and
"public" areas of new corporate buildings and luxury apartment complexes.
oblivious to the works' functions. But the usefulness of this work to the forces of
Whether sponsored by the state or the private sector, they elevated property values
urban redevelopment undermined the credibility of Messer's assertion that art
and legitimated private speculation by presenting an image of new construction as
yields purely benefiCial consequences. In 1971 the notion of m:t's "generalized ex-
beautification programs that furnish cultural benefits to New York's populace. As
emplary force" was rallied to evict real estate from a New York City museum by
Walter Benjamin commented about another urban transfonnation-Haussmann's
claiming that Haacke's detailed analysis of real-estate operations was "alien" to
spatial reorganization of nineteenth-century Paris-such works were largely de-
8
artistic purposes. By the following decade the same aesthetic notion was used to
ployed to "ennoble technical necessities by artistic aims." To a certain extent this
validate the participation of artists, critics, and museums in advancing the interests
collaboration was possible because a great deal of the public art produced for New
of the real-estate industry in New York, which was evicting residents from the
York's redeveloped, corporate spaces was informed by academic notions of site-
city. This change does not represent a reversal but, rather, a continuity in dominant
specificity that gave this art an aura of social responsibility but suppressed compre-
aesthetic practice. In both instances, existing economic relations are actively
hension of the real character of its urban sites. City spaces were treated solely as
shielded from public exposure by disavowing their direct ties to the conditions of
aesthetic, physical, or functionalist environments; economic forces shaping them
artistic production. Art is severed from economics. When Haacke's work at-
were obscured in an enforced distinction between spatial forms and social pro-
tempted to heal this ideological breach in aesthetic 1thought, the Guggenheim
cesses. Haacke's real-estate pieces, by contrast, spanned that artificially created gap,
Museum unveiled its repressive powers.
expanding the definition of site-specificity in relation to both urban and cultural
sites. The works addressed two spaces-the city and the museum-and treated
each spatial form not as a static physical or aesthetic entity but as the effect and
context of speciftc social relations. The Guggenheim's director canceled the exhibition "Hans Haacke: Systems" a
The issue of specificity lay at the heart of the Guggenheim's rejection of
few weeks before its planned opening in Apri11971. The decision followed a brief
Haacke's work. Inadequately and contradictorily defined by the museum's spokes-
period of negotiation between Haacke and Messer about the problems that the
person, the speciftcity of Haacke's art was nonetheless cited as the principal reason

165
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 THE SOCIAL PRODUCTtON OF $PACE
PROPERTY VALUES

director anticipated with those works dealing with social, as distinguished from
Haacke's previous physical or biological, themes. On April 5, following Haacke's
publication of a statement about the cancellation, Messer responded: "I did explain
that by tntstee directive this museum was not to engage in extra-artistic activities
or sponsor social or political causes but was to accept the limitations inherent in
the nature of an art museum." 10
QlleS!K:<l

. ~the fact thet Govemo

,_,'.no! denounced Pr~ Mxon·s
""""'hina I'Oiicy be a
~""
""-~'"''"not
to vote for him·lfl 'O<IYt:IIIOOr?
-
Haacke's "extra-artistic" works included a visitors' poll that expanded a type
of work that the artist had invented two years earlier-the audience survey. In tl 'yes'
please cast vour bal!lt into tle •~ ,»J
1970 Haacke conducted such a survey at the Museum of Modern Art's "Informa- if'no'
tion" exhibition. 11 The MoMA poll directed attention to conditions of aesthetic into the right box.
reception by casting museumgoers in an active role. It queried spectators about
their opinions on a timely political issue, asking, "Would the fact that Governor
Rockefeller has not denounced President Nixon's Indochina policy be a reason for
you not to vote for him in November?" Since Rockefeller, his relatives, and his
business and political associates were integrally connected to MoMA either as
officers or members of the board of trustees, the question, mounted on the mu-
seum wall, not only interrogated spectators about their own political leanings but
encouraged them to interrogate modernist assumptions about the museum's status
as a neutral arena cleansed of social and political concerns. The museum's white
walls, signifier of the art institution's supposed purity and purportedly a mere back-
ground for equally pure art objects, became instead part of the material of the
work. Haacke converted an element of art's physical frame into a vehicle for reveal-
ing, rather than masking, art's social context in a work that provoked public scru-
tiny of the social structure of the art institution and the economic interests of those
who control it. In his Guggenheim survey of the following year, Haacke planned
to query viewers about current social and political issues and tabulate responses to
demographic questions that would, like his earlier Gallery- Goers' Residence Profile
(1969), have yielded sociological information about the status and class composi-
tion of the art world. Part of a critique of audience and reception that challenged
the existence of an art public untroubled by social divisions, the residence profiles
suggested that art audiences are composed not of universal "citizens of art" but of
speciftc subjects of class and race. These works also implied that art museums do
Han~ Haacke, MOMA-Po/l, insmlled as part of the exhibition "Information," Museum of
Modern Art, New York, 1970 (photo courtesy Hans Haacke).

166
167
 PROPERTY VALUES

THE $OC1AL PRODUCTI,ON 01' SPAC!i

not preserve aesthetic truths transcending social conflicts but are, rather, social in-
stitutions that preserve privilege and are therefore immersed in conflict.
Although Messer expressed reservations about the poll, he named Haacke's
other "social systems" works as the reason for the show's cancellation. Using mate-
rial freely available in public records, these works documented the property hold-
ings and investment activities of two separate real-estate groups. One piece
provided information about various types ofbuildings owned by the association of
Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo. The other displayed the slum properties of
the Shapolsky family organization. In a letter of March 19, preceding the final
cancellation, Messer stated that the likelihood of1ega1 consequences precluded the
exhibition of these works:

When we began our joint exhibition project, you outlined a three-

fold investigatiori and proposed to devote several exhibits to physical,
biological, and social systems. From subsequent detailed outlines, it
appeared that the social category would include a real-estate survey
pointing through word and picture to alleged social malpractices. You
would name, and thereby publicly expose, individuals and companies
whom you consider to be at fault. After consultation with the Founda- ~ans Haacke, Shapolsky et aL Manhattan Real Estate Holdin s, a Real- Time . . .
vtew (photo courtesy Hans Haacke). g Soctal System, as of May 1, 1971, mstallation
tion's president and with advice from our legal counsel, I must inform
12
you that we cannot go along with such an exhibition outline.
d This conf~vntation was ensured by the sheer magnitude of the purely factual
Having also conferred with lawyers who denied that legal suits would arise from
ata that c~mpnsed the work and by the display of this material in a format unal-
the work, Haacke commented a few months later that Messer's written statement
loyed
SJ k either expressionistic sentiments or traditional aesthetl. c arrangements
1by
had not referred to the poll as a reason for refusing to mount the show "because wpo s yet al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings gathers individual photographs o~
it was impossible to generate a legal smoke-screen for its rejection; in a meeting 142 bmldmgs and vacant lots located primarily in New York slum neighb h d
with the curator and my lawyer, Mr. Messer demanded the elimination of all di-13 aswell b f oroos
as a num ~r o typewritten sheets, charts, diagrams, and maps detailing
rectly political questions, a demand with which I, naturally, could not comply."
real-estat~ transact~ons. The piece incorporates these documents into a complex
Debating the cancellation in art journals and the mass media, both the museum's presentatwn.
. . .Had. lt been installed in the G uggen
. he1m,
. spectators willmg
. . to com-
director and Haacke's supporters consistently concentrated on the Shapolsky real-
. tnne to v1ewmg the wor k. ~lg
nut · h t have perceiVed
. striking physical and sociologi-
estate piece. The emphasis on the Shapolsky work is probably best explained by
cal contrasts. between
. . the bmldmgs in the Ph otograp hs, on the one hand, and the
the compelling social contradictions that it addresses and the consequent force of museum bmldmg m which the work and its audience were located, on the other.
its confrontation with the museum's universalizing pretensions.

169
168
 PROPERTY VALUES

THE SoCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE

The Shapolsky piece alters to the point of reversal the viewing dynamics of
Such observations would have been encouraged because Haacke's organization of liberal aesthetics. "Political understanding" replaces "pity, mediated by an appreci-
pictorial and textual material blocks traditional avenues of aesthetic escape from ation of 'great art."' Exhibited in the Guggenheim, it would have precipitated
the social conditions portrayed. Similarly, the Shapolsky piece refuses to supply the inspection not only ofShapolsky's real-estate maneuvers but of the museum's phys-
means by which a museumgoer's attention is conventionally diverted from the ical space, social position, and ideological tenets. The Guggenheim, originating in
conditions in which art is viewed. Engaging its public in an active reading process, a collection of early twentieth-century idealist abstractions and trading in equally
the work decisively rejects the single-image form of the painted, photographic, or abstracted concepts of spiritual liberation, individual expression, and purified aes-
sculptural object accompanied by a discrete caption, a form historically invested thetic experience, would have confronted a work employing painstakingly re-
with the task of promoting transcendent experiences of"presentness" and evoking searched, concrete information about the specific material reality of New York. A
contemplative responses from spectators purportedly abstracted from historical cir- museum building renowned as an aesthetic monument of architectural history
cumstances. Moreover, the deadpan, unrelieved factuality of the Shapolsky piece would have housed representations of buildings defmed solely as economic entities.
counteracts attempts to convert the concrete specificity of its subject matter into a Other contrasts-between the pristine museum interior and the deteriorating ten-
tribute to the artist's expressiveness and compassion. The repetitive arrangement ement facades, between the social status of the viewers' space in a luxury enclave
militates against the transformation of the social reality the work documents into of Manhattan and that of the impoverished minority ghettos pictured-also threat-
an elegant aesthetic con~position, a supposedly self-contained totality. ened to erode the aura of isolation constructed around the museum and to dis-
Shapolsky et al. deviates from the conventions of a genre in which a similar mantle its pretensions to represent universal interests. Instead, the museum might
iconography oflower-class urban neighborhoods had previously entered the mod- have emerged as a space occupying a position of material privilege in relation to
ern art museum~liberal social documentary, or what A1lan Sekula calls the "find- other sites. Viewers might then have focused on the character and interrelationship
a-bum school of concerned photography." 14 Haacke's photographs document the of these spaces. The anticipated confrontation between the Shapolsky piece and
same kind of New York tenement buildings that had been the object of social the museum quickened into an open rupture when Haacke's show was canceled.
reformers' attention for decades, but while the Guggenheim Museum repeatedly Once the cancellation was publicized, however, it only intensified the work's effects.
referred to Haacke's work as a deed of "social reform," the project differs funda- While the Shapolsky work sets up tensions between the spaces it addresses-
mentally from the humanist photography associated with reformist traditions. the city and the museum-it also suggests correspondences between the two sites.
"The subjective aspect ofliberal esthetics;' Sekula writes about concerned photog- Explicitly, it documents the ownership and control of urban space, but the work
raphy, "is compassion rather than collective struggle. Pity, mediated by an apprecia- implicitly raises questions about how proprietorial interests affect the cultural space
15
tion of 'great art,' supplants political understanding." Because such work is as well. By expanding the work's context beyond the museum walls to encompass
informed by overwhelmingly subjectivist or aestheticist ideals, it has found shelter the city in which the museum is situated, Haacke did not merely extend the notion
within the museum, where it can be united with other aesthetic objects defmed of site-specificity geographically, Neither did he simplistically attempt to surmount
as products of unique artistic subjects. Since the art institution pays homage to the institutional boundaries by symbolically placing his artwork "outside" the museum
sensibility that transposes wretched social conditions into the register of art, the and addressing "real" subject matter. Rather, he permitted the viewer to appre-
social docurnentarian's-and, by extension, the viewer's~distinct position of priv- hend the institutional apparatus by questioning the twin fetishisms of two, equally
ilege in relation to his or her subject matter is conflfmed. But power and privilege real, sites. Both the city-constructed in mainstream architectural and urban dis-
are concealed even as they are reinforced since the aesthetic domain is proclaimed courses as a strictly physical, utilitarian, or aesthetic space~and the museum-
a universal public sphere unflssured by class, race, or gender.

171

170
 TH£ SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE

conceived in idealist art discourse as a pure aesthetic realm-appear as spatial forms

marked by a political economy.
Wanting to expose the presence of power in sites that appear neutral or self-
evident, Haacke investigated the urban site by concentrating on real estate as a
force determining the shape of New York's environment. This investigation,
which, it turned out, flagrantly violated the museum's rules of aesthetic propriety,
explains why Haacke selected the Shapolsky group as his object of study. Searching
public records in the office of New York's County Clerk, he identified those real-
estate owners with the most extensive holdings in their particular categories of
investment. Far from an arbitrary choice, this decision· was crucial to the fulfillment
of Haacke's objective-revealing the degree to which large-scale real-estate inter-
ests dominate New York's landscape. As Haacke explains in the notes accompa-
nying his presentation, in 1971 the Shapolsky properties represented the largest
concentration of real estate in Harlem and the Lower East Side under the control
of a single group. After choosing Sbapolsky, who appeared in the Manhattan Real
Estate Directory as the principal of these substantial holdings, Haacke researched the
publicly recorded deeds and mortgage agreements for each of Shapolsky's proper-
ties. A careful examination of the names and addresses of the parties to the real-
estate transactions disclosed that Shapolsky was the key figure in a family group
that possessed even more properties. Tracking additional connections among
members of this group, Haacke uncovered 142 parcels oflandowned by the group
for which tide was legally held by about seventy different corporations. Frequent
sales and exchanges took place among the individuals and corporations comprising
the system. Properties were sold and mortgages obtained, assigned, and cross-held.
Haacke photographed the individual properties and coupled each picture
with a typewritten sheet providing data about the property: address; block and lot
number; size; building type (its official code--predominantly old- and new-law
tenements and apartment buildings); holder of mortgage; assessed land value and
total assessed value. He then synthesized this data in a series of diagrams that chart
the business transactions relating to the properties in the twenty-year period prior
to 1971. Three charts list the corporations holding the real-estate parcels and trace
connections among the corporations in the form of exchanges of mortgages or
properties. A fourth reveals the large number of mortgages on Shapolsky proper-

172
~ans Haac~e, photos of building facades and data sheets from Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real
Estate Holdmgs, a Real- Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971 (photos courtesy Hans Haacke).
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 PROPERTY VALUES
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ties held by two Baptist organizations. Finally, two charts inventory the corporation
presidents and their addresses· and juxtapose this material with the names of vice-
presidents and secretaries as well as corporate addresses. These charts reveal that
the Shapolsky real-estate system is a web of obscured family ties and dummy cor-
porations that veil the identities of principal property owners. Completing
Haacke's piece are enlarged maps of the Lower East Side and Harlem with the lots
owned by the Shapolsky group circled.
The Shapolsky real-estate piece comprises, then, a dossier on an individual
Manhattan slumlord, his family, and his associates. It identifies one kind of real-
estate operation in the city and makes visible the complex mechanics of a profitable
investment strategy. The photographs testifY to the kinds of property in which the
investments are made-housing in impoverished neighborhoods lucratively run at
a low maintenance level. The data sheets and charts exhibit the myriad financial
exchanges and the general investment organization that maximize the gains accru-
ing from these manipulated properties. The Shapolsky system is open-ended. Fol-
lowing its various strands, the multiple relations among its individual and corporate
components, one sees an even more labyrinthine and radiating network of real-
estate power-a system that includes rental agents, city workers, city agencies, and
religious groups, among others. The dispersal of functions within this "extended
family" masks the system's interdependent operations. These operations appear
random or discrete, rendering the system difficult to penetrate by tenants and the
broader public, thereby enhancing its flexibility and control.
The full extent of the system's control emerged when, in addition to gather-
ing and shaping the data, Haacke pursued research on the group in newspapers
and other public sources of information. The results, some of which appear in the
work's explanatory text, disclose that Shapolsky had been repeatedly investigated
on a variety of criminal charges. These include concealing bank accounts and act-
ing as a front for investments by members of the city's buildings department in
properties he operated." In 1959 Shapolsky was found guilty of rent gouging but
was never imprisoned because the sentencing judge received numerous <letters
testifying to his good character from "very, very responsible people in the commu-
nity." 17 Among Shapolsky's character witnesses was one of the Baptist organiza-
Sh l k t l Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, tions that Haacke's work reveals as the mortgage holder on many Shapolsky
Hans Haacke, chart showing exchange of mortgages within Shapolsky group, from apo s y e a .
a Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971 (photo courtesy Hans Haacke).

177
 PROPERTY VALUES
THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION 01' SPACE

This aspect of Haacke's critique raises questions about the real-estate pieces'
properties. In 1966, after an investigation by radio station WMCA, a bill was intro- "specificity"-which, as we have seen, was the main reason for the Guggenheim's
duced into the state legislature requiring the publication of the names of slum refusal to show the works. When Messer defined specificity, he distinguished be-
18
owners who operate behind "the obscurity of corporate names." The station
tween the act of naming specific individuals, on the one hand, and the representa-
cited Harry Shapolsky as one of about twelve real-estate operators who "had con-
tion of an anonymous system, on the other. He claimed that the designation of
trolled 500 tenement buildings housing 50,000 persons buying and selling-or
19 actual people, not a social system, was impermissible in the museum. Repeatedly,
foreclosing-among each other in deals that increased rents and profits." The however, he also stated that social issues should be engaged artistically only through
bill proposed that a list of all true owners of any property declared "a public nui- symbolism, generalization, and metaphor, thereby disqualifYing specificity about
sance" be published in two newspapers. A liability clause would have made these
20 the identity of a system as well as of individuals. Equivocation on this point per-
owners-including mortgage holders-personally liable for repairs to buildings.
vades Messer's justification for the cancellation. "Where do we draw the line?" he
The information gleaned from these news reports illuminates two strate-
asked. "With the revealed identities of private individuals and the clear intention to call their
gies-self-dealing and corporate ownership-that, as Haacke's work makes clear,
actions into question, and by a concomitant reduction of the work of art from its
are central to Shapolsky's real-estate system. The frequent self-dealing maximizes
potential metaphoric level to a form of photo journalism concerned with topical
profits. Multiple corporate ownership limits personal liability. Both strategies ob-
statements rather than with symbolic expression." 21 Questioned by an astute inter-
scure the identities of the principal investors in individual buildings and conceal
viewer who tried to untangle Messer's definition of"particularity," he replied: "I
the full extent of the owners' holdings. Consequently, they limit public knowledge
don't know that I fully understood you. But I would say that in the motivation
and, therefore, the owners' accountability for nondelivery of services to tenants as
again what is acceptable is the general illustration of a system. What is for the
well as for tax payments. Using techniques that structure complex deals worked
purposes of this discussion inacceptable [sic) is that it is aimed at a specific situation.
out by lawyers and accountants, such private speculation is, in reality, publicly
In other words, it no longer has a self-contained creative objective, but is some-
supported. thing with an ulterior motive." 22
But a knowledge of these techniques generates perceptions that extend be-
From Messer's obfuscating explanations of what constitutes unacceptable
yond recognition of the mechanics of the Shapolsky strategy or even the system's
specificity-naming individuals only and, simultaneously, any nongeneralized ref-
comprehensive nature. Such knowledge underscores a fundamental contradiction
erence to a social situation-it is only reasonable to conclude that the real-estate
in a larger real-estate system framing the Shapolsky operation: that between market
pieces in fact contained two kinds of specificity that the museum found objection-
requirements and the social needs of city residents. This contradiction may emerge
able: first, the detailed identification of the activities of a landlord whose rio-ht b to
most dramatically in the quasi-legal or criminal activities of unscrupulous land-
operate out of public view had to be protected and second, the implicit designation
lords, yet it springs from the basic organization of housing as a private investment
of a broader framework for this system in a historically specific stmcture of prop-
in capitalist society. Indifference to human needs cannot finally be attributed to
erty relations.
the callousness of individual landlords but is, rather, structurally determined. Allud-
. Several elements of Haacke's work permit viewers to question this second
ing to this contradiction-and Haacke always encourages viewers to explore his
system. The condition of the photographed buildings is linked to-indeed is-regu-
works' full implications-Haacke's piece, too, exceeds the limits of its investiga-
lated by-the financial operations documented in the data sheets and charts.
tion of Shapolsky family relations and becomes a critique of social relations of
Clearly neither a natural nor a random process, these operations are themselves
property.

179
178
 THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE
PROPERTY VALUES

directed by careful decisions dictated by the logic of an investment system. The city. The data sheets, for example, initially label each vacant lot or building by
juxtaposition of photographs of deteriorated housing with extensive calculations the conventional units-block and lot numbers-that classify it as real property.
of large amounts of accumulating capital focuses the viewer's investigation. The Subdivisions of Manhattan's grid structure, the spatial organization imposed on the
investment activities do not serve the interests of poor tenants, nor does the provi- city by the Conunissioner's Plan of1.811, these units facilitate profit maximization
sion of services to those tenants seem to provide a high rate of return on invest- and provide the infrastructure for real-estate speculation. Haacke's photographs
ment. Once the drive for profit through capital accumulation and appropriation reinforce at the level of individual structures the impression that the city itself
of rents is seen as the principal factor governing the provision and condition of is an economic product. Shot from street level, looking up at the buildings, the
housing, serious doubts arise as to whether the needs oflow-income residents can photographs have borders that coincide with property lines, emphatically refusing
ever be met. :n compositional devices that might identify the buildings as historically or aestheti-
In 1959, criticizing the suspension ofShapolsky's sentence for rent gouging cally interesting urban structures rather than as real estate . The municipal maps
Puerto Rican tenants, New York's assistant district attorney stated that Shapolsky represent the city in a similar manner, objectified as an assemblage of blocks with
had "ruthlessly exploited the shortage ofhousing." 24 Without minimizing the im- Shapolsky's lots indicated. This objectification is particularly striking in relation to
portance of this charge, it is crucial to recognize that when thC housing problem the sociology of the areas represented-Harlem and the Lower East Side, two
is addressed exclusively in terms of the need to eliminate abuses of scarcity, this working-class sectors of Manhattan. In the past, ethnic and racial minorities have
condition itself remain~ unexamined. Scarcity of housing is socially, not naturally, been directed to these ghettos, which retain strong identities as communities con-
produced and is, moreover, a precondition of the market system. This fact has taining vital networks of social institutions. In Haacke's maps, photographs, and
special ramifications for ghetto areas like those documented in Haacke's work. data sheets, however, they appear not as communities but as spatial terrains defined
Given the institution of private ownership of real-estate parcels and the drive to purely by the real-estate market, a collection of houses, physical structures, and
increase profits by appropriating higher rents, coupled with the extremely limited vacant lots.
choices of poor people in securing access to urban resources, it is difficult to escape
the conclusion that, as David Harvey asserts, "the rich can command space whereas
the poor are trapped in it." 25 Exploitative behavior by landlords only exacerbates
the effects of normal entrepreneurial operations. Speculation in land and housing Real estate is a conunodity with some unusual features. One is physical inunobil-
is an inevitable feature of capitalist urban development, resulting from forces at the ity: it cannot be moved at will. But fixity does not characterize the social processes
core of our economic system. that organize land and buildings into particular formations. These processes have
Within this system, land and the structures on it assume the form of com- the opposite quality: as human practices they can be transformed. While the sub-
modities. They do not, however, necessarily manifest this form with regularity. stantial power of real estate is amply demonstrated in Haacke's Shapolsky piece,
Real estate is likely to be in use for long periods of time and only rarely exchanged. the land and buildings do not appear to be inunutable. Their permanence is
The dialectical unity of use and exchange value embodied in the commodity ap- shaken, and not only because they are continually manipulated and transferred in
pears with greatest frequency in the activities shown in the Shapolsky piece: the the marketplace. Rather, seen as private property and commodities, they embody
operation of rental housing and the frequent sale of properties. Haacke's mode of relationships of exploitation and domination open to change.
display emphasizes the commodity character of the buildings, neighborhoods, and Similarly, Haacke's work jolted the fictitious air of stability surrounding the
building in which it was to be installed and undermined that building's claim to

180 181
 PROPERTY VALUES
THE SOC!bl PRODUCTION OF SPACE

rnuseum's central function. What would, for instance, prevent another

represent eternal values. Shapolsky et al. created numerous comparisons between
artist from launching, again via a work of art, a pictorial documenta-
its subject matter and the Guggenheim-analogies between the ownership and
tion of police corruption in a particular precinct? What would stand
control of properties and the ownership and control of culture, between houses
in the way of a museum-sponsored attack upon a particular cigarette
collected by the Shapolsky family and art collected by the Guggenheim family,
between the commodity form of both housing and art production, and, especially brand which the documentation assembled for this purpose would
show to be a national health risk? 27
after the show's cancellation, between the concealment of power in the city and in
the museum. Ultimately, the work highlighted the fact that the museum building,
What indeed? In a historical period marked in the United States by mass protests
too, is no isolated architectural structure, container of static aesthetic objects, but
against governmental policy, police actions, and corporate endangerment of public
a social institution existing within a wider system, a product and producer of mu-
safety at home and abroad, these possibilities could hardly have seemed absurd or
table power relations.
Following the cancellation, Haacke enlarged the project initiated in the real- even undesirable. What, for that matter, would prevent an artist from exposing
"via a work of art" the threat to public interests posed by the activities of those
estate piece-submitting private actions to public scrutiny~by publicizing the
museum's censorship of his exhibition and discussing it openly in newspapers and who control art institutions?
art magazines as well as on television and radio. Throughout the discussion, the Haacke did just that. 28 In 1974, his Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Board if
museum's director repeated his initial explanation for the cancellation but added Trustees extended some of the parallels suggested in the Shapolsky work. A key
that, even without the fear oflegal reprisal, Haacke's work "posed a direct threat step in Haacke's development of a type of artwork that interrogates, rather than
26 deflects attention from, the economic and political stmcture of art institutions,
to the museum's functioning within its stated and accepted premises."
Guggenheim Trustees, in a manner strikingly reminiscent of Shapolsky et al., traces
Should social malpractices be exposed if the evidence is dependable the connections among members of the Guggenheim family, other trustees of the
and reliable? Certainly, but not through the auspices of an art museum. museum, and several corporations that frequently shared addresses and officers. For
It is freely admitted that this conclusion is self-protective, that is, pro- the multinational Kennecott Copper Corporation-which counted a Guggen-
tective of the museum's function as we currently understand it. Indi- heim family member and two museum trustees on its board of directors-Haacke
viduals and companies who would have suddenly found themselves presented information about the company's investments in Chile and included a
the unsuspecting targets of a work of art could be expected to react statement by the country's deposed and murdered president, Salvador Allende,
against the artist as well as his museum sponsor. The possibility of a that such transnational corporations were "not accountable to or representing
libel suit resulting from such a situation is therefore not farfetched. But the collective interest" of Chilean citizens. Kennecott was later named in hear-
the museum's sponsorship would hardly seem difensible even if the legal effects ings on the destabilization of the Allende democracy by United States interests. 29
proved to be containable through the presumably unassailable nature of Using the typography and layqut of official trustee lists, The Solomon R. Guggen-
the assembled documentation-a rather large assumption on the part heim Board if Trustees referred pointedly to the museum's interest in concealing its
own relationship to the operations of privatized property against "the collective
of the artist.
A precedent would, in any case, have been set for innumerable interest," a concealment that parallels the Shapolsky strategy for avoiding public
analogous presentations with predictably damaging effects upon the accountability.

183
182
 SOlOMON lA. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM SOlOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
GUGGENHEIM FAMILY MEMBERS AMONG TRUSTEES
BOARD OF TRUSTEES

PETER 0. LAWSON-JOHNSTON, President

Born 192'7 o Mining Co. Executive o UvOs Princeton, N.J.

H. HARVARD ARNASON
Born 1909 o Art Historian oLives New York City and Ao11.bury, Conn.

JOSEPH W. DONNER
Born 1927 • Stockbroker o Livas New York City
ELEANOR COUNTESS CASTLE STEWART

ELEANOR COUNTESS CASTLE STEWART Bom Eleanor Guggenheim. Daughter of Solomon R. and Irene (Rothschild) G.
Born 1898 o Lives In England

MASON WELCH GROSS

Born 1911 o President Harry F. Guggenheim Foundation oLives Rumson, N.J .. MRS. HENRY OBRE

Bom Barbara Guggenheim. Daughter of Solomon R. and Irena (Rothschild) G.

FRANK R. MILLIKEN
Born 1914 o Mining Engineer" lives Darien, Conn.

HENRY ALLEN MOE

PETER 0. LAWSON-JOHNSTON
Born 1894" Retired Foundation Executive olives Fleldston, N.Y. and Sherman, Conn.
Son of Barbara Guggenheim's tlrat marriage to John R. Lawson-Johnston
A. CHAUNCEY NEWLIN
Born 1905 o Lawyer oLives Scarsdale, N.Y.

MRS. HENRY OBRE MICHAEL F. WETTACH

Clubwoman o lives Monkton, Md.
Son ol Barbara Guggenheim's seoond marriage to Fred Wettsch Jr.

DANIEL CATTON RICH

Born 1904., Museum Director Emeritus o Lives New York City

ALBERT E. THIELE
Born 1892 o Business Executive o Livas Scarsdale, N.Y.

MICHAEL F. WETTACH
Born 1931 o Sportsman, raising thoroughbreds" Lives Hydes, Md.

CARL ZIGROSSER
Born 1391 o Museum Curator Emeritus o Lives Philadelphia and Montagnola, Switzerland

Hans Haacke, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Board if Trustees, 1974, panel2 (photo courtesy Hans Haacke).
Hans Haacke, Solomon R, Guggenheim Museum Board of Trustees, 1974, panel1 (photo courtesy Hans Haacke).
 SOlOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
SOlOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM CORPORATE AFFILIATION OF TRUSTEES
CORPORATE AFFILIATION OF TRUSTEES

Kennecott Copper Corporation

PETER 0. LAWSON-JOHNSTON FRANK R. MILLIKEN, President, Chief Exec. OH!car & Member Board of Directors
Anglo Co. Ltd .. Chairman & Member Board of. Directors PETER 0. lAWSON-JOHNSTON, Member Board of Directors
Elgerbar Corp., VIce President & Member Boarct of Directors
Feldspar Corp., Chairman & Member Board of Directors ALBERT E. THIELE, past Member Board of Directors
Robert Garrett & Sons .1nc., Member Board of Directors
1
Guggenhe m Brothers, Partner
Kennecott Copper Corp., Member Board of Directors Multinational cOmpany mining, smelting, relining copper, molybdenum, gold, zinc and ~~.1.
Mlnarec Corp., Member Board of Directors based mill products. ""' Copper
Paclllc Tin Consolldatad Corp., VIce Chairman & Member Board of Directors
Prlntex, Inc., Member Board of Directors Operates In the U.S., Australia Brazil Can d Col
'lands Anuu:s,ar:.ugo~:,~!i-u~~~~~~~%ri:~!and, Indonesia, Italy, Nether-
JOSEPH W. DONNER
Cyrus J. Lawrence & Sons, Brokers, Partner El Tenpassed
Law, Iento, Kennecott's
unanimouslyChilean copper
by Chilean min
Cong:!\~a~ft uonaci,ad
11 1ulft, 1971 through Constitutional Reform
year since 1955 to be considered excess and dadu~e':t 1 mp ro er General ruled profits over 12% a
FRANK R. MILLIKEN Kennecott, In eflect, el!mlnat~o:n;::rm~~;t,on. HJs figures, disputed by
Kennecott tried to have Chilean coppe hi t 1
Chase Brass & Copper Co., Member Board of Dlrootors Although without ultimate success In Eur~~~~:~Js 'f~ l~c:led or customers' payments attached.
Federal Reserve Bank of New Yorll:, Member Board of Directors
70
oi
(copper % oxp~rt)~rassment threatened Chilean economy
Kennecott Copper Corp., President, Chief Exec. OH!cer & Member Soard of Directors
Peabody Coal Co., Member Board of Directors President Salvador Allende addressed United Nallons December4, 1972. The New York Times re ort .
Proctor & Gamble Co., Member Board of Directors The Chilean President had still harsh w rd f P ad.
Quebec Iron & Titanium Corp., Member Board of Directors & Telegraph Corp. and the Kennecotfto~ ~~~~~ U.~d cgmr.gles, the International Telephone
and Which proposed "to man~:! oUr ~1111~ m:lf.
claws Into my country",
A. CHAUNCEY NEWLIN
Dr. Allende said thai from 1955 to ~~J~-~~e0~e~~~~:~~~:J:~ Corp. he'd made an average prolll
White & Case, Lawyers, Partner
Pac!llc Tin Consolidated Corp., past Member Board of Directors Ho said that huge "transnational" co tl
they were "not accou~ra~~ t~n~r ~:::.~e~~~~~ ~!r:OW!:;},~~!?:t:~:l~ ~. states and that
1
MRS. HENRY OBRE In a statement Issued In reply to Or Allende's h F .
referred to legalacUons now being iakon by hlscc:~os, [ank R. MJ!IIken, president of Kennecott,
Elgorbar Corp., Member Board of Directors .. Government from selling copper&~~ l~ec~~a~n~rg:.ea~ ~~~reventlhe Chilean
1
No amount of rhetoric can alter the fact th t K
ELEANOR COUNTESS CASTLE STEWART of Chile for more than 50 years and has ma~e :unbns~~Nar~!~~=n: resr~ble corporate citizen
social well-being of the Chilean peo~e~~s o lh the economic and
Elgerbar Corp., Husband Earl CesUe Stewart, Member Board of Directors
"Chile's expropriation of Kennecott's property lth .
principles of lnlematlonal law. We wUI conllnu 1 w out compensation violates established
ALBERT E. THIELE our sharoh~d~J'::';~:y~·ny legal remedies that may protect
Anglo Co. Ltd., Member Board of Directors
President Allende died In a military coup Sept 11 1973 Th J
Anglo Ventures, Member Board of Directors Kennecott for natt~naltzed pr~pe~~ committed Itself to compensate
Barber Oil Corp, Member Board o1 Directors
Companhla de Dlamantes do Angola, Member Board of Directors
Elgorbar Corp., President & Member Board ol Directors 1973 Net sales: $1,425,613,531 Net after taxes : $159,363,059 Eam. per com. share ; $4.81
Guggenheim Brothers, Partner
Kennecott Copper Corp., past Member Board of Directors 29,1 00 employees
Mlnerec Corp,, Vice President & Member Board of Directors
Pacific Tln Consolidated Corp., Member Board ol Directors Office: 161 E. 42 Sl., New 'fork, N.Y.

MICHAEL F. WETTACH
Elgerbar Corp., Member Board of Directors

Hans Haacke, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Board of Trustees, 1974, panel4 (photo courtesy Hans Haacke).
Hans Haacke, Solomon R. Guggenheim M1mum Board of Trustees, 1974, panel3 (photo courtesy Hans Haacke).
 SOlOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM SOlOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
CORPORATE AFFILIATION OF TRUSTEES
CORPORATE AFFILIATION OF TRUSTEES

Anglo Company Ltd.

Formerly Anglo-Lautaro Nitrate Co.
Pacific Tin Consolidated Corporation
PETER 0. LAWSON-JOHNSTON, Chairman & Member Board of Directors
PETER 0. lAWSON-JOHNSTON, Vice Chairman & Member Board of Directors ALBERT E. THIELE, Member Board of Directors
AlBERT E. THIElE, Member Board of Directors (Albert van de Mae!e, President & Member Board ot Directors, John A. Peeples and OsGSr S. Straus II,
Members Board of Directors of Anglo Co. Ltd., are partners ol P.O. Lawson-Johnston and A.E. Thiele
A. CHAUNCEY NEWliN, past Member Board of Directors In Guggenheim Brothers firm)
Directors and related trusts, Incl. Guggenheim lnterosts held 49% of total voting power, Feb. 13, 1973
(F st art Miller Chairman & Member Board of Directors of Pacific Tin Consolidated Corp. is a partner of Business: General Finance
· u ' P.O. Lawson-Johnston and A.E. Thiele In Guggenheim Brothers firm) Nitrate Industry ol former Anglo-Lautaro Nitrate Co. Ltd., In Chile, was nationalized 1971
24.9% Interest In Robe11 Garrett & Sons, Inc., Investment banking firm. Jan. 1973
. Mining and processing tin, feldspar, diamonds
53% Interest in Nabors Drilling ltd., Canada. Acquired 1974 for $3,100,000 cash. 011 and gas well drilling
Operations in the United States, Malaysia, Brazil In Western Canada and the Arctic. Sales approx. S1Q-m!Uion
Office: 120 Broadway, New York, N.Y.
Investment in Companhla de Diamantes de Angola

Sates range $9-12 million. 800 employees Anglo Ventures Corporation

Office: 120 Broadway, New York, N.Y. Subsidiary of Anglo Co. Ltd.
AlBERT E. THIElE, Member Board of Directors
Office: 120 Broadway, New York, N.Y.
Feldspar Corporation
Subsidiary of PacHic Tin Consolidated Corp. Mlnerac Corporation
Subsidiary of Anglo Co. ltd.
PETER O. lAWSON-JOHNSTON, Chairman & Member Board of Directors
AlBERT E. THIElE, Vice President & Member Board of Directors
(F. Stuart MIUer, Member Board of Directors of Feldspar Corp., is a partner of P.O. lawson-Johnston In PETER 0. lAWSON-JOHNSTON, Member Board of Directors
Guggenheim Brothers firm)
(Albert van de Maele, Chairman & Member Board of Directors, and John A. Peeples, Member Board of
Products: Feldspar, mica, silica sand Directors of Mlnerec Corp., are partners of A.E. Thiele and Peter 0. lawson-Johnston In Guggenheim
Brothers flrml
Sales range $3-6 m!Uion. 280 employees Products: Chemical flotation reagents
Office: 120 Broadway, New York, N.Y. Sates $1·2 million. 30 employees
Oftlco: 120 Broadway, New York, N.Y.

Companhia de Diamantes de Angola Robert Garrett & Sons, Inc.

PETER 0. lAWSON-JOHNSTON. Member Board of Directors
AlBERT E. THIELE, Member Board of Directors
{Albert van de Maele, also Member Board of Directors of Garrett & Sons, Inc., Is partner of P.O.lawson-
Johnston In Guggenheim Brothers firm}
Diamond mining with investment of Pacific Tin Consolidated CofP.
. . Investment banking firm
Anglo Co. ltd. has 24.9% Interest, Jan. 1973. Merger with Anglo Co. ltd. proposed
Office: 100 Wall St., Ntlw York, N.Y.

Hans Haacke, Solomon. R. Guggenheim Museum Board of Trustees, 1974, panel6 (photo courtesy Hans Haacke).
Hans Haacke, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Board cifTrustees, 1974, panelS (photo courtesy Hans Haacke).
 PROPERTY VALUES

Self-protectively, the Guggenheim's director repeatedly described the mu-

seum as a private domain and characterized Haacke's real-estate works as an inva-
sion of the privacy of both individual entrepreneurs and the artistic "sanctuary."
Designed to foster private experience, the museum was an inappropriate place to
SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM question publicly real-estate investors committed to limiting public awareness of
CORPORATE AFFILIATION OF TRUSTEES their activities. "These individuals;' Messer asserted, "would have been held up to
public scrutiny and condemnation without their knowledge and consent." ;~n By
attacking their right to seclusion, he contended, Haacke was taking unfair advan-
tage of the museum as a refuge to protect himself from repercussions:

Haacke's work implicates certain individuals from the safety of its mu-
Guggenheim Brothers
Partnership
seum sanctuary. Protected by the armor of art, the work reaches out
into the sociopolitical environment where it affects not the large con-
PETER 0. LAWSON-JOHNSTON, Partner science of humanity, but the mundane interest of particular parties.
ALBERT E. THIELE, Partner Upon the predictable reaction of society the work, turned weapon,
OWnership and management of Guggenheim family interests
would recede into its immune "art-self" to seek sheltex within the
OHice: 120 Broadway, New York, N.Y. museum's temporary custody. 31

Willing, nonetheless-by canceling the exhibition-to offer the museum's pro-

Elgerbar Corporation
tection to large-scale private property and individual slumlords, Messer rehearsed
prevalent illusions about the art institution as a natural retreat from the exigencies
ALBERT E. THIELE, President & Member Board of Directors

PETER 0. LAWSON-JOHNSTON, VIce President & Member Board of Directors

of society. In so doing, he tacitly invoked a view of the museum consistent with
MRS. HENRY OBRE, Member Board of Directors its role as surrogate for the bourgeois domestic interior.
EARL CASTLE STEWART, Member Board of Directors Far from a naturally given entity, however, the interior emerged in the nine-
MICHAEL F. WETIACH, Member Board of Directors teenth century to perform functions tied to concrete economic conditions. Ana-
Ownership and management of Guggenheim real estate and securllies
lyzing the bourgeois living environment as a prismatic cultural object that refracts
OHlce: 120 Broadway, New York, N.Y. and illuminates these conditions, Walter Benjamin succinctly reconstructed its ori-
gins in bourgeois society's historical demarcation of public and private spheres,
the latter representing the privilege of seclusion. There, private individuals were
guaranteed protection and freedom to pursu~ their own self-interest. To the con-
siderable extent that such freedom ensured the liberty of acquiring and disposing
of property at will, the private sphere testified to the definitive withdrawal of

191

Hans Haacke, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Board of Trustees, 1974, panel? (photo courtesy Hans Haacke).
 THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE

resources from social control and served a crucial function in legitimating the II

bourgeois view of life.

Within the private sphere, the domestic interior was constituted as a separate MEN IN SPACE

domain where harmony was artificially achieved by expelling the conflicts that
characterize economic society. Dependent for its comforts on gains in the eco-
nomic realm, the illusions of the security of the interior were necessary precisely
because the basis of capitalist society lies in a collision of interests. "The private
person;' wrote Benjamin, "who squares his accounts with reality in his office de-
mands that the interior be maintained in his illusions. This need is all the more
pressing since he has no intention of extending his commercial considerations into
social ones. In shaping his private environment he represses both. From this spring
the phantasmagorias of the interior." :}2 "The interior is the retreat of art;':,;.; Benja-
min continued, describing the doomed attempts of the private owner of artworks
to obliterate the conunodity character of his collected objects.
The illusions of the interior as shelter and citadel, transferred to that other
retreat of art-the museum-were severely shaken when Haacke proposed to
bring texts and photographs of the exteriors of slum dwellings inside the Guggen-
heim's cloistered residence. The violent expulsion that this emblematic confronta-
tion provoked suggests that economic and social conflicts are not, in reality, "alien"
to the museum's harmonious space but-as Benjamin wrote about the interior-
haunt it from the start.:H At least that is what the museum itself intimated when,
at an unusually telling moment, it articulated its ideology of autonomy and privacy
through a literal defense of the rights of private property.

192
 MEN IN SPACE

With the publication in 1989 of two books, both by geographers, urban studies
decisively entered ~'the postmodern debate" -detennined, apparently, to win. In-
deed, Edward Soja's Postmodern Geographies and David Harvey's The Cor~dition of
Postmodernity1 possess a winning combination: they bring together discourses about
space, culture, and aesthetics within the framework of a critical social theory that
purports to explain the postmodern world. This formula has been used before by
a small group of disparate scholars who, over the last decade, have written not only
about postmoder~ culture but about modernism as welL
For anyone in the art world eager to escape the control that traditional aes-
thetic categories exercise over how art is defined, such interdisciplinary approaches
have a strong, even fatal, attraction. Strong for many reasons, but especially because
they permit us to view art from previously excluded perspectives within which,
linked to new elements, it modifies its very identity. That shift is illuminating not
only for what it reveals about art but for what it suggests about knowledge. For an
instant, all explanation appears uncertain, since objects of knowledge are them-
selves indeterminable, ftxed only by discursive relationships and exclusions.
Knowledge is "complete" only when it conceals this process. The interdiscipli-
nary approach is appealing, then, because it momentarily undennines the author-
ity of all knowledge that claims to know definitively the things it studies. But
 MEN !N SPACE
MEN IN SPACE

modern Paris but rather obscured them by recreating in painting what Haussmann
interdisciplinarity holds dangers, too, because it does not automatically become
produced in the actual built environment-a mythologization of the city as
anticlisciplinary. More often, disciplines unite in alliances that fortify an authoritar-
"spectacle."
ian epistemology-by adding to its appearance of completeness-instead of relin-
Not surprisingly, this account produces, as Pollock notes, "peculiar closures
quishing it for a more democratic one. Is the current synthesis of urban and cultural
on the issue of sexuality." 6 Yet Clark's descriptions of cities and paintings do not
studies such a defensive formation? If so, what are its casualties?
entirely neglect women's "experience," nor do they completely ignore the topic
In 1985 sociologist Janet Wolff raised a similar question. Investigating the
of gender relations. What his book does dismiss is feminism, considered as a requi-
biases that have shaped her profession's definitions of both the modern urban expe-
site, rather than expendable, mode of social critique. Clark's repression of feminism
rience and the culture of modernism, she drew a succinct conclusion: "The litera-
is not, as some commentators claim, ·necessitated by his interest in the category of
ture of modernity describes the experience of men." 2 Seconding Wolff's opinion
class. Instead, it is authorized by his image of the social as a complete entity in
and repeating her assertion that modernity is a produCt of the city, Griselda Pollock
which a single set of social relations are privileged as determinate-the absolute
later extended Wolff's thesis to evaluate another discipline-art history-and, in
foundation of social totality.
particular, T.]. Clark's exemplary text of social art history, The Painting of Modern
Feminism, of course, has long challenged this kind of totalizing depiction.
Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers. 3 Clark compares the spatial composi-
It has also made indispensable contributions to aesthetic thought precisely in rela-
tions and iconography. of late-nineteenth-century modernist painting with the
tion to Clark's principal object of study: the visual image. Clark's book deals with
spaces of the modern city. He describes, with erudition, Baron Haussmann's archi-
both the city as a visual image and visual images of the city. For years, feminist
tectural and social reorganization ofParis and analyzes the effects ofHaussmanniza-
theories have differentiated vision-pleasure in looking-from the notion of
tion using a sociological paradigm popularized in Marshall Berman's influential
seeing as a process of perceiving the real world. The image and the act of looking
book All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: modernization is a process of capitalist socio-
are now understood to be relations highly mediated by fantasies that structure and
economic restructuring; modernity, the experience produced by that process; and
4 are structured by sexual difference. Visual space is, in the first instance, a set of social
modernism, the culture developing from the modern experience. Adhering to
relations; it is never innocent, nor does it merely reflect, either directly or through
this model of society in which so-called levels-sets of relations and political prac-
contrived mediations, "real" social relations located elsewhere-in, for example,
tices-interact but are, in the end, hierarchically compartmentalized, Clark ex-
the economic relations producing the built environment. From the moment this
plains that, for him, economic life is not a given reality but, like the cultural realm,
environment becomes an image-becomes what Raymond Ledrut calls "the locus
consists of representations. He does not, however, consider the politics of his own
of a certain 'investment' by the ego" 7 -its meaning is no longer reducible to nor
representation of society-which, in fact, he never examines as a representation
fixed by the economic circumstances of its production. From the moment we try
at all. Instead, he feels free to "insist" unproblematically "on the determinate
to understand the city as an image, feminist theories of visual space intersect with,
weight in society of those arrangements we call economic" and to state that "the
5 and simultaneously problematize, the political economy of urban space, which, it
class of an individual ... is the determinant fact of social life." Consequently,
is important to note, does not inherently exclude feminism. That exclusion is en-
Clark interprets nineteenth-century modernist painting as an artistic response to
forced in an epistemological field where grandiose claims are made on theoretical
the experience produced by Haussmann's spatial reorganization of Paris, which was
space, where only one theory is allowed to explain social relations of subordina-
determined, in turn, by the restructuring of capitalism during the Second Empire-.
tion. Refusing difference in social theory, the literature about modernity issuing
Modernism "failed," in Clark's view, because it did not map the class divisions of

197
196
 MEN IN SPACE MIJN lN SPACE

from a synthesis of urban and cultural disciplines has, in this manner, constructed ability to find our places in the world has been destroyed by late capitalism alone.
a coherent field by eliminating feminist criticism. Diminishing the importance of social antagonisms other than those of class, Jame-
Will the same be true for urban postmodernity? This question has hovered son conflates the disorienting effects of global capitalism with the rather different
at the margins of cultural criticism since 1984, when Fredric Jameson, drawing disorientations produced by recent challenges-from feminists, gays, postcoloni-
eclectically from spatial and aesthetic discourses, published his well-known article, als, antiracists-to the kinds of discourse that Jameson himself mobilizes: unitarian
"Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism." 8 Jameson assesses knowledge and foundationalist representation. These challenges expose Jameson's
postmodernism as a cultural "pathology." It is a condition produced by the mul~­ fragmented social unity and total subject position as fictions from the start, and he
ple "fragmentations" -of space, society, the body, the subject-that Jameson attn- responds by silencing them. Acco~dingly, he has recently dispelled any doubts
butes solely to the economic and spatial restructuring that constitute capitalism's about the nature of"cognitive mapping" by revealing that what he actually means
third stage. To help overcome this condition, he ·issues a prescription for radical by this procedure for uncovering total reality is "class consciousness,'' 9 thereby
artists. They should engage, he says, in an "aesthetic of cognitive mapping"-the definitively wiping feminism off the map of radical social theory. How does it
production of spatial images-by means of which inhabitants of "hyperspace" resurface? As just another force fragmenting our ability to apprehend the "real"
might overcome fragmentation, recover the ability to perceive the underlying to- unified political field.
tality, and consequently find their place in the world. The Jameson school of interdisciplinarity has yet to receive sustained atten-
Jameson contends that he is suggesting a way for radical artists to participate tion from art critics. Its relationship to feminism has become more urgent with the
in political battles over representation. Yet his proposal for analyzing space as a appearance of Harvey's and Soja's books about postmodernism. Leaders in the field
visual image begs, just as Clark's does, the political issues raised by feminist critiques of Marxist geography, these authors have each made valuable contributions to
of representation-most notably, the issue of positionality. A commanding posi- theories of "the social production of space,'' which, as they make clear, is the very
tion on the battleground of representation-one that denies the partial and frag- condition of late-capitalist restructuring. They have now turned to cultural theory
mented condition of vision by claiming to perceive the foundation unifying social in response to several developments: debates taking place within their own disci-
space-is an illusory place whose construction, motivated by wishes, entails hallu- pline about the epistemological basis and political stakes of geographical authority;
cinations and blindness. It is analogous to a position created in styles of knowledge the growth of a "postmodern" politics that diverges from the principles of tradi-
that seek to produce total-unfragmented-subjects. This cannot be wished away tional Marxism; and, perhaps, urban sociology's inability to address the built envi-
by stating, as Jameson has, that his concepts are, like all others, representations. ronment as a signifying practice. The seriousness of Harvey's and Soja's intentions
This statement does not obviate the need to question the forms of our representa- to embrace the field of culture is called into question, however, when one exam-
tions, which matter politically because representations are always constituted by ines their bibliographies. The literature that they have consulted is very exclusive,
acts of differentiation. If representations are social relationships, rather than repro- virtually restricted to texts by white, Western males and, of those, none that deal
ductions of preexisting meanings, then the high ground of total knowledge can with feminism and postmodernism.
only be gained by an oppressive encounter with difference-the relegation of To note these similarities is not to equate the two books. Indeed, Soja is
other subjectivities to positions of subordination or invisibility. uncomfortable with Harvey's rigid economistic formulas for explaining the pro-
Jameson's image of society and his desire for accurate maps illustrate this duction of space apd, to define space as social from the start, he advances concepts
mechanism. Fragmentation, in his account, is self-evidently a pathology, and our of a "socio-spatial dialectic" and a "spatialized ontology." He claims that he wants

198 199
 MEN IN SPACE
MEN IN SPACE

of gender and sexuality count as more than epiphenomena of society. Harvey, ig-
to disintegrate the boundaries between disciplines while respecting their specificity.
norant of contemporary materialist discourses about images and blind to the fact
But his readings of"postmodern landscapes" leave the cultural and economic fields
curiously unmodif1ed by their encounter; the identity of each remains intact. that some of the art he criticizes contests the fetishistic representation of women,
argues-in the name of antifetishism-for transparent images that reveal "essen-
Moreover, by framing the city, and space in general, as a landscape surveyed by a
tial" meanings. This-truly fetishistic-conception, in which representations are
transcendent viewer and by refusing to consider the politics of such a visualizing
produced by subjects who discover, rather than project, meaning, corresponds to
model of knowledge, Soja clings tenaciously to a belief in the total vantage point
Harvey's own image of society: a metatheory that purports to perceive the absolute
despite, as Liz Bondi points out, the interest that he expresses in postmodern
foundation of social coherence. Postmodernism interferes with that depiction.
decentering. 10
Harvey sets out even more resolutely on the path forged by Clark and Jame- "Postmodernism," complains Harvey, "takes matters too far. It takes them beyond
the point where any coherent politics are left .... Postmodernism has us ... deny-
son, defending "historical-geographical materialism" against postmodernism.
Jameson is no longer alone in the strength ofhis negative evaluation of"fragmenta- ing that kind of meta-theory which can grasp the political-economic processes." 12
It is true that the term postmodernism means m;ny different things and is
tion." For Harvey, too, postmodemism is monolithic and threatening, even apoca-
lyptic. It mirrors fragmented, dislocated, compressed, and abstracted experiences of surrounded by conflict. But this is no reason for reducing, as Harvey does, all
space and rime, experiences wrought by post-Fordist capitalism's regime of flexible critiques of totalization to an undifferentiated mass or for ignoring, in the process,
the persistence of feminism within postmodern culture. Given the presence of
accumulation-"the condition of postmodernity." The concern for difference and
feminism, what can it possibly mean to characterize postmodernity, negatively1 as
specificity expressed in Certain branches of postmodern thought, their skepticism
fragmented? Such assertions veer dangerously close to conservative tenets that fem-
about universalisms, "complies" with the concealment of capitalism's global pene-
tration, which Harvey equates with all of social reality. Contemporary artists inter- inists disrupt "our" unified heritage.
ested in what Harvey terms "image creation" are also complicit with capitalism. It would be a shame if urban studies intervened in cultural theory only to
Their attention to images, he believes, is a turn away .from the ''real" social world reinstate such ideas. Nonsubordinated feminisms would, then, be equated with
because it fetishistically rejects "essential" social meanings: it fails to provide us political escapism and feminist contributions to analyses of the visual environment
with Jamesonian "mental maps" to "match current realities" or with a "trajectory rejected as evasions of urban reality. If, unreceptive to the sexual politics of repre-
sentation addressed in contemporary art, urban discourse continues to construct
out of the condition of postmodernity." 11
Here, Harvey is seriously confused. It is certainly true that contemporary art space as a feminized object surveyed by mastering subjects and if the effects of such
has explored the image. But critical practices have done so neither to assert the discursive spatializations remain unexamined, the discipline will simply reproduce
status of the image as a container 'of universal, aesthetic meanings nor to celebrate oppressive fonns of knowledge.
the dominant images that circulate in our society. Rather, they have investigated Artists do not need more directives for the "cognitive mapping" of global
visual images as part of a realm of representation where meanings and subjects are space or exhortations to take the position of the totality. Postmodernists who prob-
lematize the image-artists like Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Silvia Kolbow-
socially and hierarchically produced as, among other things, gendered. To the ex-
ski, Mary Kelly, Victor Burgin, Sherrie Levine, Laurie Simmons, Connie Hitch-
tent that this is their objective, postmodern artists' concentration on images is em-
phatically not a tum away from, but rather toward, the social-if, that is, relations reject such vanguard roles. They have been saying for years that, thanks to the

201
200
 MEN JN SPACE

recognition that representations are produced by situated-not universal-sub-

jects, the world is not so easily mapped anymore. They do not seek to conquer
this complexity but to multiply the fragmentations, mapping the configurations BoYs TowN
of fantasy that produce coherent images, including coherent images of politics.
Geographers will have to examine that space.

In the course of this work it became apparent that there were many
empty rooms in the house of Marxian theory and that a lot of thought
had to be given as to how best they might be furnished.

-David Harvey, The Urban Experience

Masculinity is not only erection but also enclosure, the logic of the
house is as phallocentric as that of the tower,

-Mark Wigley, The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida's 1-Iaunt

Like most discussions of postmodernism, David Harvey's The Condition of Post-

modernity aspires to a general theory of contemporary culture. 1 Harvey's ambitions,
however, exceed the merely general. He seeks to unify all cultural events, all social
relations, and all political practices by locating their origins in a single founda-
tion. Harvey's claims to comprehensiveness are, therefore, grander than most.
What, then, does it mean that in the book he completely ignores one of the most
significant cultural developments of the past twenty years-the emergence of
practices in art, fUm, literature, and criticism informed by feminist theories of

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representation? What, further, does it mean that Harvey disregards the presence of Other misperceptions pervade The Condition rf Postmodernity. At one point,
a feminist voice in postmodern aesthetics even though the work that he includes for instance, Harvey alludes to feminist ideas about difference. He briefly refers to
as an exemplar of postmodernism in the arts-the photography of Cindy Sher- Carol Gilligan's In A Difftrent Voice, a book that affirms the relativity, rather than
man-is just such a practice? Sherman's art raises questions about sexual difference singularity, of moral development. Although Gilligan's book can scarcely be con-
and visual representation. Yet Harvey remains blind to this issue, among others, in sidered a model of all feminist critiques of universalizing thought-feminists fre-
Sherman's work, in the critical writing about her work and, more broadly, in the quently question the book's essentializing of women's experience-it serves as
cultural discourse that is ostensibly his object of study. What motivates and legiti- Harvey's token reference to feminism. It is one of only two or three citations of
mates such oversights in the work of a rigorous thinker? feminist literature in his bibliography of postmodernism, and the reference to Gilli-
And what are we to make of the numerous instances of carelessness or the gan represents a rare moment-really, I think, the only one-when Harvey
outright errors, large and small, in Harvey's book? Is it meaningfu~, to take only differentiates feminism from other items in a list of what he considers to be special
one case, that Harvey accidentally changes the sex of the fUm theorist on whose interest groups: women, gays, blacks, ecologists, regional autonomists, etc.
writing he relies to analyze Blade Runner, one of his principal examples of postmod- Even this moment of interest is fleeting. Only a few sentences after men-
ern fUm? Giuliana Bruno becomes Giuliano: she becomes he. This mistake signals tioning Gilligan's ideas about difference, Harvey catalogues "women" within a
still another transformati.on: Harvey brings Bruno's argument into conformity with typically homogenizing enumeration of new social movements. Most of these,
his own point of view by appropriating only part of her essay on Blade Runner, he inunediately adds, "pay scant attention to postmodernist arguments" and, he
overlooking its psychoanalytic and feminist dimensions. Bruno, like Harvey, criti- concludes, "some feminists are hostile" (48). Despite the apparent neutrality, this
cizes the notion of history that permeates a certain idea of postmodern architec- passage relies on a series of slippages that secure support for the author's own atti-
ture. She characterizes as a ftction-"a dream ofunity"-the belief that history is tude toward postmodem:ism. Harvey fails to distinguish, first, among different so-
a homogeneous, continuous, or directly accessible reality. But unlike Harvey, she cial movements and then between academic theories, on the one hand, and social
stresses the role that fantasy and desire play in constructions of the past. History, movements, on the other. Next, he neutralizes the heterogeneity of discourses
she writes, following Roland Barthes, "is the trace of the dream of unity, of its about both feminism and postmodernism, and, finally, he ignores the diversity of
impossibility. " 2 Bruno rejects not history but the idea that it possesses a coherence current discussions about connections between the two. Harvey thus exploits ferci-
given by an absolute foundation. Her critique of "postmodem" architecture's ap- nism's complex relationship with postmodern discourses to defend his own, fre-
propriations of historical styles is not made in the name of an objective history quendy different, hostilities. What accounts for these escalating failures to see the
whose meaning inheres in a basis existing independently of discourse. Harvey's difference?
dismissal of key aspects of Bruno's essay is, then, hardly neutral. It permits him The answer, I think, is simple. Totalizing visions of society such as Harvey's
to use her article -to defend a position that she is casting into doubt: a belief in are precisely, to borrow Giuliana Bruno's phrase, "dreams of unity." Harvey's dis-
the authority of historical truths constituted apart from subjects. Does the sex course claims to observe, rather than construct, the absolute foundation of all social
change-Harvey's inadvertent transformation of Bruno into a man-correspond life. The subject of this discourse supposedly perceives society in its entirety and
to, even emblematize, this ~ore extensive operation-Harvey's metamorphosis of so seems to stand outside, not in, the world. His identity apparently owes nothing
Bruno's ideas into the image of his own? either to his real situation or to the object he studies-society. In denying the

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discursive character of that object, Harvey's account also denies that subjectivity is
a partial and situated position. "Society," construed as an impartial object indepen-
dent of all subjectivity, generates the illusion of an equally autonomous subject
who views social conflicts from a privileged and unconflicted place. Since this total
vantage point can be converted from fantasy into reality only by disavowing its
contingent nature-its dependence on objects-and by relegating other view-
points or different subjectivities to invisible, subordinate, or competing positions,
foundationalist totalizations are systems that try to immunize themselves against
uncertainty and difference.
They do so in different ways. The three examples cited from Harvey's book
are all cases of mistaken identity. Mistaken not because Harvey misapprehends the
true meaning of the art and texts that he describes but because he repeatedly repre-
sents difference as sameness: he does not dismiss Cindy Sherman's work, he ignores
its specificity within postmodern art production; he disregards the distinction
between Giuliana Bnmo's argument about postmodernism and his own; and he
homogenizes what are actually diverse positions on feminism and postmodernism
to reconcile them with his own view. The subject of Harvey's discourse, the total
subject, clearly thrives on mistaken identity.
Today, totalizing impulses are routinely manifested in indifference to femi-
nism-to feminism's difference from other social analyses, its internal differences,
and its theories of difference. This disregard survives-indeed it is even being
revived-in some branches of cultural criticism despite feminism's decisive impact Barbara Kruger, Untitled (You thrive on mistaken identity), 1981
on cultural practices. It persists even more tenaciously in critical urban studies that, (photo courtesy Barbara Kruger).
until recently, have granted feminist theories only the most marginal visibility.
Now there is growing interest in interdisciplinary mergers of critical urban and
Undertaking such a project means, however, that we must also reconfigure
cultural discourses. On the one hand, aesthetic practitioners-architects, urban
the space of politics. What role does culture play in urban political struggle? What
planners, artists-have used the contributions of urban theory to examine how
is the relationship between cultural and economic conflict? Is not urban studies
their work functions in urban social contexts. Urban scholars, on the other hand,
itself a cultural activity? These questions require us to rearticulate the terms of
have turned to cultural theory to study the city as a signifying object. Both groups
hope that encounters between the two fields-themselves composed of several urban politics and rethink interdisciplinarity. For when the elements that constitute
the field of spatial politics are combined in truly new formations, without assum-
disciplines-will expand our ability to understalld and intervene in what urban
ing that one is the essence of "the urban" and the others mere epiphenomena,
theorists call the politics of space.

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the elements themselves are altered and the boundaries that define disciplines But.if, as I have suggested, Harvey's account ofpostmodernism depends on
feminism's absence, then his failure to acknowledge cultural production that uses
undermined.
Radical interdisciplinary work, in other words, takes account of its own spa- feminist ideas and his neglect of feminist ideas as ways of understanding cultural
tial relations. It interrogates the epistemological basis and political stakes of disci- production are no incidental by-products but rather structural components of his
plinary authority. Less interdisciplinary than postdisciplinary, such work is based on style of totalizing knowledge. The question that feminism introduces into urban
the premise that objects of study are the effect rather than the ground of disciplin- studies, then, is not, as Harvey ultimately suggests, how to add something that is
ary knowledge. How these objects are constituted-through which exclusions or missing-either feminist analysis or the topic of gender relations-to existing
repressions-is itself a political question that conventional forms of interdisciplin- social theory. The issues currently being examined by feminists-relations of
arity disregard. Instead, they grant their objects of study an independent existence representation and difference-are already present there. The real question is,
and therefore take for granted the existence of absolute foundations underlying what is being protected by resistance to feminist inquiry? Far from an instance
distinct, specialized areas of knowledge. Mere exchanges of data, of course, leave of "me-too-ism," the assertion of feminism's significance for urban studies arises
disciplinary identities and authority intact. Sometimes, however, disciplines defend from the demand that the field examine its own politics and problems, prob-
this authority more actively. They may turn to developments outside their borders lems that, I suspect, have led some urban scholars to turn to culture in the first
only to expunge that exterior and reaffirm their own foundations. In this spirit, place.
urban scholars might read cultural texts to resist the threat that cultural theory
poses to the critical social sciences' claim to explain spatial organization or, for that VISUALITY

matter, to define space. Still other, less overtly defensive possibilities jeopardize
the creative potential of interdisciplinary work. Disciplines often unite to protect Harvey's introduction to The Urban Exp~rience, written in 1989, demonstrates the
themselves against the intrusion of ideas traditionally perceived as conunon threats, necessity, and inadvertently indicates the place, for feririnist intenrentions in critical
or, given the presence of internal conflicts within each discipline, to repress differ- theories of the city and, especially, in the discussion about what urban studies con-
ences within individual fields. If Harvey's book, the newest addition to a rapidly ventionally calls "the image of the city." In fact, Harvey's introduction illustrates,
proliferating collection of urban-aesthetic literature, becomes a model for this again unknowingly, how the authority invested in particular urban theories that
newly popular interdisciplinary combination, it will simply consolidate itself as purport simply to be about urban images actually requires converting the city into
such a defensive formation: an alliance of the two fields that perpetuates the sup- an image. "The essays assembled in this book are about ways of seeing the city,"
pression of, among other things, feminist inquiry. Harvey writes and describes the thrill of ascending to the highest point in a city
In this spirit of suppression, defenders of the total critique often try to be- and looking down on what he believes to be "the city as a whole." 3 Citing Michel
little, even intimidate, anyone who questions totalizing discourses or builds less de Certeau's The Practice of Everyday Life, Harvey .calls this elevated vantage point
grandiose theories. Criticism of totalization is routinely equated with trivialized the perspective of the voyeur and contrasts it, as does de Certeau, with the condi-
objects, most tiresomely, with fashion. It has even been suggested that the current tion of being immersed in the city's streets. Both perspectives, Harvey asserts, are
rejection of "totalizing discourses" has no significance at all since the term itself "real enough;' although unequal: the voyeuristic perspective offers a superior-
designates nothing: it has only gained prominence because critics wield it to con- because total-view of social reality. 4
fitse issues and evade serious political discussion.

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over, looking down on the city as an image and what de Certeau calls "walking in
Shortly after making this distinction, Harvey equates the elevated form of
the city" do not, as Harvey assumes, produce valid and mutually reinforcing pic-
vision with his preferred form of knowledge, metatheory, and describes meta-
tures of reality. To begin with, de Certeau challenges as dogma the assertion that
theory as a voyeuristic way of seeing the city. Of course, Harvey concedes, &eeming
reality speaks directly through any representation; further, he holds that the two
to acknowledge the role of subjectivity in knowledge production, any voyeur or
approaches are antithetical. Everyday life is differentiating, situated, and involved
metatheoretician is burdened by prejudices that may influence, even distort, his or
while visualizing social discourses produce coherent knowledge by withdrawing
her observations. Yet Harvey suggests that his preference is itself unprejudiced,
from society and claiming an exterior position.
determined solely by objective considerations of social justice and explanatory ade-
Since de Certeau imputes such visualizing knowledge to the "lust to be a
quacy: "I find (and still find) it the most powerful of all the explanatory schemas
viewpoint and nothing more," 10 we might ask whether the metatheoretician-
available." 5
voyeur himself is "real enough." Does he exist, as Harvey describes him, burdened
Is the voyeur's city "'real enough?" Harvey is confident that from the elevated
by the weight of prejudices, prior to his sighting of the panorama-city? Or is he
vantage point "we" can see "the city as a whole," but de Certeau thinks that the
an illusion of a pure viewpoint, dependent on another fiction-a voyeur-god
coherent image of the city is more like an optical illusion. De Certeau supports
brought into existence with the image he sees? 11 A de Certeauian answer seems
practices that resist the leveling rationalities of established systems by forcing a
clear. Harvey's is not a neutral method of perceiving reality exercised by an autono-
recognition of particularities. He emphatically rejects the impulse to mastery im-
mous viewer. It is a specifically modernist model of vision, a social visuality, with
plicit in aerial perspectives. Disembodied viewpoints, says de Certeau, yield "imag-
a function: establishing a binary opposition between subject and object, it makes
inary totalizations" such as the "panorama-city" and correspond to objectifYing
the subject transcendent and the object inert, thus underpinning an entire regime
epistemologies that produce a "fiction of knowledge." 6 Harvey nonetheless char-
of knowledge as mastery.
acterizes the effort to "possess the city in imagination" as heroic-"the hardest of
It is not surprising then that while Harvey does not question the pleasure of
intellectuallabors"-and innocent-"'a basic human attribute;' 7 confounding de
seeing the city as a whole, de Certeau asks at the outset: "To what erotics of knowl-
Certeau's critical appraisal of totalization with his own celebratory one. For de
edge does the ecstasy of reading such a cosmos belong?" 12 Indeed, the equation of
Certeau, forms of imagination and knowledge are never neutral but, instead, have
voyeurism with metatheory-of vision with a form of knowledge-is consider-
social functions. Imaginary totalizations of the city-"'theoretical' (that is, vis-
ably less innocent than HarveY suspects. Far from a colorful but neutral synonym
ual)"-are constituted not only through relations of power but through a specific
for a real total perception of a real total reality, the term voyeurism itself suggests a
destructive act: "The panorama-city ... is a picture whose condition of possibility
critique of the very way of seeing that Harvey advocates-of its conception of,
is an oblivion and a misunderstanding of practices." 8
and pretensions to know, reality. For the designation oflooking and knowledge as
De Certeau draws sharply different distinctions than Harvey. He does not
voyeuristic not only lifts them both out of the realm of objective perception but
really compare two "views" of the city-aerial and street-leveL He socializes vi-
sets them down squarely within the domain of sexual pleasure.
sion itself: True, he outlines two kinds of spatial activity-on the one hand, visual-
In one sense, Harvey's choice of the term voyeurism simply emphasizes what
izing the city or arranging things into an image to be surveyed by distanced subjects
is true of all vision: looking implies subjects who arrange things into images and
and, on the other hand, inhabiting the city or creating ground-level practices or
who are themselves constituted by looking. While Harvey criticizes empiricist ap-
tactics of everyday life that elude the "cancerous growth of vision." But for him
proaches in geography, his framing metaphor indicates an empiricist bias assuming
only the first activity yields a view, in the sense of an exterior perspective.9 More-

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ercises control through a visualization that merges with a victimization of its ob-
ject. Harvey's misreading of de Certeau's visual metaphor for totalizing knowledge
as positive, or at the very least neutral, deserves attention. For Harvey's blindness
to the metaphor's most obvious implications only demonstrates de Certeau's prem-
ise: such knowledge, like vision, is highly mediated by fantasy, denial, and desire.
Imaginary ascents to the top of the city express a desire for exteriority, and the
image that they produce is not a reproduction of the world but a self-image.
To consider the full ramifications of Harvey's visual conceit is to call into
question how urban discourse has conventionally formulated the topic of the image
of the city. The conceit also sheds light on related issues yet to be confronted in
recently popular analyses of "postmodern landscapes." These works, though criti-
cal, generally adopt a classic realist approach, treating the image of the city as a
mere reflection or distortion of the "real" city or as an object that either reveals
or disguises underlying spatial realities. A landscape, however, is an object framed
for, and therefore inseparable from, a viewer. If the image of the city is indissolubly
bound up with vision and therefore with the subjectivity of viewers and if, as the
metaphor of voyeurism makes clear, vision is mediated by fantasy and implies rela-
tions of power and sexuality, then urban analyses can no longer ignore what are in
fact the constitutive elements of images and landscapes-or they can ignore these
issues only by relegating them to a nonpolitical arena. To confront the social and
psychic relations of images and so extend the critique,.urban scholars can, however,
draw on well-developed theories of visual representation, including a sophisticated
Barbara Kruger, Untitled (You molest from afar), 1982
(photo courtesy Barbara Kruger).
psychoanalytic feminist literature about vision and subjectivity.
As we have seen, critical geography itself is long overdue for such an analysis.
Even the most cursory investigation reveals the degree to which its authoritative
the ultimate visibility, that is, knowability, of an autonomous reality. But voyeurism texts are permeated by a politics of vision while remaining oblivious to the exten-
also announces that looking involves a psychic economy pursuing objectives in- sive critique of that politics. Yet as early as 1973, in a famous article entided "Visual
different to perceptual reality. Employed as a trope for knowledge and vision, it Pleasure and Narrative Cinema;' one of the first essays to inaugurate the feminist
actually mocks empiricist claims, raising questions about how unconscious aims discourse about vision, British filmmaker Laura Mulvey explored precisely the
and fantasies structure representational and epistemological systems. Voyeurism de- poles of vision operating in Harvey's introduction to The Urban Experience-voy-
notes a scopophilia or pleasure in looking; specifically, it designates an act in which eurism and narcissistic looking. Mulvey addressed the role played by these types
sexual gratification is obtained without proximity, through the secret observation of vision in the construction of human subjectivity, which she analyzed not as a
of others as objects. Distancing, mastering, objectifying-the voyeuristic look ex-

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process of imprinting external social nonns on individuals but as a complex and is wholly manifest and exists solely for him. H_e misses nothing. Unfragmented,
ambivalent procedure of psychic identifications, internalizations, and projections sovereign, unsituated, he speaks implicitly in Harvey's description of meta theory
with political effects. While the voyeur erects rigid boundaries between himself as "a theoretical framework that has the potential to put all such partial views
and objects, the narcissistic viewer, Mulvey speculated, sees an idealized reflection together not simply as a composite vision but as a cognitive map that shows how
of the self in the world: "Here, curiosity and the wish to look intermingle with a each view can itself be explained by and integrated into some grander conception
fascination with likeness and recognition: the human face, the human body, the of what the city as a whole, what the urban process in general, is all about." 14
relationship between the human fonn and its surroundings, the visible presence of When Harvey mourns the abandonment of metatheories as a retreat into
the person in the world." 13 "emasculated and relatively powerless formats," he reveals the phallic pretensions
Separation from the surrounding world and the imaginary merger with the of his visualizing epistemology. 15 Knowledge can only be perceived to be castrated
world are not, however, independent operations. They are intimately connected against the background of a belief that it can be whole. But Harvey's totalizing
aspects of the subject's relation to its images. For the subject "recognizes" an ideal representation of the social world does not transparently reveal the foundation of
self in its surroundings precisely by means of an image that is simultaneously alien- a unified structure of exploitation and oppression; it is itself a hierarchical structure
ating, a self-as-other. Assuming its own discrete image, which pennits it to set up of differentiation that situates an all-seeing subject. The objective theorist is a mas-
relationships among o~jects of the surrounding world, the subject simultaneously culine being who makes himself complete by claiming to perceive the ground of
separates itself from and depends upon its objects. The self, then, is not a self- an impartial totality but who actually occupies a position of threatened wholeness
contained whole but an intersubjective relation with the other. The defining sepa- in a relation of difference. Through which mechanisms it maintains that position
ration of the subject-its differentiation from its surroundings-entails a loss of is a political question. What repressiom enable the equation of voyeuristic models
immediacy and plenitude, but through the "perception" that external objects fonn of knowledge with objectivity and adequacy? Whose subjectivities are the casual-
a unified totality, the subject can try to secure its own wholeness and compensate ties of epistemologies that produce total beings? What violence iS enacted by au-
for this loss. Because an external unity or state of completeness can be observed thors who speak and pretend that reality speaks for itself? Who signifies the threat
only from outside, alienation from objects becomes the precondition for recuper- of inadequacy so others can be complete? Whose expulsion and absence does com-
ating wholeness by establishing the subject's unique connection to the world: sev- pletion demand? What positions are determined by relations of total knoWledge,
ered from objects, the sovereign subject also enjoys unmediated access to them. and who has historically occupied these positions? Addressed by feminists for de-
The paradoxical structure of narcissistic looking resembles that of social epis- cades, these questions are still evaded, through renewed claims to a scientific atti-
temologies deemed adequate because they purportedly uncover the absolute foun- tude, by those with little tolerance for the complications they introduce.
dation of a social totality. Such representations of society not only position discrete
and distanced subjects; by eliminating all lacunae in their pictures of the world, DEMOCRACY
they seek to close the gap between the subject and the object of the representation.
The act of granting an autonomous existence to objects of knowledge by dis- "Postmodern," as everyone knows, is a complicated term. Attached to an array
avowing subject-object or discourse-object relationships establishes the illusory of objects, ideas, and practices, it means different things in different disciplines
basis of the subject's coherence, authority, and uniqueness. The subject of an ade- and to different people. Diverse, even opposing, ideological interests alternately
quate-or a potentially adequate-representation "sees" an objective reality that claim and reject it. Instead of trying to disentangle the confusions surrounding

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postmodern culture by cataloguing and evaluating its numerous empirical manifes- tard's famous critique of Marxist meta theory, that economic relations are the ori-
tations, we might say that postmodernism is about complication: its critique of the gin, and therefore determine the significance, of all changes in the structure of
abstract universalisms that have characterized modern Western thought disrupts the social life. Harvey challenges the positive appraisal of postmodern culture that he
coherence of the social world. Such an assertion, avowedly partial in both senses believes is wholly represented by Lyotard. Lyotard defines the postmodern condi-
of the term, is less concerned with defending postmodernism as a stable cultural tion-a condition of contemporary Western civilization-as one in which the
category or with describing it as an embracing historical condition-and even less metadiscourses that lent Western science and politics their authority and power
with defining it as an artistic style-than with emphasizing the antiessentialist stand have lost credibility. His principle targets in the realm of social theory are the
shared today by many intellectual tendencies. Of course, not everyone agrees that Marxist metadiscourse of historical materialism and its "grand narrative" of the
the abandonment of universals is a good idea. Does the social complexity it fosterS simultaneous development of society's productive forces and the class stn1ggle. Au-
obscure political issues and paralyze political struggle? Or is that complexity the thorized by the doctrine that relations of economic production constitute the
very condition of possibility-an opportunity-for social change? Is it, perhaps, a foundation of the social totality, this narrative has privileged the role of class con-
kind of social change itself? flict in human emancipation. Allowing only one starting point for social theory, it
These questions lie at the heart of the postmodern debate but they also ex- legitimates the subordination of different analyses and different stmggles to the
press, more broadly, diyergent reactions to a crisis ofleft politics. Answers depend, imperatives of a unitary struggle and presupposes the existence of essential rela-
in turn, on a question of representation-the representation of society. Since the tions-products of the foundation-among social groups. For Lyotard, the appre-
very notion of fragmentation presupposes a prior unity, assessments of postmodern hension of different and incommensurable stmggles with no necessary relation
"complications" vary with competing images of-and investments in-the defines the postmodern condition. Needless to say, Harvey's restoration of political
sources of social coherence. For critics who understand the unity of the social field economy to a privileged position in social theory and concomitant relegation of
in a materialist sense, not as an impartial totality but as a fiction-a construction- other approaches to subordinate places has been warmly received by critics who,
from the start, fragmentation facilitates an awareness of the divisions, differences, locating politics primarily in the economic sphere, feel that Harvey has restored
and indeterminacy disavowed in the creation of unity. Others, presupposing that "reality" to cultural analysis.
social unity derives from an absolute foundation-whether provided by God, na- But the equation of Lyotard's text with the entire body of postmodern
ture, or historical necessity-argue that fragmentation obfuscates reality. Disturbed thought exemplif1es Harvey's reductive strategies. For many voices have objected,
by the challenge that the critique of foundationalism initiates against claims to like Lyotard, to the denial of specificity and difference in modern metatheory with-
know reality fully, adherents of the second position fortify social theories that, as out, as Lyotard is accused of doing, relinquishing social theory altogether. To be
British cultural critic Stuart Hall once remarked, provide "a way of helping you sure, many social theorists reject the notion that the Marxist metanarrative provides
sleep at night." Such theories, writes Hall, referring to conventional Marxism and the essential foundation of relations among social groups, but not all theorists pro-
its interpretation of culture, seek to "guarantee that although things don't look pose as an alternative an essential nonrelation among groups. Harvey, failing to
simple at the moment, they really are simple in the end. You can't see how the draw such distinctions, reduces a multitude of diverse social theories to an un-
16
economy determines, but just have faith, it does determine in the last instance!" differentiated mass presided over by Lyotard and so creates a straw man of post-
The title of Harvey's book announces such an agenda. Clearly a rejoinder to modernism. He sets up a single difference in social philosophy: an opposition
Jean-Franyois Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition (1979), it reasserts, agiinst Lyo- between a preconstituted unity of relations that is the basis for political action
versus pure difference that is the basis for political escapism.

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"After reading this book," scolds Terry Eagleton on the back cover, "those In Harvey's view, postmodern culture conforms to this inexorable logic be-
who fashionably scorn the idea of the 'total' critique had better think again." Why? cause, above all else, it valorizes fragmentation. "I begin," Harvey writes, "with
Because, in Harvey's view, the postmodern condition-challenges to the authority what appears to be the most startling fact about postmodernism: its total acceptance
of metanarratives-is actually a product of "the condition of postmodernity"- of the ephemerality, fragmentation, discontinuity and the chaotic that formed the
transformations in global capitalism, explainable only by Marxist metadiscourse. one half of Baudelaire's conception of modernity.... Postmodernism swims, even
Since Harvey never seriously considers the possibility that new ideas might call wallows, in the fra,brmentary and the chaotic currents of change as if that is all there
into question his basic premises, "incredulity toward metanarratives" simply dem- is" (44). He attributes this change to the new regime of flexible accumulation:
onstrates their truth, much as atheists prove the existence of God. "The historical "The relatively stable aesthetic of Fordist modernism has given way to all the fer-
sketch I have here proposed;' Harvey writes, "suggests that shifts of this sort [post- ment, instability, and fleeting qualities of a postmodernist aesthetic that celebrates
modernism] are by no means new, and that the most recent version of it is certainly difference, ephemerality, spectacle, fashion, and the corrunodification of cultural
within the grasp of historical materialist enquiry, even capable of theorization by forms" (156). Harvey's "Fordist modernism" expresses his certainty that aesthetic
way of the meta-narrative of capitalist development that Marx proposed." (328) meaning is determined and subsumed by economics, a belief that, though it forms
Briefly, Harvey's thesis goes like this. Contradictions and crises inherent in his principal thesis, is never really argued but merely asserted.
capital accumulation-:-espedally tendencies toward overaccumulation-necessi- Still another sleight of hand can be detected in this passage. "Difference" has
tate periodic transformations in the organization of the accumulation process. been smuggled into a list ~f temporary, trivial, even wicked things. Throughout
Late-twentieth-century capitalism is defined by such a change-from the rigid Harvey's book, difference is itself undifferentiated. Does it mean variety? Incom-
structures of Forclist organization to a system of flexible accumulation. The ele- mensurability? Specificity? Injustice? The constitutive factor of meaning and iden-
ments that form the post-Fordist regime of accumulation (geographic mobility, tity? We are never told, although at one point Harvey does specifY one kind of
deindustrialization, a new international division of labor, flexible employment difference that has gained importance in postmodern politics: postmodernism ac-
practices, a powerful and increasingly autonomous world fmancial system, ad- knowledges multiple sources of social oppression and multiple forms of resistance
vances in telecommunications and information technology) enhance capitalism's to domination. Relying largely on Andreas Huyssen's astute reading of postmod-
resilience and control. The post-Fordist metamorphosis, like earlier responses to ernism, Harvey describes "the opening given in postmodernism to understanding
crises in capitalism's quest for profits, entails a progressive increase in the pace of difference and otherness, as well as the liberatory potential it offers for a whole
life and dissolution of spatial barriers, what Harvey calls "time-space compression." host of new social movements (women, gays, blacks, ecologists, regional autono-
A new round ofinterisified time-space compression accompanies the current reor- mists, etc.)" (48). But since Harvey has suggested earlier that precisely the "libera-
ganization of space on urban, regional, and global scales. Capitalism's economic tive" concern for "otherness" makes postmodernism seductive, we are left with
alterations thus produce new experiences of space and time that, because of their the impression that, for him, it is postmodern's most dangerous quality. 17
intensity, are "capable of sparking ... a diversity of social, cultural, and political When Harvey describes the specific aesthetic form in which postmodernism
responses" (240). P6stmodem aesthetic movements, the current cultural response, valorizes fragmentation, his logic becomes more capricious and his categories
"reflect" and "intervene in" current spatiotemporal experience-"a collapse of oddly constituted. He identifies depth with complexity and literalizes this identi-
time horizons and preoccupation with instantaneity" (59). In short, experience of fication by defming visual images-what he calls "depthless images"-as superfi-
space and time mediates between economic relations, on the one hand, and, cul- cial reflections of a complex world. But the inherent lack that HarveY perceives in
ture, on the other.

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visual images is not, for him, a condition of all representation, or even, paradoxi- coherent politics are left .... Postmodernism has us celebrating the activity of
cally, of all visual images. Rather, it contrasts with the potential adequacy to reality masking and cover-up, all the fetishisms oflocality, place, or social grouping, while
of other representations: historical materialism and, in the aesthetic realm, realist denying that kind of meta-theory which can grasp the political-economic pro-
art, which, Harvey implies, transparently unveils the content of an empirically cesses ... that are becoming ever more universalizing in their depth, intensity,
reach and power over daily life" (117).
knowable reality.
For Harvey, the postmodern artist's preoccupation with forms-images and With this evaluation, Harvey adopts the position on postmodernism that,
sur£1.ces-is a fragmenting procedure that conceals "deeper" and "larger" realities. until now, has been most influentially expressed in Fredric Jameson's 1984 essay
This distrust of visual images strikingly contradicts his earlier description of his "Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism." Jameson diagnoses
own theory as a visualization. But leaving this problem aside for the moment, let us postmodernism as a cultural "pathology," a symptom of the experiences of frag-
note that Harvey thinks only one reality is truly deep. ·since the dispersal, mobility, mentation initiated by the spatial restructuring that constitutes capitalism's third
decentralization, and flexibility of advanced capitalism-which produce experi- stage. What we need, Jameson prescribes, are new spatializations of the world-
ences of time-space compression-only disguise the tightened organization " cognitive maps"-to reveal the underlying totality and stabilize our position
and global expansion of capital and since culture mirrors this process, it follows within it. Early in The Condition of Postmodernity, Harvey invokes what he calls
that postmodern art's interest in images participates in the concealment of the Jameson's "daring thesis that postmodemism is nothing more than the cultural
underlying reality: the interconnected totality of capitalism. Postmodern aesthet- logic oflate capitalism" (63).
ics-embodied in the exploration of images-and what Harvey treats as its com- Far from a new explanation of culture, however, Jameson's interpretation
plement-a concern for difference in social movements-aid and abet late employs a popular model of society that has become familiar from numerous analy-
capitalism's masking of new structures of oppression, operations that Harvey iden- ses of modernism: modernization is a socioeconomic process; modernity the expe-
tifies with fetishism. "Postmodern concerns for the signifier rather than the signi- rience of that process; and modernism the cultural expression of modernity. Such
fied;' he concludes, "the medium (money) rather than the message (social labor), an image of the social as composed of clearly demarcated levels overseen by the
the emphasis on fiction rather than function, on signs rather than things, on aes- economic one legitimates the refusal of difference in social theory. This image
thetics rather than ethics, suggest a reinforcement rather than a transformation of corresponds to a unitarian epistemology in which only one theory is authorized
the role of money as Marx depicts it" (102). to explain social relations of domination. As a model for theorizing postmodern-
Needless to say, Harvey's assessment of the :fragmentation that he believes is ism, this epistemology validates Jameson's failure to differentiate among diverse
explored and engendered in postmodern art and culture is negative-postrnodern- kinds of fragmentation. Primarily addressing the fragmentations caused by eco-
ism is a condition that we must escape. His judgment is twofold. Postmodern nomic restructuring, Jameson seems at first glance simply to disregard others. He
"superficiality," embodied in attention to images, conceals the underlying unity of appears, for one thing, to minimize the "fragmenting" effects of those political
capitalism. Likewise, granting conceptual autonomy to different social struggles or voices (feminist, gay, antiracist, postcolonial) that, by insisting that social subjects
theories fragments the only body of knowledge-Marxist metatheory-capable occupy situated rather than universal positions, challenge universalizing discourses.
of perceiving that unity. Postmodernism, Harvey concedes, exercises a degree of In addition, Jameson bypasses the "fragmenting" questions raised by re'cent
"positive influence" by bringing attention to race and gender, but it "takes matters psychoanalytic critiques of unitary subjectivity while himself reducing the psy-
too far" by not going far enough. "It takes them beyond the point where any chic to a metaphor for a socioeconomic condition and so dismissing questions of

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sexuality. 18 In the end, however, Jameson does not really ignore these voices or tional critique, critiques of representation) that explore art as a contingent relation
critiques. Because he assesses fragmentation negatively and treats this assessment as rather than a container of"immutable truths." Harvey moves toward greater com-
a foregone conclusion, he defmes these critiques as dangers to unified social strug- plexity when he states that aesthetic practice not only imitates but intervenes in
gles and stable subjects. His references to "homeopathic" methods of "undOing" social life; but, according to his definition of aesthetics, art intervenes only by
postmodernism express a desire to restore the subject to a lost position of mastery, affecting an exterior material world. "Changes in the way we imagine, think, plan
conceived of as a healthy place. Jameson, whose "Postmodernism" essay botrows and rationalize are bound," Harvey remarks, "to have material consequences" but
from urban spatial theories, has paid his debt twice over: he sanctions Harvey's themselves are not material (114).
dismissal of new social movements as fragmenting forces and lends authority to We have heard this account of art and society before. No matter how much
Harvey's selective, indeed amateurish, treatment of culture. it parades as a daring thesis, it can only be sustained by ignoring decades of work
The vagueness, even whimsy, that mark Harvey's approach to modern and in Western Marxism, cultural studies, art criticism, and film and feminist theory.
postmodern art contrast vividly with the precision of his economic and spatial This work has irrevocably altered how we define culture-as a social relation,
analyses-the book's most valuable contribution. Moving beyond mere eclecti- a meaning-producing activity, a material practice-problematizing the traditional
cism into the realm of error, Harvey's treatment of art is plagued by fallacies: equiv- boundaries dividing the "social sciences" from cultural disciplines. Harvey's de-
ocations (the failure. to distinguish between aesthetics and aestheticism, for fense of these boundaries is consistent with his other hierarchical categorizations
instance, or, for that matter, to recognize historical variations in defmitions of art); but disappointing in the context of current efforts to forge new interdisciplinary
inadequate information; 1'' inconsistencies (the routine assertion that postmodern- connections between urban and aesthetic discourses. For, in a sense, Harvey's re-
ism is a diverse phenomenon and simultaneous reduction of postmodemism to a jection of critical aesthetic theory also repudiates the possibilities and questions
single entity with a monolithic voice); and the use of misleading contexts that raised by his own work, and that of other scholars, in critical urban studies.
transform isolated quotations from "authorities" into supports for Harvey's The significance of materialist geography and of Harvey's role in its creation
arguments. and development are, by now, well known. Indeed, it is difficult to overestimate
The imbalance between Harvey's erudite treatment of political economy and either the impact that Harvey has had in his own field or the relevance of his work
geography, on the one hand, and his impoverished account of aesthetics, on the for professions that produce the built environment. His detailed theorization of
other, cannot be attributed to the inevitable perils that attend interdisciplinary the urban process under.capitalism remains required reading for anyone seeking to
scholarship. Rather, the book's reductive argument engenders an asymmetry that understand how space is socially-not naturally, technologically, or biologically-
mirrors Harvey's premise that relations between economic and cultural practices produced. His contextualization of contemporary urbanization within a political
are primarily a stable process of one-way determination. Within this deterministic framework of global restructuring has helped artists, planners, and architects ques-
framework, each practice retains an essential identity, constituted outside their in- tion the political implications of their roles in the design or decoration of urban
terrelationship. "Aesthetic theory," Harvey declares in an attempt to distinguish it spaces.
from social theory, "seeks out the rules that allow eternal and immutable truths to But the idea that the built environment is a product of capitalism, while
be conveyed in the midst of the maelstrom of flux and change" (205). A consum- overcoming the essentialist biases of traditional urban theory, hardly exhausts-the
mate expression of the tenets of mainstream idealist aesthetics, this statement takes topic of space as a social construction. Rather, the social constructionist thesis poses
no account, as we shall see, of recent materialist practices (site-specificity, institu- difficult questions similar to those that have occupied critical aesthetics as, over the

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last twenty years, it has elaborated the concept of the social production of art. Once (117). But to analyze the way in which space is produced in capital's image is not,
as Harvey assumes, to analyze the city as an image. Eliding the difference between
the city-like art-is no longer defined by transhistorical essences, is it social only
the two, The Condition of Postmodernity not only establishes a closure at the level
insofar as it reflects "real" social relations that reside elsewhere-in, for instance,
of political economy but, warding off different explanations of spatial relations,
the economic circumstances of its production? An affirmative answer, much like
simultaneously evades responsibility for the politics of its own representation.
the "solutions" to art-city relationships adopted in social art history, only reintro-
The book defends Marxism as a foundational metatheory yet denies that
duces idealism: built form remains essentially nonsocial, and social relations are
such a position is a "statement of total tmth" (355). Nonetheless, Harvey's dis-
detached from the physical city.
This problem troubles critical urban studies, and many scholars have tried to course is a totalizing representation insofar as it explains human history and society
as a whole unified by a single, fundamental antagonism. The claim to apprehend
escape the dilemma by proposing models .of reciprocal determination or of interac-
an objective and determinable reality underlying the apparent diversity of the social
tion between space and other components of the sociaL But the built environ-
field removes this explanation and the intellectual operations of those who "per-
ment-and visual or textual images of the city-can only be rescued from idealist
ceive" it from the contingencies of any particular social situation. Such a represen-
doctrines and analyzed as social in the first instance if, released from the grip of
determinism, they are recognized, as other cultural objects have been, as represen- tation produces universal knowledge, independent objects of knowledge, and all-
tations. Neither autonomous in the aestheticist sense-embodiments of eternal seeing subjects of knowledge. This subject position-the total vantage point-
created by relegating different perspectives to subordinate or competing positions,
aesthetic properties-nor social because produced by an external society, represen-
tations are not discrete objects at all but social relations, themselves productive of claims the power to harmonize conflicts by ordering them hierarchically and re-
meaning and subjectivity. If urban discourse wants to take account of this kind of ducing them to a predetermined norm. Harvey exercises this power at the very
moment he is most eager to demonstrate Marxism's capacity to tolerate differences.
sociospatial relation, it can only benefit from encounters with critical aesthetic
Metatheory, he concedes, has tended to "gloss over important differences" and
practice. For the critique of images as representations or signifying practices-
rather than as objects transparent to empirical referents or social truths-necessary "failed to pay attention to important disjunctions and details" (114). But, listing the
areas in which Marxism requires "development;' he asserts that "the importance of
fully to politicize urban discourse has already been forged in some of the postmod-
ern art that Harvey rejects and particularly in the feminist theories of representation recuperating such aspects of social organization as race, gender, religion, within the
overall frame if historical materialist enquiry (with its emphasis upon the power of money and
that have played such a key role in contemporary aesthetic production.
In certain ways, Harvey's urban theory helped make it possible to understand capital circulation) and class politics (with its emphasis upon the unity of the emancipatory
the city as a representation. Space, he said, is produced in the image of capital. struggle) cannot be overestimated" (355, my emphasis).
Were his ambitions more modest, this formulation would present fewer problems. This proposal integrates "various aspects of social organization" by trivializ-
It could help us analyze a crucial factor in the social organization of space. Com- ing them. Social stmggles, groups, and theories become part of a hierarchically
pelled, however, to make it explain everything-not only the sole cause of global differentiated unity in which, denied autonomy, they are ruled by the privileged
realm of political economy. Yet political economy does not demand such exclu-
spatial production but also the political meaning of the built environment and now
of art, architecture, and film in their entirety-Harvey positions all other factors, sions, nor is a totalizing perspective necessary to appreciate the totalizing ambitions
spatial discourses, and forms of knowledge as political escapism: they avoid "con- of global capital. What overidentification with power does such a project betray?
fronting the realities of political economy and the circumstances of global power" Should a critical theory mirror the system that it seeks to dismantle?

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Many critics think otherwise. Linda Nicholson and Nancy Fraser, arguing writes, "is to deepen and sharpen theory so that it can reach into realms that have
for a postmodern feminism and fully aware-like all socialist feminists-of the hitherto remained opaque and define new social practices that can integrate in the
significance of capitalism, suggest that attention to large-scale structures of domina- socialist project" (16). The colonizing language with which Harvey describes his
tion need not be jettisoned along with metatheory. 20 Neither must economic reali- theory's purported openness is fitting. The "discovery" of social elements that are
ties be the starting point of every social analysis. Ernesto Laclau proposes that then granted a place within a predetermined totality is actually a formula for exclu-
postmodernity is defined not by the disappearance of metanarratives but by a sion. This exclusion structures any discourse that aspires to know its object of study
"weakening of their absolutist character" or their claim to be grounded in an ob- completely. For once it is allowed that discursive practices constitute social mean-
jective presence that guarantees their truth. 21 Postmodernism, he suggests, is char- ing and identity, we can no longer relegate representation to a sphere outside the
acterized by a new metanarrative of the absence of foundational guarantees and social realm. Once it is recognized that, in the absence of a foundational presence,
the need to construct new bases for unity. Others, skeptical even about reconstitu- meaning emerges discursively (through the construction of relations, equivalences,
ted unities as the basis of political struggles, question whether change is mediated and exclusions), we know that every totality is incomplete and can be "completed"
through the totality at all. Paul Patton, for example, maintains that it is crucial for only by denying these differentiating processes.
specific-issue stmggles to resist absorption into larger unities. For Patton, the radi- Harvey voices such a denial when he speaks of the empty rooms that have
cal potential of these movements lies precisely in their rejection of totalization, had to be furnished within "the house of Marxist theory." 24 The architectural
which he analyzes as an Operation of power. He distinguishes between the "univer- metaphor-Marxism as a house-is apt. It expresses the stabilizing and unifying
salizability" of a perspective and the sense in which it may be called "totalizing." ambitions of Harvey's political discourse. As the classic image of a secure, enclosed
A universalizable perspective can be applied to the whole range of social phenom- interior, the house is also the paradigm of a self-contained order of meaning. Har-
ena, but vey's uncritical use of this metaphor demonstrates his habit of supporting argu-
ments by reasserting the very principles that have been questioned as oppressive.
A perspective is "of the totality" in a quite different sense to the extent He assumes that to compare Marxism to a house is to present it as a hospitable
that it purports to stand outside and oversee the different analyses of environment, but the comparison has less benevolent connotations. It makes do-
particular theories or to regulate the conflicting demands of particular mestic space the model of political space and, as a consequence, exposes the mascu-
social movements .... The injunction to adopt a global view, even if line force of Harvey's political theory. For one thing, the metaphorical house calls
it is initially only in respect of the conflicting needs of other oppressed up images of the gender relationships that take place inside literal houses-the
groups, is ultimately the injunction to govern a multiplicity of inter- oppression of, and violence against, women. But architecture theorist Mark Wig-
ests. The position of the totality is the position of power. 22 ley, who has analyzed the house as a figure of philosophy, argues that oppression
and violence are not simply events occurring in the space of the house. The space
The position of the totality differs from that of new social movements, and "the of the house is constituted by-and therefore inseparable from-relationships
specificity and irreducibility of the minority position have to be defended against themselves bound up with hierarchal constructions of sexual difference. In other
all attempts to abolish that difference." 23 words: Harvey uses the house as a metaphor for a space-Marxist theory-which,
Harvey, disregarding these nuanced debates and refusing to relinquish the he says, is capable of explaining the politics of space. But he forgets that the house
polarities of his social theory, in a remarkably circular argument tries to remedy his itself is a representation of a space already organized by spatial politics.
theory's errors by extending its grasp. "The task within the Marxian camp," he

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Harvey presents Marxism as an interior whose boundaries are secured by a struggles must be articulated at given historical moments rather than presupposed
foundational meaning, or presence, rather than by spatial relationships. Harvey's to exist, determined by a fundamental social antagonism-class struggle. But indi-
house is, then, what Wigley calls "a domestic space that attempts to domesticate vidual social groups also have no essential identities. They, too, are formed only
space." 2 5 It attempts to repress the fact that it is a spatial construction. The house of through relationships. The practice of articulating relationships-and simultane-
Marxism functions as the image of presence only "by repressing something about ously modifying the social identities formed through relations-offers yet another
houses" 26 -that their closure is not the stable effect of a foundation preceding alternative to Harvey's political options: a priori unity or random fragmentation. 28
representation but rather the unstable effect of representation. The house divides The democratic project has also been fostered in postmodern art practices
an inside from an outside, but since the "outside" is constitutive it can never really informed by feminist theories of vision. Harvey, as we have seen, ignores these
be excluded, only domesticated or enclosed. Wigley contends, moreover, that en- practices, even though visual images are one of his principle objects of study and
closure cannot be detached from subordination of the feminine: "The classical despite the fact that Cindy Sherman's photographs, which for him epitomize post-
figure of the feminine is that which lacks its own secure boundaries, producing modernism, have figured prominently in critiques of visual representation. Harvey
insecurity by disrupting boundaries, and which therefore must be housed by mas- isolates work like Sherman's from its specific historical context: the contemporary
culine force that is no more than the ability to maintain rigid limits or, more development of politicized visual art production. Elsewhere, I have drawn a parallel
precisely, the effect of such limits, the representation of a space." 27 The house between the trajectory followed by this art and by discourses about the social pro-
brings the feminine intO accommodation with the home environment, with, that duction of art, on the one hand, and the unfolding of a social production of space
is, the phallic regime of enclosure and completion. perspective in urban studies, on the other. 29 But the two developments may be less
When the house in question is the house of Marxist political theory, one similar than I thought. Harvey's account of postmodernism establishes an antago-
feminine element that must be domesticated is feminism itself No wonder many nistic relationship between them, setting up the new aesthetic work as an opponent
feminists are reluctant to move into-let alone decorate-the Marxist house. and using critical spatial discourse to build a protective formation against it. But
They know what violence maintains its harmony. They do not necessarily reject Harvey's rejection of contemporary art does not represent a split between urban
the insights of Marxism but, questioning the epistemological basis and political studies and cultural theory. Rather, it signals an interdisciplinary alliance between
stakes of a transcendental Marxism, recognize that its illusions are merely com- particular groups within each field. For certain left art critics also reject the compli-
pounded by greater comprehensiveness and can only be dismantled by con- cations that feminist and other critiques of representation have introduced into the
structing more democratic forms of knowledge. social construction of art thesis.
This project has been undertaken in new social theories to which Harvey's Harvey's cavalier treatment of postmodern art cannot, then, be ascribed to
book remains, at least overtly, oblivious. Proponents of radical democracy such as his status as a stranger in a new discipline, although as a nonspecialist purporting
Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau suggest that Marxism transform itself, rather to explain cultural developments he has abdicated the responsibility to learn about
than everything around it, into a component of the democratic revolution that, aesthetic discourse. Rather, Harvey's careless approach, including the manner in
though initiated by modernity, is today thwarted by major tenets of Enlightenment which it exempts itself from interdisciplinary obligations, issues from a defense of
philosophy: abstract universalism, essentialist concepts of totality, notions of unitary specialization inherent in a social theory that privileges the social-science disci-
subjectivity. Mouffe and Laclau reverse Harvey's proposal: socialism, reduced to plines. Moreover, Harvey's disapproval of contemporary culture stems not from a
human size, is integrated within new social practices. Links between different social critical approach to art history but from acceptance of the mainstream assumptions

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informing that discipline. It is precisely these assumptions that much of the art he natural relation between images and reality by calling attention to the socially
rejects has challenged. coded nature of visual representation. They do so, however, not to uncover an
Harvey recognizes that postmodern artists have directed their attention to a authentic significance or empirical referent that lies beneath a false meaning but
study of images, rather than to what he calls "social reality" or "social meanings" to problematize referentiality. They also question the power exercised through nat-
outside images, but he does not understand why. He could, however, have easily uralizing representations that disguise the image's social character. These artists fo-
discovered the reasons by consulting the extensive body of literature about the cus on the image's construction-its own political relations and relations to other
politics of representation, a topic addressed in numerous fields over the last two practices. Perhaps the most radical challenge to beliefs in coherent and objective
decades. While critical work on images is far from monolithic, it generally shares images has been leveled by artists who have used psychoanalytic theory to expose
at least one concern: it questions the assumption that reality and representation are the repressed constmctions that produce illusions of coherence. These artists stress
given and discrete categories and rejects the definition of representations as mere the role played by vision in constituting the human subject and explore operations
appearances opposed to, and devalued by contrast with, "reality." Critical artists specific to visual images that, they hold, introduce us into the field of fantasy that
investigate representations precisely because what is commonly called reality- Jacques Lacan calls "the imaginary," the register where the subject seeks to conjure
social meanings, relations, values, identities-is constituted in a complex of repre- an experience of immediacy and plenitude through complex mechanisms ofiden-
sentations. This does not mean, as is frequently charged, that there is no world tification and internalization. 30 Whether or not they address such issues, most artists
external to thought-~nly that no order of meaning exists in itself. No founding explicitly engaged in the politics of representation call attention to the constmcted
presence, unconditional source, or privileged ground guarantees the authority of character of their own images. They reflect critically on their own activity of
meanings constituted apart from discursive interventions. Nor is the stress on rep- meaning production instead of perpetuating the belief that, as :vanguard figures,
resentation a desertion of politics; it enlarges and recasts our conception of the they transmit superior perceptions of preexisting aesthetic or political realities to
political to include the forms of discourse. We might even say that it is thanks to others who cannot see them.
the deconstruction of absolute grounds of meaning and exterior viewpoints that Harvey concludes that attention to images means that postmodern art forms
politics becomes a necessity. When such nonrelational grounds and viewpoints "necessarily turn inward upon themselves" (323), but art involved with the politics
are questioned, references to meanings that precede representation emerge as an of images does the opposite: precisely by acknowledging that the image is a social
authoritarian form of representation deployed in battles to name reality. There is relation, it chooses to be openly in the world, intervening in diverse political
no unproblematic, simply given representation of politics but there is always a spaces. Harvey misses the point for two reasons. On the one hand, he believes that
politics of representation. visual representations are no problem. Images either reveal or conceal empirical
Contemporary artists intervene in the politics of representation in diverse referents-events, objects, social relations. They correspond, adequately or inade-
ways, which I can enumerate here only schematically, not even representatively. quately, to nondiscursive external objects. He describes his own social theory as
Recognizing the power of images, many artists contest the meanings and identities precisely a visualization, comparing the perception of the social totality to sighting
produced for oppressed groups by stereotypical or official depictions, and some "the city as a whole." Insofar as adequacy is equated with the ability to "see" the
seek to place the means of representation in the hands of groups marginalized foundation of totality, only the construction of society as an image is, for Harvey,
by cultural institutions. Others analyze the instrumentality of aesthetic images for an adequate representation.
dominant political and economic forces. Some artists undermine the apparently

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Yet Harvey is ambivalent about visual images and, on the other hand, they Sherman produced a large number of photographs, each one called Untitled (Film
present him with nothing but problems. He finds only insufficiency, absence, frag- Still). The photos portray a woman-the model is always Sherman herself-in a
mentation. Something is always "missing" in the field of vision. If his introduction variety of generic movie scenes. They appropriate and make visible the conven-
to The Urban Experience defined metatheory as visual, The Condition of Postmodernity tions that structure cinematic images of femininity: lighting, gesture, pose, camera
defends its supremacy over the visual. Ignoring the contradiction between his dis- angle, focus, framing, address to the viewer. Shem1an's Film Stills. were part of a
trust of visual images as inadequate and his preference for visualization as the only group of works-by such artists as Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Richard Prince,
adequate method of social analysis, Harvey now wants to demonstrate the poverty and Sherrie Levine, to name only a few-for which, nearly twenty years ago,
of all visual images in comparison with other modes of representation. "Cinema;' many critics first used the term postmodern. In 1979 Douglas Crimp called these
he writes, "is ... the supreme maker and manipulator of images ... and the very works, collectively, "pictures," a term that in retrospect conveys their most salient
act of using it well always entails reducing the complex stories of daily life to a trait: they are culturally recognizable, often mass-media images. 31 They were pic-
sequence of images upon a depthless screen." Bound to a depth model of meaning, tures and they were postmodern, we felt, because they effected a break with the
Harvey does not acknowledge even the possibility of other spatial configurations- beliefs that officially defined artistic modernism, highly idealist and fetishistic
the complexity of cinematic space as the effect of montage, for example-or the beliefs.
existence of other discourses about space-such as film theory's complex analysis Modernist doctrine was based on Kantian concepts of aesthetic disinterest-
of film's intricate, highly structured spatial relation with viewers. Equating literal edness-the perception of an object in and for itself-and was largely codified
depthlessness with intellectual and political shallowness, Harvey concludes that im- in the writings of American formalist critics, especially Clement Greenberg. But
ages inevitably mask the underlying totality of the social field. Marx himself, Har- Greenberg's underlying assumptions embodied Western society's most treasured
vey says, beliefs about its high culture and had long dominated writing about art, whether
it appeared in scholarly literature or popular media. Victor Burgin has usefully
would surely accuse those postmodernists who proclaim the "impene- outlined the axioms of modernism: Art is a self-referential and autonomous sphere
trability of the other" as their creed, of overt complicity with the fact of human activity. It characterizes humanity since the dawn of civilization. All art
of fetishism and of indifference towards underlying social meanings. shares a universal, timeless aesthetic essence and expresses a universal, timeless hu-
The interest of Cindy Sherman's photographs (or any postmodern man essence that is also the essence of civilization. The visual artist does so through
novel for that matter) is that they focus on masks without commenting forms that are purely visual and therefore separate from the everyday world of
directly on social meanings other than on the activity of masking social and politicallife. 32
itself (101) Art's autonomy and universality purportedly inhere in the aesthetic fom1 of
the artwork-the relations among the work's internal elements-that, according
fEMINISM: A SHORT HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY ART to Greenbergian modernism, is essentially detached from the circumstances of the
work's production, circulation, and reception. The art object, container of an irre-
Harvey's accusation of fetishism, leveled against Sherman via Marx, is so seriously ducible and universal essence, is a self-governing totality generated by sovereign,
confused that it can be untangled only by surveying, no matter how briefly, the universal artists and "beheld" by equally autonomous viewers. In the moment of
aesthetic context within which Sherman's work emerged. From 1978 to 1980, aesthetic contemplation, object and viewer are elevated to a realm divorced from

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Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #21, 1978 (photo courtesy Cindy Sher-
man and Metro Pictures.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #32, 1979 (photo courtesy Cindy Sher-
man and Metro Pictures).
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #35, 1979 (photo courtesy Cindy Sher-
man and Metro Pictures).

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #48, 1979 (photo courtesy Cindy Sher-
man and Metro Pictures).
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society, at least society understood as a set of historical, conflictual, and mutable stances of aesthetic production and reception relegated to a space outside the
relations. Within the dominant story of modernism, social conditions might influ- artwork's frame. To demonstrate, for example, that aesthetic perception is not dis-
ence art but artworks ultimately transcend historical contingencies. Likewise, the interested but contingent on the conditions in which art is viewed, artists made
history of art chronicles the unfolding of pure aesthetic ideas. Transcendence- works designed specifically for and physically inseparable from their sites. Site-
ensured by the artwork's possession of a universal essence-harmonizes all art specific works demonstrated that the art object does not have an autono-
mous meaning that remains intact in changing spatial or temporal circumstances.
objects.
What else, after all, but the possession of intrinsic, universal qualities could The meaning of art is formed in relation to its framing conditions and, as
bring objects from diverse historical periods and places into a single physical or a consequence, alters with the spaces it occupies and the positions of viewing
discursive space-the art museum, let us say, or an art-history textbook? The ques- subjects.
tion is not simply rhetorical. It was posed in the late 1960s as part of a radical shift Contextual art insisted on the specificity rather than universality, contin-
from normative analyses of art to critiques of art's social functions. What else in- gency rather than autonomy, and fluidity rather than stability of perception and
deed? To assert that the meaning of art derives from absolute sources is to conceal meaning, but essentialism often reentered early contextual art in the assumption
art's social production-the discursive processes and political relations that position that the spaces of aesthetic perception are politically and socially neutral. Eventually
objects as art. As one conceptual artist remarked in 1974, echoing Marx's critique artists broadened the concept of site to embrace not only the physical or perceptual
of the conunodity form, objects do not transform themselves into works of art: context of the work's exhibition but the site's symbolic, social, and political mean-
"They cannot elevate themselves from the host of man-made objects simply on ings as well as the historical circumstances within which artwork, spectator, and
the basis of some inherent qualities." 33 Like the idealist paradigms that dominated place are situated. Some artists explored connections between artworks and art
explanations of spatial organization in urban sociology, the notion of art as the institutions, on the one hand, and political contexts, on the other, exposing the
embodiment of absolute values obscured the historical conditions of art's exis- relations between the two traditionally cloaked by illusions of aesthetic autonomy.
tence-the specific social processes that endow objects with aesthetic value and For the authority and prestige that art enjoyed under modernism, based on its
produce them as art. Aesthetic meaning appeared as an ahistorical, spiritual prop- supposedly universal forms, actually allowed art to serve as an alibi for all kinds of
erty contained in objects themselves, and therefore the particular institutions that powerful forces-colonial conquest, urban redevelopment projects, multinational
defined art assumed the semblance of universality. corporations cum art sponsors.
In the late 1960s and 1970s artists challenged the dogma that aesthetic ob- But art is not simply an object susceptible to manipulation by preexisting
jects contain fixed meanings by exploring and revealing specific cultural processes interests or social forces. To draw this conclusion from the critique of artistic au-
of meaning production. In art discourse, the antiuniversalizing impulses of post- tonomy is to hand over contextual art to a new form of essentialism. Art per se
modernism took the form of a multifaceted investigation of art's social production. remains socially neutral; art and society remain discrete identities. While the belief
Postmodern practices, include what is loosely called contextual art, a tenn that in art's isolation from a fundamentally and properly social sphere lingers in many
initially referred to art '.that incorporates its exhibition context-museum, gallery, current formulations of art's social character, other artists and critics have extended
corporation, urban space-into the artwork itsel£ Contextual practices attempted the materialist aesthetic critique. Those practices that I have identified under the
to erode the aura of isolation that aesthetic institutions have traditionally con- rubric "the critique of representation" examine art as itself a social relation, a revi-
structed around art and to draw attention to, rather than divert it from, the circum- sion that recasts the identity of "the social" as well.

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Feminist theory, in particular, amplified but also problematized the material- sought to undermine modernism's concealment of art's social character by focusing
ist practices of the 1970s and 1980s by introducing gender, and then sexual differ- on what Greenbergian criticism excluded, the subject matter-often referred to as
ence and representation, into aesthetic discussion. Feminists, of course, had been the "content" ~of aesthetic images. Yet because the critique restricted content to
arguing since the early 1960s that art's celebrated universality and its corollary, the the iconography of images and form to the internal relation of elements within
unitary aesthetic tradition, are myths. One had only to visit a museum or to open images, it actually preserved a modernist division between content and form and,
H. W.Janson's History cif"Art to realize that women, who rarely figured in the canon like modernism, reduced visual meaning to what takes place within the borders of
of "great artists," figured prominently-and differently from men-as the subject the image. Form per se remained politically innocent or was understood as social
matter of painting and sculpture. Something other than pure, disinterested vision, only insofar as it was the vehicle for an externally produced social message. But
we realized, must be taking place in art institutions. the politics of vision is not only about what happens inside the image.· It is about
During this period, some feminists tried to challenge dominant artistic por- the constitution of the image. The positive/negative critique evades a crucial femi-
trayals of women by criticizing "negative" images and substituting "positive" ones. nist issue: the status of woman as an image when images are understood not as
While these efforts helped provoke awareness that women have been relegated to static containers of meaning but as positions produced in hierarchical relations with
circumscribed social roles in so-called universal art history, the discussion of images viewing subjects. The question of the role played by vision in producing and main-
as positive or negative poses its own problems. It assumes, for one thing, a consen- taining sexual difference emerged only when images and viewers were defined in
sus about what is negative and positive and, moreover, limits images to two catego- a mutually constitutive relation. Form, including the artwork's connection to a
ries: stereotypical (negative) or realistic (positive). More importantly, as film viewer, and content, understood as the meanings produced in the viewing rela-
theorist Teresa de Lauretis argues: tionship, were not only indissolubly linked but ineluctably political.
In the 1970s feminists in numerous cultural fields mounted a critique of
Such discussions rely on an often crude opposition of positive and neg- visual representation that investigated a problem newly broached as "woman as
ative, which is not only uncomfortably close to popular stereotypes image" rather than "images of women." 35 The two formulations embody divergent
such as the good guys versus the bad guys, or the nice girl versus the theoretical assumptions, first about the relation between images and reality and
bad woman, but also contains a less obvious and more risky implica- second about the character of femininity. While the "images of women" approach
tion. For it assumes that images are directly absorbed by the viewers, measures images against real female identities forged outside representations, iden-
that each image is immediately readable and meaningful in and of tities merely reflected in images, the "woman as image" approach treats visual
itself, regardless of its context or of the circumstances of its produc- images as part of a complex of representations producing femininity as a relational,
tion, circulation, and reception. Viewers, in turn, are presumed to be rather than fixed, identity. The proposal that aesthetic images should be investi-
at once historically innocent and purely receptive, as if they too existed gated to reveal how they mirror or distort the identities of real women is frequently
in the world immune from other social practices and discourses. 34 offered as an alternative to aestheticism but does not radically challenge essentialist
notions oCaesthetic meaning: the ultimate source of the image's meaning is merely
This assumption, that the core identities of both images and viewers are transferred from a neutral aesthetic sphere to a proper political one. "Society"
stable and absolute, united the otherwise conflicting realms of modernist criticism substitutes for "nature" with the viewer now fixed by social, rather than spiritual,
and some of its early feminist opposition. The "positive/negative images" critique essences.

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BOYS TOWN

Two developments intersected, then, in feminist critiques of representation. desire for wholeness. It replaces in fantasy the penis, the "lack" of which woman's
One was the abandonment of notions of essential, fixed femininity-biological or body represents to man. Castration fear is actualized, not initiated, by the male
social-and the concomitant examination of femininity as a social concept pro- child's sight of an anatomical difference in which the female appears to be "cas-
duced only in its difference from masculinity. The other was the postmodern rejec- trated," and the fetish is set up to deny that sight, to ward off the knowledge of
tion of the idea that representation is transparent to meanings and subjectivities. difference. An object of devotion, the fetish-the penis replacement~is a frag-
New feminist critiques still challenged, to be sure, the authoritarian impulses of ment that promises wholeness in place of lack, presence where absence has been
biological determinism, but beyond that they excavated the less obvious dogma- "perceived." It is an idealized self-image testifying at once to the threat and denial
tism of certain social constructionist positions. We arrived, as Craig Owens wrote, of castration, to the recognition and disavowal of difference.
"at an apparent crossing of the feminist critique of patriarchy and the postmodern- Raising fetishism from the level of a private perversion to a mass-cultural
ist critique of representation." 36 phenomenon, from a stage of individual development to a representational system,
The conjuncture was more intricate than Owens's formulation suggests. For some theorists analyzed cultural images of woman as fetish objects: arrangements
if sexual identity is engendered neither by nature nor by an extradiscursive social of the woman's body as a complete and pleasurable, rather than horrible, sight.
world, then femininity is produced in representation through differentiation. The Freud himself had discussed one example of such a collective, iconic representation
image of man depends ~:m the image of woman. At stake in defining femininity as of woman as image-the decapitated head of Medusa, her hair composed of
a position in representation is not the revelation of true identities for men and snakes, that turns men to stone. Symbolizing the horror of castration, Medusa's
women but an exploration of existing representations of sexual difference. Since head nevertheless offers multiple replacements of the. penis as well as the promise
relational approaches to identity entail the disappearJnce of exteriority, they intro- of erection-petrification-and thereby soothes, by means of a sight, the anxiety
duce subjects who, never outside political conflicts, are always involved: Who produced by a sight.
speaks? From where? How is this position produced? The complete, masculine The fetishistic representation of woman as an idealized image of man aims
subject can only be produced as such by assuming the power to represent others in to reassure viewers of their own perfection, but not only the iconography of
various forms of domination and conquest-as negative, complement, self-image. woman offers this illusory reassurance. The visual form of the self-contained art-
The image of woman in patriarchal constructions of sexual difference c·annot work, unified by a transcendent property, is also designed to ensure the authority
then simply be referred back to sociologically constituted women but is, rather, a and wholeness of the viewing subject. The structure of the fetish, a fragment form-
signifier of femininity as incompleteness, inadequacy, lack. Using psychoanalysis as ing a self-contained whole, is also the structure of the so-called autonomous aes-
a discourse about the construction of sexual difference, feminists have explored the thetic object, which, unmodified by what lies outside its frame, "denies;' as Victor
instrumentality of this image for constructions of masculine subjectivity. At an early Burgin puts it, "that there is anything lacking in the field of vision." 38 The under-
stage in the investigation of woman as image, feminists turned to Freud's analysis standing that images are relations of hierarchical differentiation taking place not
of sexual fetishism, finding a model of a representational economy in which mas- only between objects depicted within images but between images and viewers
culine desire achieves representation through the repression of difference. Freud's strikes at the very heart of the belief that images are transparent pictures of the
essays about fetishism, "Medusa's Head" and "Fetishism;' made vision central to world with an intrinSic content discernible by stable viewers. Feminist explorations
the establishment of sexual difference. 37 A fetish object, as Freud defined it, substi- of vision suggested, on the contrary, that purportedly independent images univer-
tutes for something perceived as "missing," something whose absence threatens the salize their subjects through the conquest of difference.

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MEN IN SPACE

The materialist and feminist ideas about imiges briefly sketched here meet Shennan does not treat the image as an object that reveals or conceals the interior
in their critique of the fetishism of aesthetic objects. Both maintain that images are identity-or underlying social meaning-of the person depicted. She explores the
constructed relationships whose meaning arises in a historical meeting of the image as a site where identity is produced as an interior. Interior identity, she reveals,
image, the viewer, and the spatiotemporal circumstances of their existence and is is an effect of cinematic and photographic signifiers-or, by extension, of other
material processes of representation. Her female characters do not "have" an inte-
therefore uncertain and mutable.
How, then, can we interpret David Harvey's charge that Cindy Shennan's rior character concealed by a mask. Interiority is, rather, a function of the mask-
photography is complicitous with fetishism and indifferent to underlying mean- a social effect that marks the surface of the female body. Since the feminine is
ings? Work like Sherman's appropriates recognizable cultural images because it is culturally coded as the very figure of the presence of interior truths, Sherman's
grounded in the premise that meaning is culturally and conventionally-not indi- Film Stills not only call into question specific images of women but disrupt the
vidually, universally, and spontaneously-produced. Sherman uses or refers to re- image of femininity itsel£
producible and collectively received media such as filin and photography. Since To the extent that Sherman's work deals with masking in the sense of con-
these media are less burdened with connotations of spirituality and individualism cealment, masking designates the illusion of fundamental meanings within or be-
than traditional painting, sculpture, or "art photography," Sherman counteracts hind the image, an illusion that disguises-masks-the production of meaning by
essentialist notions of art production. In addition, Sherman's overt recycling of images and viewers. The "possession" of meaning by the image is as much a fantasy
cinematic and photographic codes sharply diverges from the conventions of docu- projection as the possession of value by the commodity, which, as Harvey knows, is
mentary photography, which, at least in its traditional forms, promises unmediated a crucial component of fetishism. Fetishism of the image, referring to the "magical
referentiality and transparency to its object, suggesting that the "unmanipulated" thinking" that separates meaning from projection, designates the search for, and
photograph offers incontrovertible evidence of the reality it depicts. But critical devotion to, a real content behind the form and the concomitant erasure or denial
photography, which foregrounds photographic construction, reveals that such of the signs of that search. Masking emerges in Sherman's work as the procedure
truth claims are their own kinds of f1ctions: photographs are decontextualized frag- of framing objects and endowing them with "independent" identities-objects in
ments, constituted through the absence of their referents and themselves constitut- whose presence the controlling subject can develop.
ing, rather than simply reproducing, reality. Sherman's photographs address a The reference to Sherman's art as fetishistic is yet another example of the
specific reality-the production of woman as a cultural category. By highlighting relations of difference that structure Harvey's discourse. It represses Sherman's spe-
and undermining the codes that construct feminine identity in a range of visual cific object of investigation. It ignores particular cultural discourses about fetishism
practices, by interfering with the smooth transmission of their messages, Sherman and does not distinguish among different forms of images. It fails to appreciate
exposes the processes by which feminine identity is socially produced as natural. different theories of fetishism and, by positing a reality behind the image, disavows
In Harvey's view, fetishistic images conceal "underlying social meanings" the author's own production of meaning. Most clearly, in other words, Harvey's
behind the activity of "masking." Sherman's photographs, he says, "mask the per- accusation reveals the fetishism of his own representation.
son" (316). Harvey's criticism implies that images of women should unmask femi- Jean Baudrillard in his early work cautioned that such reversals would occur
nine identities that, although "social;' precede representation, but Sherman's work in all critiques of fetishism that deny fetishism's place in a structure of desire: "The
locates fetishism precisely in this belief in preexisting and unambiguous meanings. term fetishism," he warned, with the exception of the Freudian concept of the

243
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 MEN IN SPACE

fetish, "almost has a life of its own .... Instead of functioning as a metalanguage
for the magical thinking of others, it turns against those who use it and surrepti-
39 CHINATOWN, PART FouR? WHAT jAKE FoRGETS
tiously exposes their own magical thinking."
Sherman's Film Stills provoke an awareness of the psychic investments struc- ABOUT DOWNTOWN

turing fetishistic portrayals and so unmask the desires that propel quests for real
meaning-in images, in "woman." British cultural critic Judith Williamson de-
scribes how the Film Stills both elicit and fmstrate this search. Shennan exhibits
multiple images, and her work consists not of the production of any single picture
but of the relationship among them all. Individual photos depict mutually exclusive
female identities. Each is Sherman herself and seems 'to convey a single, essential
identity-the "real" Sherman-but none can actually be "the real thing" precisely
because they all promise to be. They are always and never her. Sherman thus turns
viewers' attention back on themselves and on their relation to the image, stressing
Lately, writers have been comparing the texts of critical urban studies with literary
the attempt to fix meaning. How do we look, and what are we looking for? "I
or ftlm noir and describing urban spatial theorists as noir detectives, especially as
think;' writes Williamson, "that this false search for the 'real' her is exactly what
hard-boiled private eyes. It is hardly surprising that some urban scholars feel an
the work is about, and it leads people ... right up the garden path. The attempt
affinity for the tough-guy crime story. Given the centrality of the city as both scene
to find the 'real' Cindy Sherman is unfulfillable, just as it is for anyone, but what's
40 and object of noir investigation, the analogy practically suggests itself. In 1934
so interesting is the obsessive drive to fmd that identity."
Raymond Chandler wrote that the "mean" urban settings of early hard-boiled
What Harvey cannot locate in Sherman's photographs and, more broadly, in
detective novels-by contrast with the genteel environments typical of classic
postmodern culture-what he takes them to task for concealing-is not the real
whodunits-attest to the new genre's realism, bringing out the sociological impli-
woman but another fantasy: a preexisting and directly accessible social reality be-
cations of the theme of murder. "The realist in murder," says Chandler, "writes of
hind the image. The quest for that meaning parallels Harvey's search for social
a world in which gangsters can rule nations and almost mle cities ... where the
unity behind fragmentation and behind what he considers to be the illusions of
mayor of your town may have condoned murder as an instrument of money-
difference. He finds it not in the world but in his image of the world-his social
making." 1 What, then, could be more obvious than the resemblance between noir
theory. Feminist and other antiessentialist projects that assert the inadequacy of all
detectives unmasking the power of money and critics of the capitalist city? Guided
representations are the casualty of that theory, but they also hold a key to its secrets.
by a sense of geographic competence, they move warily through treacherous urban
Harvey, in other words, may not consider feminism worth knowing about, but
spaces-landscapes veiled by deceptive appearances, where almost no one speaks
feminism, while it hardly knows everything, knows something about him.
the truth-to trace the histories of violence that have unfolded in space and, more-
over, in the economic production of space.
The depiction of urban scholars as streetwise sleuths differs from other refer-
ences to noir sprinkled throughout recent urban analysis. Occasionally, for in-
stance, critics have cited noir descriptions of cities-like Chandler's melancholic

244
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MEN IN St•t\CE

portrait of Los Angeles's Bunker Hill as "lost town, shabby town, crook town"- of the hard-boiled detective, the character who, undismayed by violence, embod-
to enliven their own accounts of city neighborhoods and, more importantly, to ies what Chandler considered the genre's essence~ the quality of redemption in a
counteract the optimistic rhetoric surrounding such brutal urban processes as the violent world. "Down these mean streets;' Chandler famously wrote, "a man must
1980s redevelopment of downtown Los Angeles. Perhaps such quotations, merely go who is not himself mean .... He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a
by their presence, associate urban analysis with the knowing stance of a Philip complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man." 2 A figure in a land-
Marlowe, Chandler's model private investigator. Only recently, however, has the scape, the detective is passionately bound up with, yet independent of, the space
noir detective story been invoked expressly as an image of radical spatial theory's of the city. Urban theory's embrace of this figure invites us to explore, by analogy,
the mutually constitutive and ambivalent relationship betvveen the scholarly inves-
own activity.
In many respects, the metaphor is a natural. Yet it is only possible to assume tigator and his objeCt of scrutiny. How do images of the city, suppressing the evi-
that nair and urban theory easily share a vision of the city-and that, consequently, dence of this reciprocity and giving the impression that they simply offer access to
hard-boiled private eyes and urban scholars are kindred spirits-by ignoring at the real world, produce the "complete man?" How does "urban reality" invent
least one dissimilarity. While nair, notable for its images of women, routinely iden- the hard-boiled urban theorist? With the help of nair, we might even begin to
tifies the dangers of the city with the sexuality of its femme fatales, the new urban connect sexuality with the desexualized spaces of the city as they so often appear
theory endowed with nair's mantle just as readily detaches space from sexuality in new urban theory.
and, for that matter, barely mentions women at all. Of course, this difference from Geographer Derek Gregory has taken a step in this direction in an article
nair on the level of overt content hardly means that urban analysis is innocent of fittingly tided "Chinatown, Part Three? Soja and the Missing Spaces of Social The-
either gender relations or constructions of sexual difference. The popularity of the ory." 3 Gregory draws the detective-urban-theorist comparison satirically in order
tough-guy metaphor itself suggests that in urban theory precisely the absence of to criticize Edward Soja's book, Postmodern Geographies. 4 Soja is a leading figure of
the topic of sexuality gives us the first clue to its presence. But if in film noir the the neo-Marxist school of urban research located in Los Angeles-quintessential
femme £1.tale is conventionally killed off or otherwise punished as the narrative noir territory-and Gregory's opening vignette casts him as a Southern California
unfolds, in urban theory's version she meets her inevitable demise before the story operative bent on solving the dual mysteries of social theory and urban geography.
begins. No matter how apparently transparent, then, the image of urban theorists "I begin in this way," explains Gregory, "because it conveys ... what I take to be
as noir detectives entails-and in this way is, though unwittingly, nair-like-some the essence of Postmodern Geographies." 5 Examining the geography of Soja's text,
mysterious disappearances themselves worthy of investigation. Gregory concludes that, by adhering to a belief in the existence of a political-
It may seem fanciful to pursue an inquiry into the likelihood of a relationship economic foundation unifYing social and urban space, Soja, despite his claim to
between a ftctional character and an urban scholar. Taken seriously, however, the embrace postmodern "fragmentation," actually produces an imaginary totalization
conceit may prove more telling than its proponents suspect. For the trope of noir of the city. This replete image of Los Angeles depends on the construction of an
detection, which presents urban discourse as a disinterested search for the hidden external vantage point; the subject ofSoja's representation exercises a disembodied,
truth of .the city, also has the capacity to dismantle this claim. The comparison controlling look, that of the detective. For Gregory, the detective represents the
suggests, that is, that the subject of urban spatial discourse (as distinguished from subject who stands outside space, assuming a position of mastery.
the actual urban theorist) is itself a fiction. For Chandler, the supreme achievement But the title of Gregory's article is not only a parody. It is borrowed from,
of realistic crime stories is not the reproduction of urban reality but the invention and pays tribute to, the work of Mike Davis, an important urban theorist whose

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 CHINATOWN, PAnT Foun?
MEN tN SPACE

No doubt, the book's candid fascination with nair sensibility inspires such descrip-
earlier article, "Chinatown, Part Two? The 'Internationalization' of Downtown Los
tions. Stylistically, Davis's language recalls what nair criticism conventionally terms
Angeles," in turn pays homage to Roman Polanski's nair revival film set in 1920s
the "gritty realism" of the urban tough-guy novel. His atmospheric descriptions
Los Angeles. 6 Gregory uses Davis's essays on Los Angeles as a counterpoint to
of Los Angeles rival film nair's celebrated high-contrast visual style. More to the
Postmodern Geographies. Like Soja, Davis stresses the political economy of socio-
point, nair is one pole of a thematic division within which Davis frames his picture
spatial restructuring. Unlike Soja, he also pays attention to the specific struggles
of Los Angeles. The book's first chapter, "Sunshine or Noir?" examines how suc-
and distinctive cultures of L.A.'s third world, struggles whose obliteration, Gregory
cessive generations of intellectuals related to Los Angeles. Davis constructs a typol-
argues, is the very condition ofSoja's visualizing representation. For Gregory, these
ogy of cultural representations of L.A., a city that, he says, is "infinitely envisioned."
struggles and cultures exemplifY what Michel de Certeau calls ground-level prac-
Indeed, "it has come to play the double role of utopia and dystopia for advanced
tices or "tactics of lived space;' activities that resist the regulatory control implicit
capitalism" in cultural productions whose opposing outlooks Davis labels, respec-
in aerial perspectives. 7 Gregory adopts de Certeau's-infiuential streets/heights dual-
tively, "sunshine" and "noir." 8 Davis carefully distinguishes among a variety of
ism as a framework for criticizing nco-Marxist geography's own discursive spa-
tendencies within the "complex corpus of ... noir," which exemplifies the "acute
tializations. By operating at street level, Gregory says, or, more exactly, by adding
critiques" of late-capitalist culture generated in Los Angeles. In the hands of "lef-
an account of local, resistant practices to an overarching political economic frame-
tish auteurs noirs/' he concludes, film nair, mirrored in 1940s hardboiled L.A. writ-
work, Davis avoids arranging the city -into an image and consequently relinquishes
ing, "sometimes approached a kind of Marxist cinema manque" (40-41). Over the
the position of the detective. Yet there is an incongruity in Gregory's trenchant
years, it has even "come to function as a surrogate public history" that contests the
critique-a contradiction that usefully undermines the streets/heights opposition.
powerful "city myth" constmcted by L.A.'s "official dream machinery" (24).
For the milieu of the nair investigator, Gregory's symbol of the controlling look,
Associating his own alternative history of L.A. with nair fictions, Davis seems
is precisely the "mean streets," the very site that Gregory privileges as a safeguard
to defme urban theory as a discourse that not only analyzes representations of the
against voyeurism and so idealizes as simply real.
city but, like nair, produces images of the city. Such a reading of urban scholarship
In fact, though Gregory portrays Davis as the antithesis of Soja's detective,
as culture, not "social science;' is a welcome departure from the field's traditional
no urban scholar is more regularly linked to nair than Davis. Both jacket endorse-
configuration of interdisciplinary space. Acknowledging the permeability of
ments and the press release for City if Quartz, Davis's forceful analysis of Los
boundaries between disciplines, it promises to bring the insights of urban political
Angeles, make the comparison:
economy into the arena of cultural studies while dislodging political economy
from a privileged position as the ontological basis of all spatial politics. Yet Davis
Mike Davis knows where a lot of bodies are buried .... This is fme
reneges on rearticulating the political field insofar as he interprets nair itself as a
history nair.
kind of social science. Into the sunshine-nair schema, he introduces a third cate-
gory of LA. representations: "We must avoid the idea that Los Angeles is ulti-
Davis is wild at heart yet brilliantly controlled. This book is as access-
mately just the mirror of Narcissus .... Beyond the myriad rhetorics and mirages,
ible and fastCpaced as film noir.
it can be presumed that the city actually exists. I thus treat, within the master
dialectic of sunshine and noir, three attempts, in successive generations, to establish
Combining the rigor of a cultural theorist and historian with the hard-
authentic epistemologies for Los Angeles" (23). Davis then outlines two current
boiled clarity of a Philip Marlowe or a Jake Gittes, Davis uncovers
efforts to construct an authentic epistemology-the research into post-Fordist
extraordinary tales of greed, power, and prejudice.

249
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 CHINATOWN, PART FOUR?
MEN IN SPACE

urbanism by "the nee-Marxist academics of the 'Los Angeles School'" and the love affairs, he also finds domestic violence, ambiguous family identities, and-as
interventions in popular culture by "the community intellectuals of 'Gangster he trails the mysterious Mrs. Mulwray through Los Angeles-a tale of incest and
Rap"' (24). In Davis's view, both projects have failed-for different reasons-to a father's sexual power. Nor are the violent spaces that Jake investigates strictly
disengage themselves fully from today's "corporate celebration of'postmodern' Los outside himself. Rather, as in countless noir scenarios, the qualities that make the
Angeles." Despite this failure, Davis says, "a radical structural analysis ... can only city "realistic"-its meanness, decadence, violence-do not just mirror sociologi-
acquire social force if it is embodied in an alternative experiential vision" (87). cal conditions or, what amounts to the same thing, express psychological experi-
City of Quartz accepts the mandate to create such a vision. As Gregory notes, ences engendered in sociologically constituted city dwellers by the real urban
Davis combines an economic analysis of the city's spatial organization with an environment. These qualities also entangle the city with the protagonist's psychic
account of the struggles of Los Angeles's third-world street cultures-at least, cer- geography, with the spatial processes that form his identity. Chinatown is the site of
tain aspects of those struggles. He locates the meaning of the city in a terrain a traumatic loss in Jake's past-a woman's death-which he relives as the adventure
between global capitalist structures, on the one hand, and the use of urban space unravels and which, with the film's final eruption of violence, he is destined to
by specific social groups, on the other. But when, under the rubric of noir, Davis "forget" again. As Jake is repeatedly brutalized, as his own quest to probe Mrs.
designates his achievement an "authentic epistemology," a representation governed Mulwray's secrets grows more cruelly detennined, his path leads beyond the dis-
by an independent, auth~nticating model-the L.A. that really exists-he does covery of political corruption and sexual scandals. He enters an area outside the law
more than extricate urban scholarship from the city's official dream machinery. By in another sense: the image of the city, like the image of the woman, is mediated by
disavowing the question of subjectivity in representations of the city, he disengages the detective's unconscious fantasies and so-whether lucid or confused-tied up
urban theory and, strangely, noir as well from any dream machinery whatsoever. with the mysteries of sexuality.
Consider "Chinatown, Part Two?" Foreshadowing City of Quartz, this essay Overlooked in Davis's gloss on Chinatown, sexuality and subjectivity-and
explicitly equates radical urban analysis with a specific instance of noir detection, their intimacy with violence-have long been viewed by feminist critics as film
the investigation undertaken by private eye Jake Gittes in Chinatown, urban studies' noir's principal themes and, moreover, as the imperatives shaping its visual and
archetypal film noir. "What Jake discovers about downtown," as Davis puts it- narrative structures. Feminist readings have also theorized these problems in spatial
political corruption, landgrabs, the forced displacement of farmers during L.A.'s terms, showing how the detective story mobilizes a distinctive spatial mise-en-
early-twentieth century aqueduct conspiracy-is the precursor of what Davis ex- scene organized around an axis of sexual difference. The neglect of such ideas in
poses about contemporary downtown: quiet municipal subsidization of super- urban cultural history that is nonetheless equated with noir corresponds to a gen-
profit speculation, conducted under the aegis of the Community Redevelopment eral indifference to feminist perspectives in these texts' accounts of urban violence,
Agency, as one consequence of post-Fordist restructuring. To be sure, these are an erasure paralleling, in turn, a troubling silence on gender. It is easy to understand
crucial discoveries. Like Jake, Davis brings to light the links between violent activi- the benefits of avoiding feminist cultural criticism. Making it possible to disregard
ties taking place in urban space-the displacement of city residents, for instance- the noir detective's ambivalent relationship to the city and to relegate the sources
and the violence inherent in the uneven socioeconomic relations that produce of violence to an independent socioeconomic realm-"the mean streets"-this
advanced capitalist space. avoidance facilitates an equally untroubled identification of the urban theorist<with
Still, this is only part of the story. What Jake discovers about downtown is the private eye-who is not himself mean. By the same token, to acknowl-
not only speculation and the murderous power of money. An investigator of illicit edge the reciprocity between subjects and objects of noir detection is to face the

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 MEN tN SPACE CHINATOWN, PART FOUR?

difficulties that plague urban studies' self-representation. The desire to render urban This brief sketch is not meant to do justice to the complexity of Chinatown,
theorists in the image of noir investigators contradicts the equally strong impulse- noir, or feminist opinions about noir. Even less does it defend a psychic, rather
embodied in espousals of authentic epistemologies-to believe that urban space as than social, determinist explanation of urban violence or advocate "psychoana-
an object of knowledge can be specified externally to the space of the writer or lytic" readings of urban theory that claim to find evidence of individual conflicts
reader. Doubting this inside-outside dichotomy is not the same as asserting that or a general sexual symbolism. But a critical glance at noir suggests that, with
the city does not really exist. But insofar as urban spatial theory enforces a rigid regard to sexual difference, the new urban studies may bear some resemblance to
separation of the two spaces in discourses about the city and, as a result, can push hard-boiled stories after all. In each case, an urban investigator sets out on a search
violence wholesale into the "outside" world, it is actually less like fUm noir and that, presented as a quest for reality, is actually a way of articulating a vision of
closer to the "unrealistic" whodunit that Raymond Chandler so despised. reality. In each case, an image of space plays a key role in a more intricate spatial
According to Laura Mulvey, what distinguishes."the simple detectives of the production: the emergence of a subject whose integrity rests on an ability to detect
whodunit" from "the modern, post-psychoanalytic, heroes-in-crisis of the film what lies behind a facade of spatial uncertainties, identified in noir with the femme
noir" is precisely the theme of internal transformation animating the latter: "The fatale, and in nco-Marxist spatial theory with post-Fordist capitalism. While in noir
story [the noir detective] investigates is his own." 9 Mary Ann Doane also analyzes the detective's stability returns with the woman's downfall, in urban criticism it is
noir in terms of the construction of masculine identity. Film noir, she writes, fol- gained by "discovering" an underlying economic foundation of spatial violence or
lowing Christine Gledhill, abandons the usual goal of the detective fUm, "the com- by other externalizations of political space. These respective endings are connected,
prehensible solution of crime." Instead, it "constitutes itself as a detour, a bending however, since the appeal to independent grounds of meaning, protecting the au-
of the hermeneutic code from the questions connected with a crime to the diffi- thority of a single reference point, cleanses sexuality and difference from urban
culty posed by the woman as enigma (or crime)." 10 For Mulvey as well as for Teresa discourse and from its picture of the city. For this reason, Davis's alternative vision
de Lauretis, the protagonist's effort to solve the enigma links noir to the structure of Los Angeles, despite its important opposition to official urban rhetoric, is still
of the detective narrative understood as a version of the Oedipal myth. The move- largely a masculine terrain. Will urban theory interrogate this space, or will it re-
ment of the narrative, de Lauretis argues, establishes the difference between the main '~ust Chinatown"?
sexes, an operation duplicated in the story's spatial structure, which "produces the
masculine position as that of mythical subject and the feminine position as mythical
obstacle or, simply, the space in which that movement occurs." 11 Within the visual
relations of narrative cinema, the masculine position is ~e place o~ :he look,
the feminine position, that of image-and landscape. It has become a cnt1cal com-
monplace to observe that in noir the figure of the femme fatale resists confmement
in-or as-space and, crossing boundaries, threatens the protagonist's identity.
The role of the urban detective and, some critics believe, the work of noir itself, is
to repress her image, to master the feminine-how successfully is controversial-
thereby restoring spatial order and, with it, the detective's own perceptual clarity
and geographic proficiency.

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 III

PUBLIC SPACE AND DEMOCRACY

 TILTED ARC AND THE USES Or: DEMOCRACY

Four years after a public hearing that many critics viewed as a show trial, the
United States General Services Administration (GSA) dismantled Richard Serra's
Tilted Arc, a public sculpture that the agency had installed a decade earlier in New
York City's Federal Plaza. The government's action became a cause cClCbre in some
sectors of the art world, especially among certain left-wing critics who saw it as
one episode in a neoconservative campaign to privatize culture, restrict rights, and
censor critical art. Briefly, the Tilted Arc story unfolded like this:

1979: The GSA commissions Serra to conceive a sculpture for the Federal Plaza
site.

1981: Following approval of the artist's concept, Tilted Arc is installed.

1985: William Diamond, the GSA's New York regional administrator, names him-
self chairman of a hearing to decide whether Serra's sculpture should be, as Dia-
mond puts it, "relocated" in order "to increase public use of the plaza." Although
the majority of speakers at the hearing testify in favor of retaining Tilted Arc, the
hearing panel recommends relocation, and Dwight Ink, the GSA's acting adminis-
trator in Washington, tries in vain to find alternative sites for the sculpture.
 TILTED ARC AND THE USES 01' DEMOCRACY
PullLlC SPACE AND DEMOCRACY

1986 to 1989: Serra pursues several unsuccessful legal actions-based on breach of sculpture's presence detracted from "public use," but this judgment assumed that
1
contract, violation of constitutional rights, and artists' moral rights clairns -to definitions of "public" and "use" are self-evident. "The public" was presumed to
be a group of aggregated individuals unified by their adherence to fundamental
prevent Tilted Arc's removaL
objective values or by their possession of essential needs and interests or, wha;
1989: Tilted Arc is removed. amounts to the same thing, divided by equally essential conflicts. "Use" referred
to the act of putting space into the service of fundamental pleasures and needs.
Then, in 1991, The Destruction if Tilted Arc: Documents appeared, like an act
Objects and practices in space were held to be of"public use" if they are uniformly
of historic preservation. 2 By that time, of course, the book could do nothing to
beneficial, expressing common values or fulfilling universal needs.
save the sculpture itself. But it does preserve the record-correspondence, official
Categories like "the public" can, of course, be construed as naturally or fun-
memos, press releases, hearing testimonies, and legal documents~of a key conflict
damentally coherent only by disavowing the conflicts, particularity, heterogeneity,
in the growing controversy about the political functions of contemporary public
and uncertainty that constitute social life. But when participants in a debate about
art. Clara Weyergraf-Serra and Martha Buskirk carefully edited the papers gener-
the uses of public space remove the definitions of public and use to a realm of
ated in the course of the Tilted Arc proceedings, and the publication of this primary
objectivity located not only outside the Tilted Arc debate but outside debate alto-
material provides a solid foundation for future art-historical and legal scholarship.
gether, they threaten tO erase public space itself. For what initiates debate about
Some readers will welcome the opportunity to weigh opposing arguments and
social questions if not the absence of absolute sources of meaning and the concom-
determine, in retrospect, the merits of an individual public artwork More im-
itant recognition that these questions-including the question of the meaning of
portantly, however, The Destruction of Tilted Arc: Documents keeps alive-and pub-
public space-are decided only in a public space?
lic-debates about the political issues at stake in the Tilted Arc incident. The
That words like "use" and "public" -employed as figures of universal acces-
documents raise timely questions, whose implications extend far beyond arcane
sibility-suppress conflict will hardly surprise anyone familiar with.prevailing dis-
art-world matters, about what it means for art and space to be "public." Insofar as
courses about the built environment. The GSA's verdict, confirming its premise
the GSA ostensibly dismantled Tilted Arc "to increase public use of the plaza;' the
that Tilted Arc interfered with the use of a public plaza, was consistent with a host
documents pose related questions about current uses of urban space.
of other opinions handed down throughout the 1980s on the uses of public space
Despite claims to the contrary, the officials presiding over the Tilted Arc pro-
and public art. ·The decision against Tilted Arc was not a ruling against public art
cedure were far from neutral on these questions. To suggest that the GSA had, in
in general. On the contrary, the verdict coincided and was perfectly consistent
fact, answered them in advance is not to contend, as many of Serra's supporters
with a widespread movement by city governments, real-estate developers, and cor-
did, that the sculpture's fate had been prejudged (though that may also be true).
porations to promote public art, especially something called the "new public art,"
But the GSA had adopted prior decisions about the meaning of the terms "use;'
which was celebrated precisely because of its "usefulness." The new public art was
"public;' and "public use" and had built these precedents into the structure of the
defined as art that takes the form of functional objects· placed in urban spaces-
Tilted Arc proceedings fr?m the start. As the editors of The Destruction of Tilted
plumbing, park benches, picnic tables-or as art that helps design urban spaces
Arc point out, official announcements of the hearing contained an implied value
themselves. Official efforts to discredit Tilted Arc cannot be isolated from attempts
judgment, framing the proposed debate as a contest between, on the one hand,
to portray other kinds of public art as tmly public and usefuL Moreover, the pro-
Tilted Arc's continued presence in the Federal Plaza and, on the other hand, in-
motion of the new public art itself took place within a broader context, accompa-
creased "public use of the plaza" (22). Clearly, it had been predetennined that the
nying a massive transformation in the uses of urban space-the redevelopment and

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 TILTED ARC AND THE USES 01' DEMOCRACY
PUBLIC SPACE AND DEMOCRACY

gentrification of cities engineered throughout the 1980s as the local component of preservationist who, in keeping with conservative notions of preservation, was
global spatioeconomic restructuring. The Tilted Arc proceedings were, then, part seeking to restore a fimdamental sociospatial harmony that should have been
of a rhetoric of publicness and usefulness that surrounded the redevelopment of preserved but was not. Diamond asserted that Tilted Arc's relocation would
urban space to maximize profit and facilitate state controL Tilted Arc, represented "restore" and "reinstitute" the Federal Plaza's openness, coherence, and public
usefulness. .
by its opponents as elitist, useless, even dangerous to the public, became the stan-
dard foil against which conservative critics and city officials routinely measure the But calling a site-specific sculpture's removal a relocation obscures a key
accessibility, usefulness, humaneness, and publicness of the new public art.
3 difference between two aesthetic philosophies: on the one hand, the modernist
Although Serra's most astute supporters generally remained detached from doctrine that artworks are self-governing objects with stable, independent mean-
urban issues, some countered the accusation that Tilted Ar( obstructed the use of ings and can therefore be relocated or moved intact from place to place, and, on
public space by defending the sculpture precisely becaUse, as Rosalind Krauss ar- the other hand, the idea, which gave rise to site-specific practice, that aesthetic
gued, it "invests a major portion of its site with a use we must call aesthetic." meaning is formed in relation to an artwork's context and therefore changes with
Because this use is aesthetic, Krauss implied, it is also public: "This aesthetic use is the circumstances in which the work is produced and displayed. Seemingly blind
open to every person who enters and leaves the buildings of this complex, and it to the contradiction between these competing conceptions of art, the officials who
is open to each and every one of them every day" (81). opposed Tilted Arc did not acknowledge the incompatibility between site-
Relativizing use, Krauss's strategy challenged determinist notions that space specificity and the "truly public American art" described in the GSA's factsheet
has uses that are simply given and therefore indisputable. But Krauss also mobilized about the Art-in-Architecture Program for Federal Buildings. According to the
a conception of the aesthetic as a universally accessible sphere-which, coupled factsheet, the objective of public art is "integration" with a "site," defined in turn
with notions of universal publics and uses, is the hallmark of mainstream treatments as a "total architectural design." Consequently, the factsheet concludes that the
of public art. Precisely this universalizing vocabulary has made public art so effec- Art-in-Architecture Program should sponsor art that "embellishes" federal build-
tive as a means of portraying particular uses of space-to fulfill the needs of profit, ings and "enhance[s] the building's environment for the occupants and the general
for one-as advantageous to all. Simply proposing a plurality of equally universal public" (23).
uses of space leaves untouched the depoliticizing language of use that was the most But equating site-specific art with art that creates harmonious spatial totali-
ties is so profoundly at odds with the impulse that historically motivated the devel-
powerful weapon wielded against Tilted Arc.
The Destruction of Tilted Arc: Documents invites us, by contrast, to examine the opment of site-specificity that it nearly amounts to a terminological abuse. For the
uses oflanguage. Because the volume's title openly supports Serra's contention that invention of a new kind of artwork that neither diverts attention from nor merely
"to remove" a work like Tilted Arc "is to destroy the work;' it promises that the decorates the spaces of its display emerged from the imperative to interrupt, rather
book will not merely report on but will engage in discursive struggles-beginning than secure, the seeming coherence and closure of those spaces. Site-specific prac-
with the struggle over the meaning of site-specificity. Adopting Serra's terminol- tice has two objectives that emerged in quick succession. Site-specificity sought
ogy, Weyergraf-Serra and Buskirk implicitly defend the materialist approach to first to criticize the modernist precept that works of art are autonomous entities
aesthetics historically invested in site-specific practices against current efforts to and second to reveal how the construction of an apparent autonomy disavows ;rt's
bring site-specificity into conformity with idealist concepts of art. Diamond, the social, economic, and political functions. But the politicization of art embodied
GSA administrator, did not mention destruction. He referred to the sculpture's in this attention to context is offset when artists adopt neutralizing definitions of
removal as a "relocation." In fact, Diamond portrayed himself as a virtual urban context. Academic site-specificity, for instance, simply replaces the modernist

261
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 TILTED ARC AND THE USES OF DEMOCRACY
PullllC SPACE AND 0EMOCUACY

aestheticization of the artwork with a similar aestheticization of art's architectural, rate or state-approved uses, they exclude entire social groups. The editors' admis-
spatial, or urban sites. Other artists and critics neutralize site-specificity by stressing sion of partiality also diverges from the position taken by Tilted Arc's most powerful
the importance of art's social contexts but then defining society as a determinable antagonists who spoke in the name of certainties like "common sense," "reality,"
object that, unifted by a foundation external to art, governs and ftxes aesthetic and "the people's interest." The appeal to such absolute grounds of meaning shel-
meaning. Both approaches reestablish, at the level of the site, the closure of mean- tered their arguments from political interrogation.
To support the book's argument in favor of Tilted Arc, the editors framed the
ing that site-specificity helped challenge.
Ignoring this challenge, many of Tilted Arc's opponents advocated the sculp- chronologically arranged sections of documents with footnotes and brief introduc-
ture's removal in order to restore the Federal Plaza's coherence. But proponents of tions that summarize and interpret data, provide supplementary information, or
a political site-specificity are skeptical about spatial coherence, viewing it not as an point out inaccuracies and fallacies in opponents' statements. Most candidly declar-
a priori condition subsequently disturbed by conflicts in space but as a fiction mask- ing the book's partisanship, however, is the inclusion of a general introduction
ing the conflicts that produce space. Henri Lefebvre, the urban theorist who coined written by Serra himself, a detailed polemic against both the GSA's arguments and
the phrase "the production of space," refers to this homogenizing fiction when he subsequent court decisions dismissing the artist's appeals. The frank abandonment
describes late-capitalist space as "simultaneously the birthplace of contradictions, of pretensions to documentary impartiality implicit in this choice could have
the milieu in which they are worked out and which they tear up, and, finally, the turned the editors' and Serra's introductions into an opportunity not merely to
instmment which allows their suppression and the substitution of an apparent coher- preserve but also to amplify and transform the Tilted Arc debate.
ence."4 Against this process, and in striking contrast to the GSA's notion of integra- But the editors missed this chance. The introductions reiterate the opinions
tion, site-specific works become part of their sites precisely by restructuring them, expressed by Serra and his supporters in the documents themselves. As a conse-
fostering-we might even say, restoring-the viewer's ability to apprehend the quence, the book's intervention in public art discourse stays firmly within the
conflicts and indeterminacy repressed in the creation of supposedly coherent spa- boundaries that shaped-and constrained-discussion in the thick of the Tilted Arc
controversy. At that time, liberal and left members of the art world who uncondi-
tial totalities.
When Weyergraf-Serra and Buskirk use the term destruction to describe Tilted tionally supported Tilted Arc forged their arguments primarily in opposition to the
Arc's fate, they take an avowedly partial stand consistent with the abandonment of neoconservative rhetoric mobilized against the sculpture, a reactive position with
totalizing perspectives implicit in site-specificity itself After so many years of cul- some serious risks. For if the desire to defeat conservatism exhausts all political
tural critiques of objectivism, it should be unnecessary to point out that admitting contests over the meaning of public art, the problems presented by traditional left
partiality is not an abdication of responsibility for factual accuracy or fairness. The ideas of aesthetic politics and of art's public functions will remain uninterrogated.
Destruction if Tilted Arc is scrupulously researched, the documents rigorously foot- Yet critical thought is hardly united in support of these ideas, nor, for that matter,
noted, and the chronology of events and texts painstakingly reconstructed. Far did the left unanimously defend Tilted Arc. To give the impression of a self-evident
from a license to dissemble, the designation of Tilted Arc's removal as a destruction unity of critical opinion that forms the proper basis for opposing conservatism (a
frankly signals the editors' desire to support site-specificity as a critical art practice strategy that comes dose to mirroring that of Tilted Arc's enemies) is to imply that
against the current implication that such work can merely affirm its sites. Affirma- different critical ideas are divisive forces, giving comfort to the enemy. Because it
tive site-specific art, endowed with an aura of social responsibility, naturalizes and is important to extend, and reframe, current debates about public art-and not
thus validates the social relations of its sites, legitimating spaces as accessible to all because the book should impart an aura of disinterestedness-the absence of a
when they may be privately owned or when, tolerating little resistance to corpo- critical essay by someone other than Serra is regrettable.

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 TILTED ARC ANO THE USES OF DEMOCRACY
PUBliC SPACE AND DEMOCRACY

This deficiency narrows the book's treatment of several important issues. bourgeois democracy and proposing "concrete" socialist alternatives while ignor-
Consider, for instance, the key issue of site-specificity, which Serra's introduction ing the undemocratic character not only of actually existing socialist regimes but
patiently explains and elaborates. He insists that, because a site-specific work incor- of the left's own theories. Among artists and critics, the failure to take democracy
porates its context as an essential component of the work, site-specificity denotes seriously springs in part from the pressure that the left has felt to defend itself
permanence. This provides a strategic basis for claiming that Tilted Arc's removal against attacks from conservative critics who routinely usc anti-intellectual and
breaches the government contract guaranteeing the sculpture's permanence and, populist strategies to give democratic legitimacy to authoritarian campaigns against
moreover, for disputing Diamond's invention of definitions that make site- critical art and theory.
specificity compatible with relocation or adjustment. But the relationship between These pressures were strong during the Tilted Arc hearing. A rhetoric of
site-specificity and permanence is complex, and the simple equation of the two democracy pervaded the debate, demonstrating the degree to which public art
deviates in significant ways from the principles of contextualist art practice. Given discourse had become a site of struggle over the-meaning of democracy. Govern-
that site-specific projects are based on the idea that meaning is contingent rather ment officials disparaged critical art under the banner of "antielitism," a stance
consistent with a general tendency in neoconservative discourse to accuse art of
than absolute, they actually imply instability and impermanence.
The book's failure to differentiate among different senses of "permanence" arrogance or inaccessibility in order to champion privatization and justify state
repeats a slippage made repeatedly in the Serra camp throughout the hearing when censorship in the name of the rights of "the people."
unqualified references to the intrinsic permanence of site-specific works contrib- The Tilted Arc proceedings exemplified this inversion, combining talk of
uted to a blurring of distinctions between the antiessentialist tenets of site- government's accountability to the public with action by the government in a role
specificity, on the one hand, and liberal platitudes that "great art" is eternal and resembling that of a private economic actor. From the start, the GSA emphasized
possesses "enduring qualities;' on the other. In the latter case, permanence is given its responsibility to protect the people from what it called Tilted Arc's "private"
the property of an essence. But the belief in art's timelessness, in its determination encroachment on public space. Diamond mobilized this protectionist discourse on
by an aesthetic essence and its independence from historical contingencies, is pre- the day the sculpture was dismantled: "Now," he declared, "the plaza returns right-
cisely what contextualist practices challenged in the first place. This is no trivial fully to the people." Later, however, when Serra tried to appeal the decision, the
confusion. Allowing site-specific art to be swept into a reahn of transhistori.cal courts protected the government as a property-owning entity. Serra pleaded, fnst,
continuities, it neutralizes-just as Diamond's relocation proposal does-the very that he had been denied due process in the form of a fair, impartial hearing and,
shift in contemporary art that decisively opened the artwork to history, politics, second, that the GSA's decision violated his First Amendment rights, which pro-
and everyday life. This shift wrested art out of an eternal sphere superior to the hibit the government from removing a medium of expression on the basis of its
rest of the social world. Not surprisingly, then, the effort to shore up Tilted Arc's content once it has been publicly displayed. The courts dismissed both claims. The
unconditional permanence and therefore its aesthetic privilege coincided with a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit argued that because
tendency for Tilted A:c's defenders to evade questions of elitism. the government owned both the sculpture and the Federal Plaza, Serra was never
It has been traditional for some leftist voices in the art world to deal inade- constitutionally entitled to a hearing. Due process in this case was called a "gratu-
quately with the problem of elitism, even to dismiss it out of hand. This dismissal itous benefit," not a right (253). There are parallels between this decision and a
parallels a tendency prevalent until recently in broader left discourse, where discus- conservative legal tendency that, <is constitutional scholar Laurence H. Tribe
sions of democracy often concentrated on exposing the mystifications of formal writes, has potentially staggering effects on the exercise of free speech rights. The

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 PUBLIC $PAC!! AND DEMOCRACY 'f'IL1'1W ARC AND THE USES OF DEMOCRACY

distinction between "benefit" and "right" recalls the legal distinction between popular consent to the coercive pole of state power in so-called public spaces. The
"privilege" and "right;' which, says Tribe, can be used as a "tool for cutting off the importance of this critique can hardly be overestimated. In New York, as in other
free speech rights of those who rely on the goverrunent as an employer, provider of cities, authoritarian populist measures, coupled with anticrime campaigns-the
benefits, or property owner." 5 The basis of the distinction is the doctrine that a very strategies rallied against Tilted Arc-have authorized the relentless prolifera-
speaker's First Amendment rights are violated only if she is deprived of something tion of pseudo- or private public spaces.
to which she is independently entitled. But no one has the right to enter govern- Yet beyond the challenge raised to authoritarian populist notions of public
ment property-only the "privilege." If strictly applied, warns Tribe, the right- art and to the trivializing reduction of public spaces to harmonious leisure spots or
privilege doctrine could "leave would-be speakers with a right to speak, but no- places to eat lunch, and beyond the espousal of formal rights, Serra's supporters
where to exercise that right." 6 made few efforts to articulate democracy, public art, or public space in more radical
Subsequently, Serra claimed, again unsuccessfully, that against the rights of directions. Insofar as The Destruction cifTilted Arc: Documents perpetuates this quies-
private ownership, he has "moral rights" in the work as an artist. Artists' moral cence, it abandons public art discourse as a site of stmggle Over the meaning of
rights are frequently declared in opposition to the privileges of private property, democracy. Indeed, although Serra alludes briefly to the critical difference between
but the GSA implicitly discredited this opposition when it suggested that the gov- "community" and "public," The Destruction of Tilted Arc does not try to define
eriiment owned the work and the plaza not as a private-property owner, but as "publicness." The introductions do not, for instance, elaborate the suggestion,
"the people": "This space belongs to the government and to the public," said Dia- broached in Douglas Crimp's and Joel Kovel's hearing testimonies, that a distinc-
mond. "It doesn't belong to the artist .... Not if he sells [his work] to the govern- tion between public space and the state apparatus is essential to democracy. Nor
ment .... He doesn't have the right to force his art upon the public forever" (271). do they amplify the implications for public art discourse of Kovel's crucial point
Claims of accountability to the public were articulated with action by the govern- that a democratic public space must be understood as a realm not of unity but of
ment as a property owner, tying the people's interest to the rights of private prop- divisions, conflicts, and differences resistant to regulatory power. The Tilted Arc
erty in controlling public spaces. controversy is never linked to the efforts currently being made by artists, critics,
Tilted Arc's proponents spoke for democracy, too. Some testified in favor of and curators to recast public art as work that helps create a public space in the
the right of free artistic expression or, like Abigail Solomon-Godeau, deplored the sense of a public sphere, an arena of political discourse. And although the word
denial of due process inherent in Diamond's prejudgment of the case. Benjamin "public" might be applied to Serra's work not so much because Tilted Arc occupied
Buchloh stressed the democratic necessity of independent peer review as a guar- a government plaza as because it explored how the viewer, far from a strictly private
antee against statism and collective prejudice. Clara Weyergraf-Serra cautioned being, is formed in relation to an outside world, the book never extends this inves-
against the totalitarian dangers of appeals to the people's "healthy instincts." Tilted tigation of subjectivity to ask who the subject of a democratic public space is.
Arc's advocates thus argued persuasively, and I think justifiably, against a govern- Given the neglect of this question, it is hardly accidental that throughout
ment intervention that could be a textbook example of what Stuart Hall terms the Serra debate the left's neglect of critical issues about public space and democ-
"authoritarian populi~m": the mobilization of democratic discourses to sanction, racy was coupled with a failure to challenge substantially either the myth of great
indeed to pioneer, shifts toward state authoritarianism. 7 Serra's supporters insis- art or its corollary, the myth of the great artist. In fact, 'Tilted Arc's radicar sup-
tently exposed the manner in which state officials used the language of democracy porters frequently relied, almost by default, on the standard left counterparts of
and such existing democratic procedures as public hearings and petitions to bind these myths-political-aesthetic vanguardism and the exemplary political artist.

266 267
 PUBLIC $PACE AND DEMOCRACY

Consequently, Serra's proponents offered only a limited and problematic alterna-

tive to authoritarian populist conceptions of public art. For vanguardism implies
the existence of sovereign subjects whose superior social vision can penetrate illu- AGORAPHOBIA
sions and perceive the people's "true" interests, and this idea has itselfbeen charged
with authoritarianism-even with the attempt to eliminate public space. Ac-
cording to new theories of radical democracy, public space emerges with the aban-
donment of the belief in an absolute basis of social unity, a basis that gives "the
people" an essential identity or true interest. Public space, in this view, is the un-
certain social realm where, in the absence of an absolute foundation, the meaning
of the people is simultaneously constituted and put ·at risk. The vanguard posi-
tion-the external vantage point on society-is incompatible with a democratic
public space.
The Destruction of Tilted Arc vigorously defends public space against neocon-
servatism, privatization, ~nd state control and helps document the current state of No return to the past is conceivable within the framework of
public art discourse. But the book itself reveals that if we want to extend rather democracy.
than close down public space, it is to questions of democracy that we should turn.
-Claude Lefort, "Human Rights and the Welfare State"

What does it mean for space to be "public" -the space of a city, building, exhibi-
tion, institution, or work of art? Over the last decade, this question has provoked
vigorous debates among art, architecture, and urban critics. Important issues are at
stake in these debates. How we define public space is intimately connected with
ideas about what it means to be human, the nature of society, and the kind of
political community we want. While there are sharp divisions over these ideas, on
one point nearly everyone agrees: supporting things that are public promotes the
survival and extension of democratic culture. Judging, then, by the number of
references to public space in contemporary aesthetic discourse, the art world is
taking democracy seriously.
When, for instance, arts administrators and city officials draft guidelines
for putting "art in public places," they routinely use a vocabulary that invOkes
the principles of both direct and representative democracy: Are the artworks
for "the people?" Do they encourage "participation?" Do they serve their

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"constituencies?" Public art terminology frequently alludes to democracy as a form of this topic in the art world is part of a far more extensive eruption of debates
of government but also to a general democratic spirit of egalitarianism: Do the about the meaning of democracy currently taking place in many arenas: political
works avoid "elitism?" Are they "accessible?" philosophy, new social movements, educational theory, legal studies, and mass-
When it comes to public art, even neoconservative critics-no strangers to media and popular culture. As a site of such debates-and not, as critics frequently
elitism in artistic matters-are out there with the people. Historically, of course, claim, because public art is located in universally accessible public sites-discourse
neoconservatives have objected to what Samuel P. Huntington once called an "ex- about public art reaches beyond the boundaries of arcane art-world concerns.
cess of democracy" -activism, demands for political participation, and challenges The question of democracy has, of course, been raised internationally by
to governmental, moral, and cultural authority. Such demands, wrote Huntington, challenges to racially oppressive African governments, Latin American dictator-
are the legacy of"the democratic surge of the 1960s," and they impede democratic ships, and Soviet-style state socialism. Widely touted as the "triumph of democ-
rule by elites. They make society ungovernable by rendering government too ac- racy" and equated with the supposed deaths of socialism and Marxism, these
1
cessible: "Democratic societies cannot work when the citizenry is not passive." challenges have propelled the use of democracy as a catchword that glosses over
Today, however, neoconservatives call the government excessive and attack the the uncertainties of contemporary political life, but they have also cast doubt on
"arrogance" and "egoism" of public art, especially critical public art, precisely in such rhetoric, posing the question of democracy as, precisely, a question.
the name of democratic access-the people's access to public space. 2 For critics on the left, sensitivity to and uncertainty about democracy stems
Opinions on th~ best-known recent controversy over public art-the re- not only from recent discredit brought upon totalitarian regimes. Leftists of various
moval of Richard Serra's Tilted Arc from New York's Federal Plaza-also focused, kinds have long been aware that totalitarianism is no mere betrayal of Marxism.
at least for opponents of the sculpture, on democratic access. "This is a day for the They have been troubled by the failure of Marx himself and orthodox Marxists to
people to rejoice;' declared William Diamond of the federal government's Art-in- appreciate fully ideas about freedom and human rights. The most ossified fonns of
Architecture Program on the day Tilted Arc was destroyed, "because now the plaza Marxism have been so preoccupied with challenging bourgeois democracy as a
returns rightfully to the people." But supporters of the sculpture, testifYing at the mystified form of capitalist class rule and with insisting that economic equality
hearing convened to decide Tilted Arc's fate, defended the work under the banner guarantees true or "concrete" democracy that, as one writer says, they have been
of democracy, upholding the artist's right to free expression or portraying the hear- "unable to discern freedom in democracy" or "servitude in totalitarianism." 4 But
ing itself as destructive of democratic processes. 3 the rejection of economistic notions of democracy and of totalitarianism is clearly
Others, equally committed to public art yet reluctant to take sides in such no reason to remain content with anticommunism. For, as Nancy Fraser sensibly
controversies, seek instead to resolve confrontations between artists and other users reminds us, "There is still quite a lot to object to in our own actually existing
of space by creating procedures generally described as "democratic": "community democracy." 5 Powerful voices in the United States often convert "freedom" and
involvement" in the selection of works of art or the "integration" of artwo.rks with "equality" into slogans under which the liberal democracies of advanced capitalist
the spaces they occupy. Such procedures may be necessary, in some cases even countries are held up as exemplary social systems, the sole political model for socie-
fruitful, but to take for granted that they are democratic is to presume that the task ties emerging from dictatorships and actually existing socialism. Yet the relentless
of democracy is to settle, rather than sustain, conflict. escalation of economic inequality in Western democracies since the late 1970s-
Yet no topic is itself more embattled than democracy, which, as even these the U.S. taking the lead in this respect-the growth of corporate power, and fierce
few examples show, can be taken seriously in more ways than one. The emergence attacks on the rights of expendable groups of people reveal the dangers of adopting

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PUBLIC SPACE AND DEMOCRACY

one and the same event with the Declaration of the Rights of Man, an event that
a celebratory attitude. Taking issue with Francis Fukuyama's thesis that human
shifted the location of power. All sovereign power, the declaration states, resides
struggle against tyranny inevitably ends with capitalist democracy, Chantal Mouffe
within "the people." Where had it previously lived? Under the monarchy, power
writes, "We have, in fact, to acknowledge that the victory of liberal democracy is
was embodied in the person of the king who, in turn, incarnated the power of the
due more to the collapse ofits enemy than to its own successes." 6
state. But the power possessed by king and state ultimately derived from a transcen-
At the same time, a countervailing democratic force has also emerged-the
dent source-God, Supreme Justice, or Reason. The transcendent source that
proliferation of new political practices inspired by the idea of rights: movements
guaranteed the king's and the state's power also guaranteed the meaning and unity
for the right to housing, privacy, and freedom of movement for homeless residents,
of society-of the people. Society, then, was represented as a substantial unity, its
for instance, or declarations of the right of gays and lesbians to a public sexual
hierarchical organization resting upon an absolute basis.
culture. Aimed at gaining recognition for collective and marginalized particulari-
With the democratic revolution, however, state power was no longer re-
ties, these new movements defend-and extend--'-acquired rights, but they also
ferred to an external force. Now it derived from "the people" and was located
propagate demands for new rights based on differentiated and contingent needs.
inside the sociaL BUt with the disappearance of references to an outside origin of
Unlike purely abstract liberties, these rights do not eliminate from consideration
power, an unconditional origin of social unity vanished as well. The people are the
the social conditions of the claimants' existence. Yet while such new movements
source of power but they, too, are deprived in the democratic moment of their
challenge the exercise. of state and corporate power in liberal democracies, they
substantial identity. Like the state, the social order, too, has no basis. The unity of
deviate from the principles informing traditional left political projects. Focusing
society can no longer be represented as an organic totality but is, rather, "purely
on the construction of political identities within society and forming provisional
social" and therefore a mystery. Unprecedented in democracy is the fact that the
coalitions with other groups, the new movements distance themselves from overall
place from which power derives its legitimacy is what Lefort calls "the image of
solutions to social problems. They also refuse to be governed by parties claiming
an empty place." 7 "In my view," he writes, "the important point is that democracy
to represent the people's essential interests.
is instituted and sustained by the dissolution of the markers of certainty. It inaugu-
Over the last two decades, certain left political thinkers have sought to make
rates a history in which people experience a fundamental indeterminacy as to the
room for these new types of political struggle, on the one hand, and to confront
basis of power, law and knowledge, and as to the basis of relations between self
the experience of totalitarianism, on the other. This dual objective has led scholars
and other." 8
like Claude Lefort, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Etienne Balibar, Jean-Luc
Democracy, then, has a difficulty at its core. Power sterns from the people
Nancy, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, among others, to renew theories of democ-
but belongs to nobody. Democracy abolishes the external referent of power and
racy. A generative participant in this project is Lefort, a French political philosopher
who in the early 1980s framed ideas that have since emerged as key points in refers power to society. But democratic power cannot appeal for its authority to a
meaning immanent in the social. Instead, the democratic invention invents some-
discussions about radical democracy. The hallmark of democracy, says Lefort, is the
thing else: the public space. The public space, in Lefort's account, is the social
disappearance of certainty about the foundations of social life. Uncertainty makes
space where, in the absence of a foundation, the meaning and unity of the social
democratic power the antithesis of the absolutist monarchical power it destroys. In
is negotiated-at once constituted and put at risk. What is recognized in -public
Lefort's view, the French bourgeois political revolution of the eighteenth century
inaugurated a radical mutation in the forin of society, a mutatioll he calls, following space is the legitimacy of debate about what is legitimate and what is illegitimate.
Like democracy and public space, debate is initiated with the declaration of rights,
Alexis de Tocqueville, "the democratic invention." The democratic invention was

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PU6LlC Sl'ACE AND DEMOCRACY

themselves deprived in the democratic moment of an unconditional source. The dom that Hannah Arendt calls "a right to have rights." 14 Public space expresses, in
essence of democratic rights is to be declared, not simply possessed. Public space the words of Etienne Balibar, "an essential limitlessness characteristic of democ-
implies an institutionalization of conflict as, through an unending declaration of racy." 15 But when the question of democracy is replaced with a positive identity,
rights, the exercise of power is questioned, becoming, in Lefort's words, "the out- when critics speak in the name of absolute rather than contingent-which is to
come of a controlled contest with permanent rules." 9 say, political-meanings of the social, democracy can be mobilized to compel ac-
Democracy and its corollary, public space, are brought into existence, then, quiescence in new forms of subordination.
when the idea that the social is founded on a substantial basis, a positivity, is aban-
doned. The identity of society becomes an enigma and is therefore open to contes-
tation. But, as Laclau and Mouffe argue, this abandonm.ent also means that society
is "impossible" -which is to say, that the conception of society as a closed entity Today, discourse about the problems of public spaces in American cities is domi-
is impossible. 10 For without an underlying positivity, the social field is structured nated by the articulation of democracy in authoritarian directions. This movement
by relationships among elements that themselves have no essential identities. Nega- is engineered in two interlocking steps. First, urban public spaces are endowed
tivity is thus part of any social identity, since identity comes into being only with substantive sources of unity. Particular uses of space are deemed self-evident
through a relationship with an "other" and, as a consequence, cannot be internally and uniformly beneficial because they are said to be based on some absolute foun-
complete: "the presence of the 'Other' prevents me from being totally myself."
11 dation-eternal human needs, the organic configuration and evolution of cities,
Identity is dislocated. Likewise, negativity is part of the identity of society as a inevitable technological progress, natural social arrangements, or objective moral
whole; no complete element within society unifies it and determines its develop- values. Second, it is claimed that the foundation authorizes the exercise of state
ment. Laclau and Mouffe use the term antagonism to designate the relationship power in these spaces (or the power of such quasi-governmental entities as "busi-
between a social identity and a "constitutive outside" that blocks its completion. ness improvement districts").
Antagonism affirms and simultaneously prevents the closure of society, revealing But with this claim power becomes incompatible with democratic values,
the partiality and precariousness-the contingency-of every totality. Antagonism and public space is, to borrow a term from Lefort, "appropriated." When, that is,
is "the 'experience' of the limit of the sociaL" 12 The impossibility of society is not guardians of public space refer their power to a source of social unity outside the
an invitation to political despair but the starting point-or "groundless social, they attempt to occupy-in the senses of filling up, taking possession of,
'ground'" -of a properly democratic politics. "There is politics;' says Ladau, "be- taking possession by filling up-the locus of power that in a democratic society is
cause there is subversion and dislocation of the social." 13 an empty place. Let us be clear. For Lefort, "appropriation" does not simply desig-
It will be the Lefortian contention of this essay that advocates of public art nate the exercise of power or the act of making a decision about the use of a
who want to foster the growth of a democratic culture must also start from this space. Lefort does not deny the necessity of power or political decision making.
point. Linked to the image of an empty place, democracy is a concept capable of Appropriation is a strategy deployed by a distinctly undemocratic power that legiti-
intemtpting the dominant language of democracy that engulfs us today. But de- mates itself by giving social space a "proper," hence incontestable, meaning,
mocracy retains the capacity continually to question power and put existing social thereby closing down public space. 16
orders into question only if we do not flee from the question-the unknowability A single example should suffice to illustrate the appropriative strategy in con-
of the social-that generates the public space at democracy's heart. Instituted by temporary urban discourse, since this strategy has become so familiar. Today it
the declaration of the rights of man, public space extends to all humans the free- travels under the slogan "the quality of url{an life," a phrase that in its predominant

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PUBLIC SPACE AND DEMOCRACY

usage embodies a profound antipathy to rights and pluralism. Formulated in the tests. City Journal, for instance, joining the Times in celebrating the "Jackson Park
singular, :'the quality of life" assumes a universal city dweller who is equated with solution," notes that while urban analysts frequently ignore such problems, "what
"the public" ~identities that the phrase actually invents. The universality of this the homeless crisis has made unavoidable, is the clash of values created around
urban resident is called into question when we note that those who champion a contested spaces." 20 Whereupon, the City Journal avoids conflict by representing
better quality of1ife do not defend all public institutions equally. While conserva- the decision to lock jackson Park as the "reclamation" of"our" public space from
tive journalists routinely seek to protect municipal parks, they do not necessarily "undesirables." The journal portrays contests over city space as a war between two
support public education, for example, or public housing. Yet how strongly do absolute, rather than political, forces: the Friends of Jackson Park, who are con-
they even defend the publicness of parks? flated with "the public" and who, backed by the local state, represent the proper
In 1991 the New York Times, endorsing "The Public's Right to Put a Padlock uses that will restore the original harmony of public space and the park's enemies-
On a Public Space;' 17 reported the triumph of a public space-Jackson Park, a homeless people who disrupt harmony.
tiny triangle in Greenwich Village that had previously fallen into disorder. Nearly In this scenario, recognition of conflict reassures observers that society might
a year later, a special "Quality of Urban Life" issue of City Journal, the voice of be free of divisioll. The homeless person, represented as an intruder in public
neoconservative urban policy intellectuals, corroborated the Times's positive judg- space, supports the housed resident's fantasy that the city, and social space in gen-
ment and further inflate9- the little plaza into a symbol of progress in the ongoing eral, is essentially an organic whole. The person without a home is constructed as
struggle to restore public space. 18 Located on a traffic island, Jackson Park is sur- an ideological figure, a negative image created to restore positivity and order to
rounded by upper-middle-class houses and apartments and by a substantial num- social life. To appreciate this ideological operation, we might recall Theodor
ber of residents without apartments. Following a $1.2-million reconstruction Adorno's postwar speculations about negative, that is anti-Semitic, images ofJews.
of the park, a neighborhood group, Friends of Jackson Park-a group the Times Responding to the then prevalent idea that persisting German anti-Semitism could
consistently mistakes for both "the community" and "the public" -decided to be defeated by acquainting Germans with "real" Jews-by, for instance, emphasiz-
lock the newly installed park gates at night. The City Parks Department, lacking ing the historical contribution of Jews or arranging meetings between Germans
sufficient personnel to close the park, welcomed "public" help in protecting pub- and Israelis-Adorno wrote: "This sort of activity depends too much upon the
lic space, a defense they equated with evicting homeless people from city parks. assumption that anti-Semitism essentially has something to do with Jews and could
"The people who hold the keys," announced the Times, "are determined to keep be combatted through an actual knowledge of Jews." 21 On the contrary, stated
a park a park." 19 Adorno, anti-Semitism has nothing to do with Jews and everything to do with the
A preordained public space, the Times tells us, is being defended by its natu- psychic economy of the anti-Semite. Efforts to counteract anti-Semitism cannot,
ral owners-a statement that inverts the real sequence of events. For it is only then, rely on the purportedly beneficial effects of education about "real" Jews.
by resorting to an argument outside argumentation-"a park is a park"-and so Such efforts must, rather, "turn toward the subject/' scrutinizing the fantasies of the
decreeing in advance which uses of public space are legitimate that such a space anti-Semite and the image of the Jew that he or she desires. 22
first becomes the property of an owner-"the people who hold the keys." Increas- Elaborating on Adorno's suggestion, Slavoj ZiZek brilliantly analyzes the
ingly, conservative urbanists promote the transformation of public space into pro- construction of the "Jew" as an ideological fifiure for fascism, a process 'that,
prietary space-the occupation of public space-by conceding that public spaces though not identical to, has important parallels with current constructions of "the
are conflictual not harmonious terrains yet denying the legitimacy of spatial con- homeless person" as an ideological figure?-> Disorder, unrest, and conflict in the

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social system are all attributed to this figure-properties that cannot be eliminated tate the restructuring of global capitalism. 26 As the specific form of advanced capi-
from the social system since, as Laclau and Mouffe argue, social space is structured talist :urbanism, redevelopment destroyed the conditions of survival for residents
around an impossibility and is therefore irrevocably split by antagonisms. But when no longer needed in the city's new economy. The gentrification of parks played a
public space is represented as an organic unity that the homeless person is seen to key role in this process. 27 Homeless people and new public spaces, such as parks,
disrupt from the outside, the homeless person becomes a positive embodiment of are not, then, distinct entities, the first -disrupting the peace of the second. The
the element that prevents society from achieving closure. The element thwarting tvvo are, rather, dual products of the spatioeconomic conflicts that constitute the
society's ability to cohere is transformed from a negativity within the social itself contemporary production of urban space.
into a presence whose elimination would restore social order. In this sense, nega- Yet, as I have also argued elsewhere, public art programs, serving as an arm
tive images of the homeless person are images of a positivity. The homeless person of urban redevelopment, helped produce the opposite impression. Under several
becomes, as ZiZek writes about the "Jew," "a point at which soci{Jl negativity as such unifying banners-historical continuity, preservation of cultural tradition, civic
assumes positive existence." 24 The vision of the homeless person as the source of con- beautification, utilitarianism-official public art collaborated with architecture and
flict in public space denies that there is an obstacle to coherence at the very core urban design to create an image of new urban sites that suppressed their conflictual
of sociaJ life. The homeless person embodies the fantasy of a unified urban space character. In so doing, they also constructed the homeless person-a product of
that can-must-be ~etrieved. 25 conflict-as an ideological figure-the bringer of conflict.zs
To challenge the image of the homeless person as a disn1ption of the normal
urban order, it is crucial to recognize that this "intrusive" figure points to the city's
true character. Conflict is not something that befalls an originally, or potentially,
harmonious urban space. Urban space is the product of conflict. This is so in sev- In this pervasive atmosphere of conservative democracy, it might be seen as an
eral, incorrunensurable senses. In the first place, the lack of absolute social founda- encouraging sign that today's widespread enthusiasm for "public art" has been
tions-"the disappearance of the markers of certainty" -makes conflict an tempered from the beginrung by uncertainty about the definition of the term.
ineradicable feature of all social space. Second, the unitary image of urban space Artists and critics have repeatedly asked what it means to bring the word public into
constructed in conservative urban discourse is itself produced through division, proximity with art. Writers alert to the problems that plague conventional concepts
constituted through the creation of an exterior. The perception of a coherent space of publicness often begin their explorations of public art by questioning the iden-
cannot be separated from a sense of what threatens that space, of what it would tity, even the existence, of their object of study. In 1985 Jerry Allen, director of
like to exclude. Finally, urban space is produced by specific socioeconomic con- the Cultural Affairs Division of the City of Dallas, voiced this bewilderment:
flicts that should not simply be accepted, either wholeheartedly or regretfully, as "Nearly 26 years after the passage of the first Percent for Art ordinance in Philadel-
evidence of the inevitability of conflict but, rather, politicized-opened to contes- phia, we still are unable to define exacdy what public art is or ought to be." 29
tation as social and therefore mutable relations of oppression. For, as I have argued Three years later, the critic Patricia Phillips concurred: "Though public art in the
elsewhere, the pres·~flce of homeless people in New York's public places today is late 20th century has emerged as a fi.tll-blown discipline, it is a field without dear
the most acute symptom of the uneven social relations that detennined the shape definitions." 30 Recent anxieties over the category "public art" could serve-.as a
of the city throughout the 1980s, when it was redeveloped not, as promoters of textbook example of the postmodem idea that objects of study are the effect, rather
redevelopment claimed, to fulfill the natural needs of a unitary society but to facili- than the ground, of disciplinary knowledge.

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Critics dedicated to public art's democratic potc;:ntial but dissatisfied with its the artist as an autonomous self and of art as an expression grounded in this strictly
traditional classifications and uses have turned their uncertainty into a mandate private being. Individuals or artists may not be so securely private as Allen thinks.
to redefine the category. By 1988, writers like Kathy Halbreich of the National The dismissal of this possibility leads critics to support a rigid opposition between
Endowment for the Arts had begun to insist that as an essential part of this redefi- "art" and "public" that rephrases standard liberal dichotomies between individual
nition "equal stress be placed on the words 'public' and 'art."'31 Soon the balance and society, private and public. The public/private opposition has also been mobi-
shifted even further, in f.:wor of the first word. By now, attention to the term public lized to unite, rather than polarize, "art" and "public." CritiCs often treat both art
is the touchstone of redefinitions of public art. Some writers have coined names, and the public as universal spheres that, harmonized by a common human essence,
like Suzanne Lacy's "new genre public art," to designate the work of public artists stand above the conflictual reahn of atomized individuals, purely private differ-
32
who, as Lacy puts it, "adopt 'public' as their operative concept and quest." ences, and special interests. In these cases, "public art" is not, as Allen assunies, a
Doubtless, these are steps in the direction of democratizing public art discourse. contradictory entity, but instead comes doubly burd~ned as a figure of univ~rsal
But critics often propose defmitions of"public" that circumvent or eliminate what accessibility.
I, following Lefort, have called the question that gives rise to public space. Instead Although the two formulations-art opposed to public, art united with pub-
of describing public space so that it escapes appropriation altogether, those who lic-place art on different sides of the public/private divide, they stay within the
challenge the conservative domination of public art discourse have largely reappro- same polarizing framework. The failure to question this framework has led many
priat~d the term. critics to open and close the question of the public in a single gesture. While
This tendency clearly dominates the principal forms of liberal public art dis- they note that public art is difficult to define and stress the incoherence of the
course. For Allen, to give only one example, public art is a problem not because contemporary public, they still equate public space with consensus, coherence, and
the meanings of art and public are uncertain or even subject to historical variation; universality and relegate pluralism, division, and difference to the realm of the
on the contrary, problems arise because the meanings of the two terms are fixed private. They tacitly view the plurality and strife that characterize the public as
in advance and inevitably clash: problematic facts that supporters of public space must find procedures to reduce
and finally eliminate. Allen, for instance, who offers a solution typically adopted
The very notion of a "public art" is something of a contradiction in by many public art advocates, initially acknowledges that art's "public context"
terms. In it, we join two words whose meanings are, in some ways, is broad and heterogeneous. Public art cannot hope to express va}ues held by
antithetical. We recognize "art" [in the 20th century] as the individual everyone. Still, its goal should be to serve unif1ed, if multiple, publics that, says
inquiry of the sculptor or painter, the epitome of self-assertion. To that Allen, can be found if artists suppress their individual egos and consult the people
we join "public," a reference to the collective, the social order, self- "immediately affected by the project" -preexisting groups or communities who
negation. Hence, we link the private and the public, in a single con- use specific urban sites, distinct constituencies each defined by some common
33
cept or object, from which we expect both coherence and integrity. identification. 34
Homogeneity and unanimity-frequently cast in the shape of "commu-
This formulation ignores the forceful challenge that certain key branches of nity" -become the object of quests for true publicness as some critics, while use-
twentieth-century art and criticism have directed against individualistic notions of fully documenting controversies fought over specific public artworks and even

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PUBLIC SPACE AND DEMOCRACY

and essence of democratic civic life. In the Athenian polis, the Roman republic,
espousing controversy as a natural ingredient of the public art process, continue to
late-eighteenth-century France, and the commons of early American towns, critics
associate public space and democracy with the goals of building consensus, consol-
locate the spatial forms that supposedly embody such a life. This quest has become
idating communities, and soothing conflicts. At the same time they place the
especially common among left urban and architecture theorists who, driven by
definition of democratic public space fundamentally outside controversy.
opposition to the newly homogenized, privatized, and state-regulated public
This dynamic is illustrated by a 1992 anthology titled Critical Issues in Public
spaces created by advanced capitalist urbanization, have fom1ed influential alli-
Art: Content, Context, and Controversy. In the book's opening sentence, the editors
ances. Michael Sorkin, for example, introduces his interdisciplinary anthology of
tie public art to democracy: ''Public art with its built-in social focus would seem
critical essays, Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End cifPublic
to be an ideal genre for a democracy." 35 They continue: "Yet, since its inception,
Space! with a plea for a return to "the familiar spaces of traditional cities, the streets
issues surrounding its appropriate form and placement, as well as its funding, have
and squares, courtyards and parks," that are "our great scenes of the civic." 38 Sorkin
made public art an object of controversy more often than consensus or celebra-
concludes that in the new "'public' spaces of the theme park or the shopping mall,
tion."36 The conjunction yet, which links these two sentences, performs important
speech itself is restricted: there are no demonstrations in Disneyland. The effort to
ideological work. It joins democracy-introduced in the first sentence-and con-
reclaim the city is the struggle of democracy itself." 39
troversy-introduced in the second-in an adverse relationship. Public art would
When Sorkin treats public space as the site of political activity rather than as
be democratic except that it is controversial, or-in a more optimistic reading-
a universal domain that must be protected from politics, he significantly redirects
public art retains its democratic potential despite the fact that it is controversial.
mainstream discourse about public space. He is right to link public space to the
"Yet" signals a reversal. Public art would seem to be democratic but instead turns
exercise of free speech rights and to challenge the current proliferation of sanitized
out to be controversial. Controversy, moreover, serves as a foil for consensus, which
urban spaces that tolerate little resistance to the most circumscribed uses. 40 But
consequently emerges as democracy's proper goal and is, further, associated with
when Sorkin idealizes traditional city space as a "more authentic urbanity, " 41 a
celebration. While the book's editors and many authors of the essays stress, or even
space essential to democratic politics, he avoids the politics of its historical constitu-
valorize, 'disunity and antagonism, the word ''yet" reveals an indecision at the heart
tion as well as the possibility of its political transformation. Within this idealizing
of accounts of public art that interrogate the meaning of public space only to
perspective, departures from established spatial arrangements inevitably signal the
beg the question. "Yet" dissociates democracy from the fact of conflict and binds
"end of public space." Edge cities, shopping malls, mass media, electronic space
democracy to consensus-oriented, homogenizing notions of public space and pub-
(even, for the right, "bizarrely shaped" voting districts) become tantamount to
lic art. Conflict is simultaneously acknowledged and disavowed, a fetishistic process
democracy's demise.
whose repressions generate certitudes about the meaning of public space. Later in
The cover of Variations on a Theme Park discloses certain problems with this
Critical Issues in Public Arl, for example, the editors simply repeat their universaliz-
approach. It depicts a group of Renaissance figures, the men and women normally
ing assumptions: "The very concept of public art, defined in any meaningful way,
37 seen in quattro- and cinquecento paintings disposed throughout the perspectival,
presupposes a fairly hqmogeneous public and a language of art that speaks to all."
orthogonally ordered, and visually unified outdoor squares of Italian cities. But on
Conservative and liberal aesthetic discourses are by no means alone in find-
the book jacket these inhabitants of a stable public realm are spatially and tem-
ing ways simultaneously to open and close the question of public space. Some of
porally displaced. With patrician gestures and flowing drapery intact, they find
the most influential radical critiques of those discourses also try to dispel uncer-
themselves riding an escalator in a new "antiurban" structure-perhaps it is an
tainty. Many leftist cultural critics, for instance, search history to discover the origin

283
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tive urban discourse. Throughout the boom years of redevelopment, nostalgic im-
ages of the city were employed by real-estate developers, historic preservationists,
and city officials to advertise individual redevelopment projects as advances in an
ongoing struggle to restore an ideal city from the more or less remote past. In
New York, these projects were promoted as piecemeal contributions to the city's
own "renaissance," the rebirth of a lost urban tradition. Redevelopment projects,
it was claimed, would help restore New York to its place in a lineage of earlier
cities that, centered on expansive public spaces, were harmonious in their en-
tirety. 42 The tradition continues. For Paul Goldberger, the newly renovated Bryant
Park in midtown Manhattan is an "out-of-town experience." His appraisal, like so
many contemporary accounts of the city, implies that homeless people control
access to public space: Bryant Park, he says, is a place the poor have begun to
"share." Now it "feels as if it has been ... dropped into some idyllic landscape far,
far away." 43
Public space, these comments suggest, is not only something we do not have.
Rather, it is what we once had-a lost state of plenitude. Since it is lost, however,
and not simply dead, we can recover it. "Whatever Became of the Public Square?"
asked Harper's Magazine's lead article in 1990 as a prelude to a search for new urban
designs that will restore the public square-what Harper's calls "that great good
place." 44 What is pictured on the cover of Variations on a Theme Park if not a loss?
We see, in absentia, a zone of safety, a great good place from which we have been
banished-at least those of us who identify with Renaissance city dwellers as exiled
Detail of jacket of Variations on a Theme Park: The New Ameri-
can City and the End if Public Space, edited by Michael Sorkin inhabitants of a democratic public space.
(photo Kevin Noble). This qualification should give us pause. Pursuing specificity, it raises two sets
of questions that can help sharpen currently hazy images of public space. The first
inquires into the concrete identity of the sketchy people who exemplify supposedly
"inward-looking atrium hotel" or multilevel shopping mall~a structure which,
tme publicness on the cover of Sorkin's book. Which social groups were actually
according to the book's thesis, signifies "the end of public space." Appropriated to
included, and which excluded, in the purportedly fully inclusive, or at least more
visualize this thesis, providing the literal background of the book's subtide, the
inclusive, urban public spaces of the near or distant past? Who counted as a citizen
illustration links Sorki~'s trenchant critique of contemporary urbanism to a strong in the "great scenes of the civic" figured as missing? "For whom," as cultural-critic
current of urban nostalgia that indeed pervades many of the essays in the book.
Bmce Robbins asks, "was the city once more public than now? Was it ever open
There are good reasons for radical urban critics to eschew this connection.
to the scrutiny and participation, let alone under the control, of the majority?
Most obviously, the turn to the past brings them uncomfortably close to conserva-

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... If so, where were the workers, the women, the lesbians, the gay men, the sphere." This term is used loosely to designate a realm of discursive interaction
African Americans?'' 45 about political issues. In the public sphere, people assume political identities.
Raising the issue of who identifies with the displaced residents of a classical The term inevitably conjures Jtirgen Habermas, whose book The Structural
urban square not only urges us to consider the attributes of the figures in an image Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category cif Bourgeois Society pro-
of public space; it also turns our attention to the viewers of the image. It broaches a vides the archetypal account of the public sphere as a lost democratic ideal. 46 Writ-
second question, one largely neglected, sometimes actively repudiated, in aesthetic ten in 1962, Habennas's study first appeared in English in 1989, but its basic tenets
discussions about public space: the question of subjectivity in representation. How were already familiar to many English-speaking readers, partly through a 197 4
do images of public space create the public identities they seem merely to depict? translation of his brief encyclopedia article on the public sphere. 47 Habermas de-
How do they constitute the viewer into these identities? How, that is, do they scribes the public sphere as a specific historical formation first elaborated as an idea
invite viewers to take up a position that then defines them as public beings? How in Kant's definition of "enlightenment"-the use of reason for public criticism. 48
do these images create a "we," a public, and who do we imagine ourselves to be The public sphere, according to Habermas, arose with the advent of bourgeois
when we occupy the prescribed site? If, as I have claimed, the cover of Vt:lriations society, which inaugurated a strict division between the private and the political
on a Theme Park depicts a Renaissance square as the archetype of public space, then realms. In the safety of the private sphere, the bourgeoisie could pursue financial
whose identity, in the _present, is produced and reinforced by an image of public gain unimpeded by society or the state. But bourgeois society, says Habermas, also
space tied to the traditional spaces of perspectival representation? What is public- gave rise to a set of institutions-the public sphere-through which the bourgeoi-
ness, if it is equated with the fixed, all-seeing viewpoint that is the real subject of sie could exercise control over the actions of the state while renouncing the claim
these Renaissance spaces? Who must be displaced to guarantee the authority of to rule. In the public sphere-a realm between society and the state-a sphere in
the single reference point? Is the possessor of this viewpoint really a public being- principle op~n and accessible to all, the state was held accountable to citizens.
the individual who can remain safely behind the rectangular frame .of its "window There people emerged from privacy and, casting aside private interests to commit
on the world;' who can, like the figures in the image, walk into public space and themselves to matters of common concern, constituted themselves into a public
just as easily walk out? Or is it possible that the displacement of this secure subject by engaging in rational-critical political discussion. But in Habermas's view the
is not, as Sorkin's cover suggests, ''the end of public space" but precisely the effect public sphere declined with the entry of nonbourgeois groups, the growth of mass
of being in public space, the realm of our "being-in-corrunon" where, it is often media, and the rise of the welfare state. These phenomena eroded the secure bor-
said, we encounter others and are presented with our existence outside ourselves? der between public and private life that for Habermas is the origin and remains the
The same questions apply to another discourse about public space, closely condition of the public sphere's existence.
related to Variations on a Theme Park1 that has recently been embraced by left art One may question the homogenizing tendency glimpsed even in this brief
critics. Like architecture and urban scholars, sometimes joining forces with them, description of Habermas's ideal of a singular, unified public sphere that transcends
critical sectors of the art world have tried to rescue the term public from conserva- concrete particularities and reaches a rational-noncoercive-consensus. For now,
tive depoliticizations by defining public space as an arena of political activity and however, let us emphasize that there are other conceptions of the public sphere
redefining public art as art that participates in or creates a space of politics. For this less hostile to differences or conflict, less eager to turn their backs on critiques of
purpose, critics have found a valuable resource in the category of the "public modernity, and more skeptical about the innocence of either reason or language

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and note the strong impact that any conception of a public sphere exerts on con- definitions: when critics redefine public art as work operating in or as a public
ventional assumptions about public art. For the interpretation of public art as art sphere, the by now unanimous admonition to make art public becomes virtually
operating in or as a public sphere-whether it follows or rejects the Habermasian synonymous with a demand for art's politicization. Art that is "public" participates
model-means that an art public, by contrast with an art audience, is not a preex- in, or creates, a political space and is itself a space where we assume political
isting entity but rather emerges through, is produced by, its participation in politi- identities.
cal activity. Yet, offered as a response to the question of public space, the idea of the
The introduction of the concept of the public sphere into art criticism shat- public sphere does not by itself fulfill the mandate to safeguard dernocracy as a
ters mainstream categorizations of public art. It also helps circumvent confusions question. In fact, the assertion that public space is the site of democratic political
plaguing some critical discussions. Transgressing the boundaries that convention- activity can repeat the very evasion of politics that such an assertion seeks to chal-
ally divide public from nonpublic art-divisions drawn, for example, betvveen in- lenge. For, like the urban critic's defense of traditional city space as a terrain ln
door and outdoor art, between artvvorks shown in conventional institutions and which political discourse takes place, this assertion does not require us to recognize,
those displayed in "the city," between state-sponsored and privately funded art- indeed it can prevent us from recognizing, that the political public sphere is not
the public sphere excavates other distinctions that, neutralized by prevailing defi- only a site of discourse; it is also a discursively constmcted site. From the standpoint
nitions of public space, are crucial to democratic practice. By differentiating public of radical democracy, politics cannot be reduced to something that happens inside
space frorrl the realm .of the state, for instance, the concept of the public sphere the limits of a public space or political community that is simply accepted as "real."
counteracts public art discourse that defines the public as state administration and Politics, as Chantal Mouffe writes, is about the constitution of the political com-
confines democracy to a form of government. The public sphere idea locates de- munity. 50 It is about the spatializing operations that produce a space of politics. If
mocracy in society to which state authority is accountable. With public space democracy means that the political community-the public, "we, the people"-
linked to political decision making and to rights and social legitimacy, arts adminis- has no absolute basis, then laying down the foundations that mark off a political
trators can less easily ignore the displacement of social groUps from urban public public space, deciding what is legitimate and illegitimate there, is an ineluctably
spaces while continuing to describe these sites as "accessible." In addition, and political process. Distinctions and similarities are drawn, exclusions enacted, deci-
perhaps preeminently, the public sphere replaces definitions of public art as work sions made. However much the democratic public sphere promises openness and
that occupies or designs physical spaces and addresses preexisting audiences with a accessibility, it can never be a fully inclusive or fully constituted political commu-
conception of public art as a practice.that constitutes a public, by engaging people nity. It is, from the start, a strategy of distinction, dependent on constitutive exclu-
in political discussion or by entering a political struggle. Since any site has the sions, the attempt to place something outside. 51 Conflict, division, and instability,
potential to be transformed into a public or, for that matter, a private space, public then, do not min the democratic public sphere; they are the conditions of its
art can be viewed as an instrument that either helps produce a public space or existence. The threat arises with efforts to supersede conflict, for the public sphere
questions a dominated space that has been officially ordained as public. The func- remains democratic only insofar as its exclusions are taken into account and open
tion of public art becomes, as Vito Acconci put it, "to make or break a public to contestation. When the exclusions governing the constitution of political public
space." 49 space are naturaliZed and contests erased by declaring particular forms of space
But one effect ofintroducing the idea of the public sphere into debates about inherently, eternally, or self-evidently public, public space is appropriated. Al-
public art overwhelms all others in the strength of its challenge to neutralizing though it is equated with political space, public space is given a prepolitical source

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PUCLIC SPACE AND DEMOCHACY

in favor of functional analyses that examine its uses in particular historical circum-
of political meaning and becomes a weapon against, rather than a means of, politi-
stances. In 1987, for example, Craig Owens noted "how malleable the concept of
cal struggle.
the public can be" and concluded that "the question of who is to define, manipu-
To undo this appropriation, the question of public space might be ap-
late and profit from 'the public' is ... the central issue of any discussion of the
proached in a more genealogical spirit than has hitherto animated left aesthetic or
public function of art today." 53 Owens examined the way in which rhetoric about
urban discussions. We will not capture the truth of public space by recovering its
"the public good" and "the protection of culture for the pubhc" has historically
origins. According to Friedrich Nietzsche, who conceived the term genealogy in
provided an alibi for modern imperialism. Using Nelson Rockefeller's cultural and
opposition to nineteenth-century conceptions of history, the recovery of origins
economic investments in Latin America as an example, Owens argued that individ-
does not reveal the essential, unchanging meaning of a concept; it shows, on the
uals who represent the economic interests most deeply implicated in destroying
contrary, that meanings are conditional, formed out of struggles. Precisely because
other cultures in order to bring them into the sphere of capitalist social relations
the "essence" of publicness is a historically constituted figure that grows and
have also collected the artifacts of those cultures in the name of preserving culture
changes, the public is a rhetorical instrument open to diverse, even antagonistic,
for the public.
uses that vary with widely differing contexts. The origin and purpose of an object
In the 1980s I criticized a similar rhetoric of the public good that provided
of knowledge, Nietzsche warns, are two separate problems that are frequently con-
an a~ibi for urban redevelopment. 54 Owens's and my arguments were part of a far
fused: "The cause of t~e origin of a thing and its eventual utility, its actual employ-
broader effort in critical sectors of the art world to redefine the public so that the
ment and place in a system of purposes, He worlds apart; whatever exists, having
concept might be marshalled against two developments in art: first, massive eco-
somehow come into being, is again and again reinterpreted to new ends, taken
nomic privatization-the art-market explosion, attacks on public funding, grow-
over, transformed, and redirected by some power superior to it." 52 Concealing a
ing corporate influence on exhibition policies-and second, the growth of a new
particular ''system of purposes'' by appealing to essential truths contained in the
public art industry serving as the aesthetic arm of oppressive urban policies. Owens
origins of the public is a ruse of authoritarian power that, glossing over the disjunc-
and I each invoked the concept of art as a political public sphere to counteract the
tion between a tenn's beginnings and its subsequent uses, renders "the public"
inversion we identified as the hallmark of conservative discourse about the pub-
invulnerable to transformation. In short, stories about the beginning of public
lic-forces that profit from the destruction of public spaces and cultures pose as
space are not really about the past; they tell us about the concerns and anxieties
their protectors. 55 "If culture is to be protected;' Owens asked, "is it not precisely
inhabiting our present social arrangements. From a genealogical perspective, the
from those whose business it is to protect culture?" 56
question of what it means for art to be public may still be worth asking, but it calls
Today, however, critical voices in the art world cannot afford to formulate
for another question: What political functions does the exhortation to make art
ideas about "real" public art solely by exposing the relations of domination con-
public-that is, political-currently fulfill?
cealed by liberal or conservative notions-any more than leftists have been able to
confine their critique of democracy to uncovering the mystifications of bourgeois
PuBLIC VISIONS
democracy while ignoring the authoritarian potential of some of their own ideas
about "real" democracy. To do so is to claim that public space can simply be liber-
Questions about the constitution, transformation, and uses of the public are, of
course, not new in public art discourse, but directing them at critical redefinitions ated from conservatives and liberals who have hijacked it from its rightful owners.
The history of radical social thought cautions against making this claim-itself an
of public art is. Since the 1980s, art critics on the left have tried to reframe aesthetic
appropriation of the public. Leftists do not simply represent the true meaning of
debates about public space by abandoning normative evaluations of the word public

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public space. They, too, define and have, moreover, "manipulated and profited
from 'the public."' In critical social theory, as Nancy Fraser writes, "private" and
"public" have long been powerful terms "frequently deployed to delegitimate
some interests, views, and topics and to valorize others ... to restrict the universe
oflegitimate public contestation." 57 Left art criticism needs to take a closer look at
what-and at whom-its use of the term public forces into privacy. Setting critical GRETCHEN BENDER
conceptions of "art in/as a public sphere" against celebratory conceptions of "art JENNIFER BOLANDE
in public places" or "the new public art" is by now a commonplace that hardly DIANE BUCKLER
exhausts all contests over what it means to bring the word public into proximity ELLEN CAREY
with art. NANCY DWYER
Without in any way relinquishing this earlier critique, but in the interest of BARBARA KRUGER
extending the scope of a genealogical inquiry into the meaning of the public in LOUISE LAWLER
art, I would like to stage a different yet, to my mind, no less urgent confrontation:
SHERRIE LEVINE
not the customary meeting between celebratory and critical conceptions of public
DIANE SHEA
space but an encounter between two critical events that took place in the NeW
York art world during the 1980s. The adjective public figures prominently in both
CINDY SHERMAN
events but describes divergent concepts of space. The first is an exhibition entitled LAURIE SIMMONS
"Public Vision" held in 1982; the second, a talk delivered in 1987 by the art histo- PEGGY YUNQUE
rian Thomas Crow at a panel on "The Cultural Public Sphere." Through this
juxtaposition, I hope to bring to light certain suppressed terms of the current de-
bate about art's publicness. The work exhibited in "Public Vision" represents a
type of art that many consider irrelevant, even inimical, to the project of making
art public. This judgment is implicit in the concept of an artistic public sphere that
Crow espouses as the fulfillment of art's public functions. I will argue that the
reverse is closer to the truth. As the exhibition's title suggests, art like that shown
in "Public Vision" has long been part of the project of extending, not endangering,
public space. The questions that this art raises are vital to democracy, and defini-
tions of a political public sphere that reject these questions reveal a hostility toward
a richly agonistic public life.
"Public Vision;' organized by Gretchen Bender, Nancy Dwyer, and Cindy
Sherman, was presented at White Columns, a small alternative space then on the
edge of Soho in Lower Manhattan. 58 The exhibition brought together a group of Public Vision, poster, designed by Jo Bonney, 1982 (photo Kevin Noble).

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 PUBL!C SPACE AND D!iMOCHACY AGOllAI'!lOBlA

women artists whose work is associated with what would soon become known ual experience as a pure, irreducible category isolated from other orders of experi-·
as the feminist critique of visual representation. The show was small, brief, and ence. Vision was given the property of an essence. 62 The prestige enjoyed by
undocumented. In retrospect, however, it has the quality of a manifesto. Mounted traditional art rested on this doctrine of visual purity. Museums and galleries, it
at the height of an internationally proclaimed, male-dominated neoexpressionist was held, simply discover and preserve timeless, transcendent values present in
revival of traditional aesthetic values, it announced the arrival of a new feminist art objects.
politics of the image destined- to unsettle established aesthetic paradigms. "Public In the late 1960s and 1970s certain artists launched a critique of art institu-
Vision" also promised that art informed by feminist theories of representation tions that challenged the claim of aesthetic transcendence. Artists like Hans
would change the course of what was then the most radical critique of traditional Haacke, Martha Rosler, Adrian Piper, Daniel Buren, and Marcel Broodthaers
paradigms: the discourse about postmodernism. In the early 1980s theories of post- demonstrated that the meaning of a work of art does not reside permanently within
modernism in art remained indifferent to sexuality_ and gender. 59 "Public Vision" the work itself but is formed only in relation to an outside~to the manner of the
was a feminist intervention in both mainstream and radical aesthetic discourses- work's presentation-and therefore changes with circumstances. Indeed, the very
a little-known forerunner of "The Revolutionary Power of Women's Laughter" designation of an object as a work of art depends on the work's framing condi-
(1983), 60 the highly influential "Difference: On Representation and Sexuality" tion~-including the physical apparatus that supports it, prevailing discourses about
(1985), 61 both originating in New York, and a host of later exhibitions that com- art, and the presence of viewers. The significance of an artwork is not simply
bined postmodern challenges to the universalizing premises of modernism and given or discovered, it is produced. Artists engaged in what became known as
postmodern declarations of "the birth of the viewer" with feminist critiques of "institutional critique" investigated this process of production by making the con-
phallic visual regimes. "Public Vision" was less prograriunatic than subsequent ex- text of art's exhibition the subject matter of their work, thereby demonstrating the
hibitions on these themes but, composed only of women artists, signaled a feminist inseparability of the artwork from its conditions of e.xistence. They transformed the
agenda, even if the type of feminism informing the show was ultimately not exhibition spaces and museological apparatus through which illusions of aesthetic
gender-exclusive. Placing the work of artists who had already figured prominently detachment are constructed. Sometimes they drew attention to the specific social
in discussions of postmodernism-Barbara Kn1ger, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, and economic interests that "detachment" has historically served.
Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons-in a manifestly feminist context, the show pro- At the same time, fentinist artists and critics were undermining claims of
moted a rereading of this work. aesthetic neutrality by calling attention to the asymmetrical positions occupied by
"Public Vision" challenged the official modernist doctrine that vision is a men and women ih the history of att. As an important part of this project, feminists
superior means of access to authentic and universal truths because it is supposedly criticized the stereotypical, idealized, or degraded depictions of women-the so-
detached from its objects. The idea of visual detachment and related concepts of called negative images-that abound in works of art. They held "transcendent"
disinterested judgment and impartial contemplation depend on the belief that an art and "universal" aesthetic vision accountable for the reproduction of what were
order of meaning exists in itself, in things themselves, as presence. Within the in fact oppressive, social gender norms.
modernist scenario, of disinterested aesthetic vision, a self-sufficient viewer con- The work in "Public Vision" drew on the strategies of early critiques of
templates an equally autonomous art object that possesses meanings independent of institutions and early feminist critiques of aesthetic images but revised these ·strate-
the particular circumstances of its production or reception. Clement Greenberg's gies by challenging their presuppositions about the viewer. Institutional critiques
influential writings about modernism had defined modernist painting as the very often stressed the activity of the viewer but sometimes treated this as the accom-
figure of such a fully constituted truth-a self-contained totality-and treated vis- plishment of a determinate task. Hans Haacke's work, for instance, invited viewers

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to decipher relations and find content already inscribed in images but did not ask In one respect, Sherrie Levine's contribution, After Egon Schiele (1982), pro-
them to examine their own role and investments in producing images. Likewise, vided the exhibition's keynote. Levine displayed framed photographs of the sexu-
feminist analysis of images of women in terms of positive or negative content pre- ally graphic drawings executed in the early twentieth century by Viennese
sumed that images contain stable meanings simply perceived by preconstituted expressionist Egon Schiele. Levine's display, like "Public Vision" as a whole, was
viewers. Some images are false and deficient; others, tr'ue and adequate. This analy- a site-specific intervention in the early 1980s art world. She commented directly
sis thus lapses into a positivist fiction. By contrast, artists in "Public Vision" went on the expressionist ethos then being celebrated in a widespread neoexpressionist
beyond the positive-negative approach to produce what might be called "critical revival of traditional artistic media-oil painting, drawing, bronze sculpture. In the
images." They unsettled the modernist model of visual neutrality at its core by expressionist model, a sovereign individual struggles heroically against the con-
proposing that meaning arises only in an interactive space between viewer and straints imposed by a society that is strictly external and inevitably alienating. The
image-but not between preexisting viewers or images. Rather, these artists ex- artist registers his presence-embodied in painterly brushstrokes, traces of the
plored the role played by vision in constituting the human subject and, moreover, touch of the hand-in unique works of art that are subjective protests against,
in the continuous reproduction of this subject by social forms of visuality. They and victories over, social alienation. The artwork is conceived of as an expression
did not confine their analysis of the politics of the image to what appears inside grounded in a preexisting, autonomous self-the artist and, by extension, the
the borders of a picture, within the visual field. Instead, they turned their attention viewer who identifies with the expression.
to what is invisible thCre-the operations that generate the seemingly natural Levine's refrarning of Schiele's drawings ironically reenacted neoexpression-
spaces of the image and the viewer. In so doing, these artists treated the image ism's own reenactment of original German expressionism, exposing both expres-
itself as a social relationship and the viewer as a subject constructed by the very sionisms to scrutiny. Recontextualizing Schiele's drawings and presenting them as
object from which it formerly claimed detachment. Visual detachment and its cor- socially coded, reproducible forms of visual culture rather than unmediated, paint-
ollary, the autonomous art object, emerged as a constructed, rather than given, erly expressions, Levine generated a moment of unrecognizability for the viewer.
relationship of externality, a relationship that produces-is not produced by-its In this moment, the viewer's identification with the image-solicited by images
terms: discrete objects, on the one hand, and complete subjects, on the other. whose meanings appear to be simply natural-was arrested. Viewer and image
These subjects are no harmless fictions. They are, rather, relationships of power- were displaced. Rather than an autonomous identity expressed in artworks, the
rnasculinist fantasies of completion achieved by repressing different subjectivities, expressionist self appeared as a construction produced through visual represen-
transforming difference into otherness, or subordinating actual others to the au- tation. Levine's re-presentation of Schiele pointed to an ambivalence in this
thority of a universal viewpoint presupposed to be, like the traditional art viewer, construction, an ambivalence that further unsettles the idea that the subject is
uninflected by sex, race, an unconscious, or history. self-contained. The expressionist artist seeks to "express" himself, in the sense of
The works in "Public Vision" intervened in the subject constructed by mod- recording emotional and sexual impulses, in images presented as evidence of an
ernist painting, disrupting and reconflguring the traditional space of aesthetic vi- authentic, interior identity that cannot be alienated. At the same time, the expres-
sion. In diverse ways-:-:: I will give three examples-these works advanced toward sionist artist tries to "express," in the sense of emptying himself of, dissonant im-
viewers, disengaging them from habitual modes of aesthetic reception, turning pulses, which he controls precisely by alienating or projecting them onto an
their attention away from the image and back on themselves-or, more precisely, exteriorized image or other.
on their relationship with the image. Cindy Sherman's contribution to "Public Vision" was an image from her

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AGORAPB.OBIA

viewer might penetrate, an essential identity around which the meaning of the
image might reach closure. Rosalind Krauss reminds us that this search for truth is
the hallmark of the hermeneutic idea of art, an idea with, moreover, a gendered
subtext: "The female body itself has been made to serve as a metaphor for herme-
neutics . . all those meanings to which analysis reaches as it seeks the meaning
behind the surface flood of incident, all of them, are.-cultural1y coded as
feminine.'' 63
Sherman's photographs thwart this interpretive grasp by replacing the seem-
ing transparency of the image with the opacity of cinematic and photographic
sig~ifiers. Interiority emerges, then, not as a property of the female character bUt
as a social effect that marks the surface of the female body. And, as Judith William-
son writes, while each of Sherman's photographs calls forth the expectation that it
will disclose a coherent, inner identity, none can actually be the "real" Sherman
precisely because they all promise to be. 64 The viewer's attention is thus focused
on the search itself, on the desire for interior depth, coherence, and presence in
the picture, for an object that might ensure the viewer's own coherent identity.
This desire for wholeness drives the unfulfillable search to find a unifYing meaning
in or behind the image, a search linked, moreover, to the establishment of the
difference between the sexes. The masculine viewer can construct himself as whole
only by finding a fixed femininity, a truth of the feminine that precedes representa-
tion. In this sense, the image of "woman" is an instrument for producing and
Sherrie Levine, After Egon Schiele: 2, 1982 (photo maintaining a fantasy of masculine identity.
courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery). In Barbara K;uger's contribution to "Public Vision;' Untitled (You delight in
the loss cif others), a written text superimposed on a radically cropped photograph of
a woman's outstretched hand dropping a glass of milk, is the vehicle for inter-
then ongoing project of photographing herself as a model acting out a range of
rupting the rhetoric of the image-the strategies whereby the image imposes its
female character types drawn from mass-media images-movies, magazines, and
messages on viewers. Bluntly addressing the viewer, the words "You delight in the
television (see pages 234-235). Sherman explored these characters not as repro-
loss of others" invoke the sadistic pleasures of voyeuristic looking, the pole of
ductions of real identities but as effects produced by such visual signifiers as fram-
vision directly linked to the ideal of visual detachment: the voyeuristic look frames
ing, lighting, distance, focus, and camera angle. In this way she drew attention to
objects as images, sets them at a distance, encloses them in a separate space, and
the material process of identity formation that takes place in culturally coded but
places the viewer in a position of control. Simultaneously, however, Kruger's text
seemingly natural images of women. Sherman's photographs both elicit and frus-
speaks as a feminist voice that undercuts the security of this arrangement. Her
trate the viewer's search for an inner, hidden truth of a character to which the

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PUBLIC $PACE AND DEMOCRACY

object and are literally looked at but because the voyeuristic look renders whatever
it looks at "feminine"-if, as Mark Wigley writes, the feminine is understood as
that which disrupts the security of the boundaries separating spaces and must there-
fore be controlled by masculine force. Masculinity in this sense "is no more than
the ability to maintain rigid limits or, more precisely, the effect of such lirnits." 6<i
It has been argued that the iconographic figure of woman in images of women is
less a reproduction of real women than a cultural sign producing femininity as
the object of such masculine containment, as what Laura Mulvey famously calls
''to-be-looked-at-ness.'' 67
Kruger's "you" is counterposed to a photograph whose status as a feminized
object is underscored by the fact that it depicts a woman: a woman's hand and,
moreover, a part-object or symbolic equivalent of-the maternal woman-the
spiller of milk. "You" thus acquires a gender. It designates a masculine viewer who
delights in an idealized self-image-whole, universal, without loss. Far from an
essential identity, however, this masculine "you" is a site of representation, a sub-
ject, who emerges through two procedures, each designed to disavow incom-
pleteness and each, therefore, pertaining to loss. This "you" renders different
subjectivities absent-it overlooks them, loses them, and, of course, they lose. But
it does so precisely by keeping the woman in sight, framing her as an image dis-
Barbara Kruger, Untitled (You delight in the loss of others), 1981-83 (photo courtesy Barbara tanced from, but existing for, itself. This "you" tries to ensure its own coherence
Kruger). by setting itself in opposition to the feminine, transforming difference into a subor-
dinated otherness, into a sign of incompleteness, into loss itself. The quintessential
image "sees" the viewer, collapsing the distance between the two. Kruger's ac- example of both procedures-and of their connection to vision-is the fetishistic
knowledgment of the viewer's presence asserts that receivership is an essential com- disavowal of sexual difference inherent in the "perception" that woman, in contrast
ponent of the image and erodes the invisibility that protects the purportedly neutral to man, is "castrated." The fact that woman does not have the phallus can only be
viewing subject from interrogation. It does so, however, not to finger an actual translated into the perception that she has "lost" the phallus if, as Slavoj ZiZek
viewer but to call the spectator's identity into question. The personal pronoun you reminds us, it is presupposed that she should have it-if, that is, it is believed that
does not indicate a real person; it has no stable or absolute referent. 65 "You" de- there is a state of wholeness, signified by the possession of the phallus, from which
notes a position in a r'elationship with "others;' a viewer constituted by its images. it is possible to fall. The transformation of difference into castration disavows the
Kruger's photomontage also suggests that the spaces assigned to viewer and image fact that this lost state does not exist-. 68 Rather, as Kruger's' work suggests, the com-
in voyeuristic structures are bound up with hierarchical structures of sexual differ- plete, self-possessed identity is from the start a contingent relationship, a "you"
ence-not just because women have historically occupied the space of the visual produced by inflicting loss on others.

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But Kruger's work does not cry over spilt milk. The drive to control by by, in other words, exploring the viewer's noncontinuity with itself--this work
looking cannot be abolished, but the visual image can resist taking shape as an also disturbs the sense that otherness is purely externaL The opening of modernist
object in whose presence the controlling look can develop. "You" can be undone vision creates a space where the boundaries between self and other, inside and
as the image's hierarchies are weakened and its violences exposed. Indeed, Kruger's outside, are challenged.
text and manipulations of the image imbue the photograph with an atmosphere of What is the point of calling this troubled space "public?" The phrase public
violence. It takes on the appearance of a cinematic close-up and acquires narrative vision has several connotations. It suggests that vision is shaped by social and histori-
implications. What has caused the woman's hand suddenly to open and the glass cal structures; that the meaning of visual images is culturally, not individually, pro-
to fall? In movies, such partial images may tell the audience that a climactic and duced; and that images signify in social frameworks. In these respects, the tenn
brutal event is occurring. Read in this way, as a ftlm still, the photograph in Kru- public implies that viewers and images are socially constructed, that meaning is
ger's work suggests that an attack is being perpetrated against a woman; she is being public, not private. Used in the title of an exhibition that explored vision as an
stilled. The center of the action is displaced; it remains outside the frame. So does uncertain process in which viewers and images are not only constructed by a fixed
the assailant. At this point in the story, his identity may still be unknown to the social realm external to vision but also construct each other, the adjective public
moviegoer. Interpreted as the scene of an assault, the iconography of Kruger's pho- has more Complex implications. It describes a space in which the meanings of
tograph gives literal forn:- to the artist's principal subject matter: the scene of vision. images and the identities of subjects are radically open, contingent, and incom-
The offscreen aggressor is analogous to the masculine viewer who "delights in the plete. "Public Vision" associated public space with a set of relations that exceed
loss of others." The victim corresponds to the woman immobilized in the image the individual level but are not strictly outside the individuaL Publicness emerges
or, more broadly, to the feminine domesticated as an image. Visualization merges as a quality that constitutes, inhabits, and also breaches the interior of social sub-
with victimization of its object. The viewer, like his cinematic counterpart, stays jects. It is a condition of exposure to an outside that is also an instability within, a
outside the borders of the image-at least until Kruger investigates his identity condition, as Thomas Keenan says, "of vulnerability. " 70 "Public Vision" implied
and, in so doing, unravels it. For this "you," Kruger's text reveals, is no independent that the masculinist viewer's claim of disinterest and impartiality is a shield erected
and complete self It cannot stand alone. Neither is the image a self-contained against this vulnerability, a denial of the subject's immersion in the openness of
object. The autonomous subject is produced only by positioning others as objects public space.
of the look. Kruger's work finally suggests that the claim of visual detachment is Yet it is just this impartial subject who, five years later, the art historian
not only an illusion but, as Kate Linker writes, a tool of aggression. 69 Thomas Crow described as the authentic occupant of public space and, moreover,
Works such as those by Levine, Sherman, and Kruger opened up the mod- as the possessor of a truly "public vision." Crow made these assertions as a partici-
ernist space of pure vision. Built into the architecture of modernist looking is an pant on a panel about "The Cultural PubliC Sphere," one of two sessions devoted
injunction to recognize images and viewers as given, rather than produced, spaces to this topic in a series of weekly discussions on critical issues in contemporary art
and therefore as interiors closed in on themselves. But art informed by feminist organized by Hal Foster at the Dia Art Foundation. In the preface to the book that
ideas about representation disrupts this closure by staging vision as a process that documents the Dia symposium, Discussions irt Corltemporary Culture, Foster explains
mutually constitutes image and viewer. Pure interiority, these works reveal, is an that one such issue is "the definition of public and audience, historical and 'pres-
effect of the subject's disavowed dependence on the visual field. By exposing the ent."71 Indeed, the Dia panels remain one of the most serious efforts to date to
repressed relationships through which vision produces the sense of autonomy- redefine public art in terms of its involvement in a political public sphere. As the

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first speaker at the opening session, Crow inaugurated the effort. Both his original the objections raised during the discussion period by people such as Martha Rosier:
talk and a revised version published in Discussions in Contemporary Culture begin by "I'm shocked by your suggestion that it was somehow groups like women who
voicing the popular sentiment that the public sphere, in this case the public sphere dragged the discourse away from the pursuit of some imaginary high public." 75
of art, is lost. 72 Recently, however, in the years around 1968, it had been found. Crow took less seriously criticisms of the pursuit itself If he no longer blames
At that time, a group of "dematerializing" art practices sprang up, all involved in women for the decline of an art public and now even includes them as part of the
the singular project of criticizing the autonomy of the modernist art object. These resurgent artistic public sphere of the late 1960s, he does not alter, or even ques-
practices-conceptualism, site-specificity, performance, installation art-prom- tion, his model of the political public sphere or his conviction that it has vanished.
ised, Crow says, tO produce "a new art public which would be a microcosm, either He thus leaves the feminist challenge unanswered. For it is precisely this model
actual or anticipatory, of a larger public." 73 They "are the ones we recall when we that recent feminist analyses have questioned as a masculinist structure built on the
lament the loss of a public dimension and commitment for art .... As we look conquest of differences.
back, these practices feel as if they constituted a unity, a resurgent public sphere Crow.constructs a politicized history of modern and contemporary art based
that seems diminished and marginal now." 74 Crow notes that "women's politics" on the civic humanist ideals of modern political theory. A key element of this
found space "within" these practices (1). Later, he makes another feminist point, theory is a conception of the public sphere-a democratic realm where individuals
even questioning the rhetoric ofloss pervading his own discussion: "One absence take on identities as citizens and participate in political life. By treating the art
being registered in the sense of loss is the bygone unity provided by modernism, public as a microcosm of this larger public, Crow tries to integrate modern aesthet-
that is, by white-male-dominated elitist art and criticism" (2). ics into a theory and practice of the public sphere that stands at the beginning of
In his talk, however, Crow pursued a somewhat different line of argument. the democratization of political institutions. The art viewer, in Craw's account,
There, he suggested that the growth of women's politics and other new social becomes part of an art public in the same way that private individuals become
movements was not part of the artistic public sphere but was responsible for its citizens. Wh~n the individual emerges as a member of the public, or, by extension,
loss. The new movements, he said, had "balkanized" the art audience into separate when a viewer of art joins an art public, he relinquishes his particularity and special
groups, which, he thus implied, shattered the post-1968, coherent art public into interests in favor of the universal interest. He becomes, to use Craw's tenn, "ade-
ineffectual, frequently conflicting units. This does not mean that in Crew's view quate," in the sense of impartial.
the public sphere was lost because the so-called balkanization created a disparity Crow takes these ideas from Enlightenment writers on art. In the eighteenth
between actual art audiences and the ideal of a unified art public. For Crow, this century, English and French aestheticians envisioned an art public based on a new
disparity always exists. It is what defines the public as an ideal: "'The public' repre- model of citizenship. They wanted to establish a "republic of taste," a democratic
sented a standard against which the various inadequacies of art's actual consumers citizenry of.art that replicated the structure of·a political republic composed of free
could be measured and criticized" (2). The public sphere was lost because new and active citizens. The security ofboth republics, it was believed, was founded on
social movements no longer felt beholden to the unifying ideal. When they aban- solid, universal principles. Both represented the conunon good and were therefore
doned the attempt to· approximate the ideal, Crow assumes, they simultaneously deemed capable, as Crow suggests, of counteracting the division of labor, self-
abandoned the attempt to create an artistic public sphere. interest, occupational specialization, and individualism that divided large, modern
Craw's published essay deletes his earlier reference to the destructive effect commercial nations. Indeed, Enlightenment writers turned to civic humanism be-
of women's groups on the artistic public sphere, no doubt because he took seriously cause they, too, felt that public space was lost and in need of restoration. 76 For

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enlightened men like Joshua Reynolds, the analogy between the republic of taste cal vision possessed by the ideal citizen of the civic public. Crow projects onto
and the civic public of citizenship had concrete, historical origins in earlier demo- nineteenth- and twentieth-century art a similarity between aesthetic contempla-
cratic civic fonnations. The republics of ancient Greece and Rome and Renais- tion and membership in a political ·community-between taste and "the more
sance Italy provided these thinkers with a fertile source of examples of a once serious duties oflife"-that is inherent in Enlightenment aesthetics. John Barrell,
unified public sphere. For Enlightenment aestheticians, writes Crow, "The public author of an important critical study of eighteenth-century British art criticism,
of the Greek polis . . had been ultimately responsible for the exemplary artistic observes that for Reynolds, who consistently combined visual and political termi-
achievements of antiquity. Similarly, the successful revival of the antique during nology, "the exercise of taste was ... a mode of exercising the same faculties as
the Renaissance was traced to the encouragement and scrutiny of the circum- were exercised in the contemplation of society and its interest." 78 The criteria for
scribed citizenry of the Italian city-state" (2). membership in the rep~blic of taste and in the political republic were identical:
Prior to its current loss, Crow argues, the ancient civic humanist project of the ability to comprehend a whole. 79 Citing Reynolds, Crow notes with approval
constructing an ideal public for art was rediscovered at three key periods of modern that for Enlightenment writers on art public vision "meant to see beyond particular
art history. Their differences notwithstanding, each period kept alive the ideal of a local contingencies and merely individual interests." It was "a gaze that consistently
unifying-hence, public-aesthetic. Civic humanist aesthetics was first revived, as registered what united rather than what divided the members of the political
we have seen, in Enlightenment art discourse. Enlightenment theorists proposed conununity." It guaranteed "the ability to generalize or abstract from particulars;'
that concentration on the unity of a pictorial composition elevated the art viewer reflected a "consciousness ... undivided by private, material appetites," and ex-
above the private, material interests that, Crow says, were enshrined by the growth pressed "a transcendent unity of mind" (3).
of capitalism. Then, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, "civic Crow embraces the civic humanist idea of public vision as a criterion to
humanist aesthetics" reappeared as a kind of unconscious subtext of modernist measure contemporary art and finds that it lacks a public dimension. This embrace
abstraction. Modernism, says Crow, citing Clement Greenberg, also sought to cre- has two important consequences. First, it places Crow squarely within a political
ate an abstract pictorial unity in the contemplation of which the viewer's "private, camp whose membership extends far beyond the boundaries of art discourse. It
contentious self would be set aside" (7). True, Crow concedes, the political origins aligns him with writers like, most famously, Habermas who hold that an emancipa-
of the search for a unified art public were repressed in modernism. Still, by aspiring tory democratic politics must be based on a recovery of the unrealized ideals of
to create transcendent aesthetic fonn, modernist artists also tried, as Greenberg modern political theory. At the same time, Crow's espousal of an Enlightenment
famously claims,· to oppose the rise of commercial culture and so registered their concept of public vision places him just as squarely, though less overtly, against the
antipathy to capitalism. Finally, civic humanism resurfaced in a newly politicized feminist critique of vision that was first manifested in events like the "Public Vi-
form in the "dematerializing practices" of the late 1960s. These practices, says sion" show and that had made a decisive impact on art criticism by the time of the
Crow, once again sought to unify viewers, only this time in opposition to the Dia symposium. Crow does not concede the existence, let alone the influence, of
modernist fetishization of the art object, a process originating in conrmodity fetish- art informed by feminist theories of vision. Nonetheless, indeed for that very rea-
ism and invading all aspects of life in capitalist society. son, he tacitly opposes it. Omitting this work from the field of contemporary art,
Crow unites these three periods as moments in the history of the formation from his own aesthetic vision, Crow presents as an absolute a model of public
of an artistic public sphere. 77 He suggests further that at each moment conceptions vision compatible with the modernist ideal of disinterested contemplation-the
of the art public and the political public fused around a common idea of vision. very ideal identified by the ''Public Vision" show as nonpublic. "Public Vision"
The aesthetic vision supposedly cultivated at all three moments is akin to the politi- agreed with Crow's premise that modernist aesthetics positions a disinterested

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viewing subject but strongly opposed the idea that this position is located in a Insofar as postmodern politics is born "against" modern politics, one stake
public space. On the contrary, "Public Vision" suggested that the production of in the contest between the two is the ideal of impartiality, which Crow treats as
an impartial viewer is an effort to escape from, rather than to enter, public space, self-evident but which others have challenged as "both illusory and oppressive." 81
which it associated with openness, contingency, incompletion-in other words, The modern notion of the citizen depends on a strict opposition between an ab-
with partiality. stract, universalist public and a private realm of conflicting, partial interests. The
For Crow, however, the idea that public vision is impartial vision is a fore- opposition stabilizes the identities of both the political public sphere and its occu-
gone conclusion. Within the borders of his vision, skepticism toward impartial pant, the citizen. But.since the opposition generates the impression that the public
vision cannot nourish a public space but can only be implicated in its loss. "Public and the private are discrete, enclosed spaces, it makes it seem as if these identities
Vision" cannot perform a political critique; it only jeopardizes politics. Crow's stabilize themselves. The public/private dichotomy performs other conjuring
periodization of contemporary art confirms this judgment: art's public dimension tricks. While it produces the public sphere as a privileged political realm, it also
falls into decline at the precise moment-the late 1970s and 1980s-when art produces a privileged space outside political debate from which the citizen can ob-
informed by feminist ideas about vision begins to rise. serve the social world in its entirety. It produces, that is, the very private subject
Feminist ideas about subjectivity in representation cannot be so easily ex- whose existence it presupposes.
pelled from the public .sphere, for they, too, are part of a larger political discourse. In the civic public of citizenship, writes political philosopher Iris Marion
The confrontation that I have staged between Crow's talk and the "Public Vision" Young, political discussion is confined to talk framed from the standpoint of a
show rephrases the terms of an important current debate about the meaning of single, all encompassing "we." Members of the political community adopt a uni-
public space and citizenship. Crow, as noted, joins· the side of writers who hold versal point of view, seek to discover the common good, and conunit themselves
that the modern idea of the citizen, based on an abstract concept of "man," is a to impartiality. As the hallmark of the public subject, impartiality does not mean
necessary element of democratic politics. He applies this idea to aesthetic politics, simple fairness or consideration of other people's needs. It is equivalent to Reason:
likening the art viewer to the abstract citizen and invoking disinterested vision as
a model of democratic citizenship. But art like that in ''Public Vision" exposes the Impartiality names a point of view of reason that stands apart from any
hierarchical relations of difference that produce the abstract subject of modernist interests and desires. Not to be partial means being able to see the
vision, thus corresponding to critiques of modem political theory undertaken from whole, how all the particular perspectives and interests in a given
the point of view that the modern idea of the citizen, although crucial for the moral situation relate to one another in a way that, because of its par-
democratic revolution, must be reworked if democracy is to be extended. The tiality, each perspective cannot see itself The impartial moral reasoner
political philosopher Etienne Balibar comments that in the postmodern epoch, thus stands outside of and above the situation about which he or she
politics is being born "within and against" modem politics. The universalizing reasons, with no stake in it, or is supposed to adopt an attitude toward
discourse of modern democracy, says Balibar, opened the right to politics to all a situation as though he or she were outside and above it. 82
humans. But postmodern politics poses "the question of going beyond the abstract
or generic concept of man on the basis of generalized citizenship" and of"inscrib- Civic republicanism, Young continues, constructs the ideal of a total, sovereign
ing" the modern democratic program of general equality and liberty in singularities self "abstracted from the context of any real persons." This self "is not corrunitted
and differences. 80 to any particular ends, has no particular history, is a member of no corrmmnities,

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has no body. " 83 But this universal subject is neither the essential being nor the Indeed, the subject becomes that external point, a pure viewpoint capable of pene-
irreproachable public individual of the civic humanist imagination. It achieves trating beneath deceptive appearances to the fundamental relations underlying the
completion by mastering and ultimately negating plurality and difference. Mobiliz- apparent fragmentation and diversity of the social field.
ing a logic of identity that reduces objects of thought to universal principles, the Crew's discussion of the public sphere presupposes such an objectivist episte-
impartial self seeks to eliminate otherness, which Young defmes in three ways: the mology. He writes about social unity as if it is an empirical referent and speaks of
irreducible specificity of situations; differences among subjects; and desire, emo- the common interest as a substantive good. The public gaze "registers" what unites
tions, the body. the community. What unifYing element does it record? Crow does not answer this
Young ultimately proposes an alternative to the modern view of citizenship question directly, but he leaves clues. The unity of each of the three art-historical
that itself reduces difference to identity and thus retreats from some of the most movements he designates as attempts to form an art public is ultimately given in
radical implications of her own critique. This does not lessen the value of her each movement's opposition to capitalist economic relations. Moreover, antipathy
contention that the impartial citizen is produced, like the detached viewer, through to social division, which in Crow's account is attributed solely to capitalism, unites
the loss of others-otherness in the self and others in the world. Hannah Arendt the three moments in a historical formation. Although Crow contends that public
deplored the effects of this process three decades earlier. If, wrote Arendt, the unity is an imaginary construct, public vision emerges in his text as a gaze able to
"attempt to overcome the consequences of plurality were successful, the result perceive the foundation of an a priori social unity. His account of the public sphere
would be not so much sOvereign domination of one's self as arbitrary domination thus mobilizes a fundamentalist logic that refers to a single antagonism-relations
of all others, or ... the exchange of the real world for an imaginary one where of economic production and class-that possesses an ontological priority to govern
these others would simply not exist." 84 In a small but exemplary way, Crow's essay all other social antagonisms.
fulfills Arendt's predictions: it describes a contemporary art world from which fem- As many corrrmentators have pointed out, feminist and other social move-
inist critiques of vision have simply vanished. ments that want to resist subordination to a privileged political struggle have a dear
The positioning of a subject able to perform intellectual operations that give stake in disputing conceptions of public space based on such fundamentalist logic.
it information about the social world but owe nothing to its involvement in the For feminists, theories about art and public space that conform to this logic are
social world has a corollary in the desire to objectifY society. Impartial vision is problematic not just because, as Crow suggests, previous efforts to realize an art
possible only in the presence of an object that itself transcends partiality and is thus public have been dominated by white men. The problem cannot, moreover, be
independent of all subjectivity. 85 Impartial social vision is possible only in the pres- limited to the oppressive gender relations of civic humanist ideas. It is true, as john
ence of "society" or "social space" as such an object. Construed as an entity with Barrell is careful to emphasize, that women were "denied citizenship, and denied
a positivity of its own, this object-"society" -serves as the basis of rational dis- it absolutely in the. republic of taste as well as in the political republic" because they
cussions and as a guarantee that social conflicts can be resolved objectively. The were believed incapable of generalizing from particulars and therefore of exercising
failure to acknowledge the spatializations that generate "social space" attests to a public vision. 87 To be sure, discrimination against women is an important problem,
desire both to control _conflict and to secure a stable position for the sel£ With the but simply to protest the exclusion of women is to support the contention, rou-
social world in its entirety set before it as an independent object-as what Martin tinely put forth by contemporary proponents of modern political theory, that the
Heidegger calls "a picture" 86-the subject stands at a point outside social space civic public ideal should be realized by including formerly marginalized groups.
from which it can purportedly discover the laws or conflicts governing that space. Leaving the ideal itself untouched, such a protest does not address the more

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intractable sexual politics in which laments for impartiality and dreams of a sub- of vision as non public, a position held by some critics who support "activist" art.
stantively unified public sphere are caught. These laments evince regret at the Take, for instance, those writers who hold that art's public status is ensured by the
passing of a fantasy of a masculine self and attempt to restore what Homi Bhabha willingness, as critic David Trend puts it, of "progressive artists" to engage in
in another context calls "masculinism as a position of social authority" -a position "practical aesthetics." Practical artists, according to Trend, respond to the necessity
historically occupied by men but with which women can also identifY. "Masculin- of supporting the goals and identities of community movements and of all forms
ism as a position of social authority," writes Bhaba, "is not simply about the power of social struggle that can be grouped under the heading "new social rnove-
invested in the recognizable 'persons' of men. It is about the subsumption or subla- ments."90 These activities, he says, promote "civic consciousness" through "politi-
tion of social antagonism; it is about the repression of social division; it is about cal education" and, moreover, represent the "recovery of the public function of
the power to authorize an "impersonal" holistic or universal discourse on the rep- art." 91 Cultural scholar George Yudice agrees: by "serving the needs of particular
resentation of the social." 88 Masculinism as a position of social authority is also cormnunities and simultaneously publicizing their practice for wider access," artists
about the authority of traditional left intellectuals to account for the political con- are "recovering the public function of art." 92
dition of the entire world. What measures does it take to reestablish this authority Yudice makes these remarks in an article that begins by opposing neoconser-
in the name of the public? The foundations of society, the public, and the political vative proposals to eliminate public arts funding. Yudice's broader purpose, how-
subject-the citizen-must be treated as certainties. Feminist and other interroga- ever, is to appropriate the definition of what makes art public from conservatives.
tions of the exclusions that constitute such certainties must be implicated in the How, he asks, has the art world most effectively disputed conservative mandates to
loss of politics and banished from the public sphere. privatize art production, reverse recent cultural gains made by oppressed social
groups, and censor critical art that, conservatives assume, affronts public values?
First, Yudice rejects liberal responses that merely defend the abstraCt freedom of
the artist. Such responses, he says, reinforce depoliticizing ideas that art is autono-
Something, then, is in danger of getting lost in the art world's redefinition of public mous and public values are universaL More viable contestations of the conservative
space as political space, something that champions of lost public spheres seem bent agenda, he continues, have come from artists who politicize art practice by work-
on, even to delight in, losing. For the polarization of art informed by feminist ing within new social movements. At this point Yudice takes a significant, and
explorations of subjectivity in representation, on the one hand, and a left criticism questionable, ste.p: he asserts that artists who work within new social movements
that forces this art into privacy, on the other, is no isolated occurrence. Discussions "dispense with the frame." 93 By this he means that they operate outside conven-
of public art often betray a suspicion of art practices that question subjectivity, as tional art institutions and have .thereby "recovered the public function of art."
if this question has no bearing on art's publicness, distracts from public concerns, In today's political climate, there is, I think, every reason to support the
or, worse, jeopardizes political struggle, diverting attention from "real" problems contention that art involved with new social movements is a crucial public practice.
of public space-homelessness, for example. Certain art critics define public art Naming such "activist" work "public art" challenges an authoritarian aesthetic
and public space by ignoring or trivializing the issues raised by such work. 89 Writers discourse that claims to protect both "the public" and "the aesthetic" and supports
like Crow, their eyes trained on an image of the public totality, simply overlook this claim by presupposing that each category rests on unquestionable criteria: ·stan-
feminist critiques of vision. Other advocates of art's public functions, even those dards of "decency" and of "taste" or ''quality." These standards are alternatively
otherwise receptive to new political projects, explicitly disparage feminist critiques characterized as transcendent, natural, Or consensuaL Because they are attributed

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to an objective source, anyone who questions them is automatically placed outside In the name of the political public sphere, Yudice resurrects the very polar-
the boundaries of the public and the aesthetic-indeed, outside "civilization." ization that feminist critiques challenged for the express purpose of demonstrating
Yudice rightly points out that such references to absolute criteria are predicated that images are, precisely, public and political~the polarization between the for-
on exclusions. Absolutist definitions of public space generate two kinds of priva- mal operations of images and a politics exerted from the outside. When feminist
tization: they cast dissenting voices into privacy and appropriate-thus privatize- critiques established a constitutive link between hierarchies of vision and hierar-
the public sphere itself. chies of sexual difference, they made it clear that images per se are neither private
A_ problem arises, however, when critics like Yudice, who want to take a nor politically neutraL As a result, we can no longer take it for granted that art
stand against the authoritarian definitions of the public put forth by Jesse Helms institutions are secure interiors, isolated from social space. The intimate relation-
and Hilton Kramer, redefine public art by erecting new public/private dichoto- ship between vision and sexual politics shows that this isolation is a fiction. Far
mies-such as that between the inside and outside of art institutions. This division from nourishing the institutional frame, work on the sexual politics of the image
generates its own privileged public space and its own privatizations. As a conse- undermines the boundaries that supposedly sequester the inside of the institution
quence, proposals to redefine public art as art engaged in "practical aesthetics" from its outside, the private from the public. The doctrine that aesthetic vision is
themselves serve a practical function, one we have seen before: mapping a rigid the disinterested perception of pure form and universal truths, the doctrine under-
"inside the institution/ outside the institution" opposition onto an equally rigid lying the illusion of the art institution's neutrality, is unsettled by the implication
public/private oppositi<;n, these proposals expel feminist politics of representation of pure form in the sexual pleasures of looking. And, as Jacqueline Rose writes,
from the artistic public sphere. Listen, for example, to the first critic quoted above. these pleasu~es are in turn part of an aesthetically extraneous -political space. 98 To
Critiques of representation, says Trend, have no practical function because they accept Rose's contention that work on images and sexed subjectivity threatens the
are located in a space "outside social functioning." "Regrettably," he writes, "the closure-that is, the privacy-secured by the institutional frame one must accept,
art world is separated from social functioning by a complex mechanism that defines of course, that vision and sexuality are public matters.
'disciplines' in the arts and humanities" and that, "fragmenting knowledge, while Crow's and Yudice's redefmitions of the artistic public sphere produce the
distancing it from practical circumstances ... drains the aesthetic of any practical same casualty-feminist critiques of vision. This does not mean, however, that the
dimension." 94 Work on the "politics of representation;' if situated in an art institu- two writers hold i~entical political positions. On the contrary: Yudice places new
tion and directed toward an art audience, "promotes an illusion of cultural practice social movements at the heart of the artistic public sphere while Crow holds these
that is socially disinterested and nonpolitical." 95 movements responsible for the public sphere's demise. But the shared casualty is
Yudice agrees: "The 'politics of representation' engaged in by this type of not a pure coincidence. Yudice and Trend can relegate art informed by feminist
art ... this play on the constructedness of images ... does not necessarily lead to work on visual representation to a private space because they adhere, if inadver-
changing the conditions that produced them in the first place." 96 Like Crow~ but tently, to a foundationalist vision of a unified public sphere. What other vision
explicitly~ Yudice measures art's publicness against work like that presented in makes it possible to assume with confidence that a so-called fragmentation of
"Public Vision": "Take, for example, Cindy Sherman's deconstruction of socially spaces inevitably destroys the public sphere or separates art from any public func-
constructed representations of women in patriarchal society," he writes. "Despite tion? Critics who distrust fragmentation sometimes support their objections tb art
the challenge to the authority of representation, her work is easily accommodated institutions by citing scholars who have analyzed the role of academic expertise
within the art world." 97 Sherman's work, in other words, performs no public func- and disciplinary specialization in depoliticizing knowledge. These art critics equate
tion-it is private-because it does not "dispense with the frame." disciplinary specialization with the "isolation" of art institutions. Trend, for

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 PUBLtC SPACE At-<0 DEMOCRACY AGORAPHOil!A

instance, refers to Edward Said's essay "Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies, challenge foundationalist social theories and question, among other ideas, the tenet
and Conununity. " 99 He mistakenly concludes, however, that the objective of polit- that class antagonism ensures the unity of emancipatory stmggles. Is it not inconsis-
icized knowledge is not, as Said argues, to make visible the connections between tent to assert that an absolute foundation determines the meaning of images-a
scholarship and power but to restore the ultimate coherence of all political life and foundation that must be changed before art can be public-while supporting new
to do so, moreover, simply by abandoning the space of a discipline or, by exten- social movements that declare their independence from such a foundation? These
sion, an art institution. With this abandonment, Trend implies, art enters an all- movements represent new fonns of political identity that challenge traditional left
embracing social space and simultaneously recovers its public function. The public political projects. They refuse to submit to the regulatory authority of political
is turned, as Bruce Robbins writes, "into a mythic plenitude from which disci- parties that exclude specificity and difference in the name of an essential political
plines must then ceaselessly and vainly lament their impoverished exile." 100 interest. Irreducible to a predetermined norm, new social practices offer the prom-
A similar logic underpins the idea that the politics of images can be reduced ise of more democratic kinds of political association.
to the "conditions that produced them in the first place" and that changing these Critics who support art's involvement with new social movements yet attack
conditions is the sine qua non of public act?vity in the realm of visual culture. This feminist work on representation as fragmenting and private undermine the very
reduction of an image's meaning to strictly external conditions echoes social theo- concern for difference that, in other ways, they vigorously defend. Though com-
ries that presuppose t~e existence of a foundation that not only fonns the basis of mitted to plurality and opposed to conservative homogenizations of the public,
but successfully governs all social meaning. Accordingly, meaning is localized in they unintentionally align themselves with more influential critics who reject
basic objective structures that become the principal objects of political struggle. difference, especially those like David Harvey and Fredric Jameson who advance
Used to explain the meaning of images, these social theories smuggle back into art theories of postmodern culture based on nco-Marxist discourses about space. In
discourse an image of their own: a unique or privileged space of politics that femi- earlier essays, I have criticized these theories. 101 Here I will simply add that Harvey
nist theories of representation have long rejected. Feminisms have contested this and Jameson share today's widespread sensitivity to public space, seeking to appro-
image of politics since it has been mobilized historically to relegate gender and priate space from capitalist domination and return it to the public. For them, too,
sexuality to mere auxiliaries of social relations thought to be more fundamentally public space is lost. Unlike Yudice, however, they acknowledge the similarity
political. Now, with stubborn circularity, this image of politics subordinates the between the growth of new social movements and postmoderrl explorations of
feminist politics of images to a public space assumed to precede representation. images and, instead of counterposing the two, reject both. Both developments,
When critics who endorse a practical aesthetics uphold this image, they diverge Harvey argues, spring from the fragmenting effects produced by post-Fordist re-
from the pr~rnise on which feminist critiques of representation helped extend what structuring of capitalism. Both also perpetuate fragmentation. The sheer inunensity
I have called a democratic public space-the absence of absolute sources of social of late capitalism's spatioeconomic network precipitates a crisis of representation
meaning. for the subject. It overwhelms our ability to perceive the interconnected social
Abandoning this premise, advocates of activist art also diverge from the more totality underlying apparent fragmentation and prevents us from apprehending our
radical aspects of their own position. When they separate the politics of aligning place-our class position-in the totality. This blindness keeps us from initiating
art with new social movements, on the one hand, from the politics of vision, on the political action required to transform society. According to Harvey, the "Confu-
the other, they do not appreciate that new social movements and feminist ideas sion" of our perceptual apparatus is confounded by postmodem politics and post-
about subjectivity in representation have something important in common. B~th modern aesthetics. Politically, fragmentation is manifested in the proliferation of

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new political identities that do not conform to a norm. Aesthetically, fragmenta- the exclusions that ground these "realities" do not, as their detractors claim, fall
tion occurs when artists concern themselves with images rather than a "reality" into privacy. On the contrary, these practices nurture the gestation of a different
supposedly underlying images. kind of public sphere that emerges precisely because our commonality is uncertain
The notion that there is a crisis of, and inadequacy in, representations of the and therefore open to debate. Indeed, with new political formations taking shape
social world is only possible against the background of a belief in previously stable, before our eyes-with the propagation of demands for contingent rights, the pro-
univocal, and impartial-that is, adequate-representations, an illusion that justi- liferation of political projects based on partial critiques and aims, the growth of
fies efforts to reinstate traditional authority. In the name of restoring public space, intelle<:tual tendencies creating new objects of political analysis and toppling sub-
scholars who imagine, and identify with, a former golden age of total knowledge jects of knowledge from their unsituated high grounds-public space has begun
elevate themselves to a position outside the world. Others are demoted to second- to look less like a "lost" entity than like what Bruce Robbins so compellingly calls
ary rank or worse. Within Harvey's spatial discourse, for instance, political reality a "phantom."
is equated with uneven spatioeconomic arrangements. Homeless people, the most Robbins edited an anthology called The Phantom Public Sphere. In the intro-
visible product of these arrangements, emerge as the privileged figures of political duction, he questions and stretches the meaning of the phrase «the phantom pub-
space. Efforts to talk about urban space from different starting points-or to ad- lic," adopted from Walter Lippmann, who Coined it in 1925. 103 In Lippmann's view,
dress different spaces-are considered escapist, quietist, complicitous. Anyone the public is a phantom because the democratic ideal of a re·sponsible, unified
who analyzes represe~tations of the city not as objects tested against external reality electorate capable of participating in the machinery of government and able to
but as sites where images are set up as reality and where subjects are produced is supervise the state is unattainable. Modern citizens, he says, simply have no time
accused of callousness toward poor city residents and denounced as an enemy of to be sufficiently informed about all issues pertaining to the common good. Be-
the homeless. From a political point of view, this accusation is counterproductive cause the public is a phantom, Lippmann concludes, tasks of government should
for two reasons. First, precisely because we want to understand and change current be relegated to educated social elites.
representations of, and attitudes toward, homeless people, we must-to use Like Lippmann, Robbins uses the idea that the public is a phantom to cast
Adorno's words-"turn toward the subject." 102 Second, the dismissal of questions doubt on the existence of a unified public. But he does so to pursue different
of subjectivity often leads critics to invoke "the homeless person" less to promote ends-not to relinquish the public sphere but to challenge the Habermasian ideal
social justice than to prove the sharper penetration of their own social vision. of a singular public sphere that has supposedly fallen into decline. For proponents
of this ideal, recovery of a traditional critical public sphere is an alternative to
COVER STORY proposals, like Lippmann's, for an elite management of democracy. For Robbins,
the Habermasian ideal is itself a phantom bec~use the very quality that supposedly
Earlier I asked what political functions are performed by the call in left art discourse makes the public sphere public-its inclusiveness and accessibility-has always
to make art "public." One answer is that advocacy of an artistic public sphere has been illusory. The lost public sphere was actually the possession of particular privi-
become a means of safeguarding the traditional space of left political projects. Un- leged social groups. On this point, Habermas would not disagree. While he knows
der the protection of the word public, some critics return to unproblematized, pre- that in practice the bourgeois public sphere was always exclusionary, Habermas
critical uses of the adjective real-real people, real space, real social problems, all wants to rescue the ideal from both its imperfect realization in its inaugural years
presented as the ground of real political struggle. But art practices that question and its later contamination by consumerism, mass media, and the welfare state. Far

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 PUBLIC SPACE AND DEMOCRACY AGORAPHOBIA

from criticizing the principle of a singular public sphere, he calls for its rebirth in Robbins uses the term "phantom" in multiple and ambiguous ways. First,
an uncontaminated form. Robbins, drawing on Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt, he employs it to name-and criticize-ideals of a unitary public sphere that, he
argues that the traditional public sphere is a phantom less because it was never fully says, is not lost and cannot be retrieved. Robbins claims instead that this public
realized than because the ideal of social coherence, for which the term public has sphere is a phantom, an illusion. When he associates the public's status as a phan-
always stood, is itself irremediably deceptive and, moreover, oppressive. The ideal tom with its disappearance into thin air, he extends the term, representing the
of a noncoercive consensus reached throug~ reason is an illusion maintained by phantom as a danger to the public sphere. Later, however, Robbins transforms "the
repressing differences and particularities. To contrast a "contaminated" public phantom public" into an alternative to (not just a critique of) "the lost public."
sphere with either an earlier or a potentially pure public is to sustain the illusion. His purpose, he concludes, is to push "the topic of the phantom public and its
"What needs to be done, rather, is to investigate the ideal history of the public problem<> into a less backward-looking conversation." 107
sphere together with the history of its decay in order to highlight their identical Latent in Robbins's text is the suggestion that while the lost public sphere is
mechanisms." 104 a phantom in one sense, more radical possibilities for democracy may lie in a public
For Robbins, the idea of the public as a phantom has beneficial effects. It sphere that is precisely a phantom. Robbins's account leaves important questions
counters appeals to lost publics that he rightly fears can lead to authoritarianism. in its wake. Taking the symbol of the phantom one step farther, we might ask if
At the same time, Robbins finds the public's phantomlike quality unsettling be- the lost public is constructed to deny that a democratic public sphere must, in some
cause he recognizes thai: some conception of.a public sphere is essential to democ- sense, be a phantom. Does the public's phantomlike quality hinder or promote
racy. Robbins invokes Lippmann's suspicion that the public is a phantom as an democracy? Do we want to conjure away the phantom public, or rethink the pub-
impetus to the left not only to examine its own preconceptions about the meaning lic as a phantom? Which attitude-and which corresponding definitions of a
of the public but to rethink its conunitrnent to the protection and extension of a phantom-should we adopt as we accept Robbins's mandate to rethink the public
democratic public space. "In radical struggles over architecture, urban planning, sphere? In short: Is the public sphere crucial to democracy despite or because of the
sculpture, political theory, ecology, economics, education, the media, and public fact that it is a phantom?
health, to mention only a few sites among others;' writes Robbins, Some authors who have rethought the public sphere choose the first option.
Iris Young, for instance, follows her trenchant critique of civic republicanism with
the public has long served as a rallying cry against private greed, a a proposal to ground the meaning of the public sphere in difference rather than
demand for attention to the general welfare as against propertied inter- singularity. The civic ideal, she suggests, should be replaced with a heterogeneous
ests, an appeal for openness to scrutiny as opposed to corporate and public composed of multiple social groups. Citizenship should be differentiated by
bureaucratic secrecy, an arena in which disenfranchised minorities group. From a radical democratic perspective, her proposal to proliferate political
struggle to express their cultural identity, a code word for socialism. identities and multiply political spaces is promising. Asserting that group differ-
Without this discursive weapon, we seem to enter such struggles inad- ences are relational rather than substantive, Young argues persuasively against the
equately armed. 105 universalizing civic ideal that marks only oppressed groups as different. 108 But even
though she maintains that a group is differentiated by "affinity," not by any intrin-
The phrase "phantom public" can be disorienting, then, because we cannot do sic identity, the politics of difference that she recommends ultimately consists of
without a concept of public space and are therefore reluctant "to see the public negotiating among preexisting demands of social groups already in place. Differ-
melt conclusively into air." 106 ence is ieduced to identity, and Young seems to forget what she stressed earlier:

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 PUUI.IC SPACE AND Dl.iMO(:RACY AGORAP!!OBJA

that every difference is an interdependence. Consequently, she avoids some of the and outside, between private and public space." 112 Does the window ensure or
most important questions facing a politics of pluralism: Which conception of plu- menace the rigor of the public/private divide? Does the window secure or erode
rality can counteract the fact that the drive to identity may be tempted to stabilize the closure of the public and private realms generated by this divide? Like Colo-
itself by condemning differences? Which concept of plurality can work against the mina (though making different distinctions), Keenan links these questions to the
aggressive reactions of established identities as they are destabilized by new ones? 109 status of the human subject. Do windows, as in traditional perspectival models,
Such questions are beyond the scope of this essay. Let us simply note that Young's. ground the subject by allowing its detached gaze to pass through the window and
politics of difference glosses over them, defining difference as the "particularity of master a world framed as a discrete, external object? Or do windows let light-
entities," although she says that particularity is socially constructed. 110 As a result, the exterior world-in and, interfering with vision, interrupt the subject's control
Young does not consider the productive role that can be played by disruption, of its surroundings and disturb the security of the interior? As Keenan remarks,
rather than consolidation, in the construction of identity, a disruption in which "The more light, the less sight, and the less there is in the interior that allows 'man'
groups encounter their own uncertainty. Her concept of a pluralistic politics disin- to find comfort and protection, to fmd a ground from which to look." 113
tegrates the public sphere as a monolithic space but resolidifies it as an array of Light coming through the window is Keenan's conceit for a public sphere
positive identities. This pluralism does not pursue the most radical implications of that he has rethought on the model of language. The public sphere, Keenan sug-
the uncertainty that. Young herself introduced i.nto the concept of the public when gests, is not, as in traditional conceptions, an exterior space that we enter as private
she questioned the logic of identity and metaphysics of presence underpinning the beings simply to use language impartially. It is "structured like a language" and
modern ideal. Stepping back from the complexity of her earlier critique and falling thus makes impartiality inconceivable. Keenan's public sphere surpasses the level of
into a discourse of entities rather than relationships, Young presents an alternative the single individual and is more than a mere collection of other individuals. In
whose objective, it appears, is to realize the public sphere as a fully inclusive, fully this sense, the idea of a public sphere that is like language is no different from any
constituted realm and to dispel the phantom public, which she construes only as other conception of the public. But, unlike classical notions of the public sphere,
the illusion of a singular public. the public sphere modeled on language is not strictly opposed to the individuaL
Critical theorist Thomas Keenan approaches the question of public space Instead, it problematizes the possibility of a clear separation between public and
differently. He, too, challenges the notion of a lost public sphere, considering it an private realms. For just as light comes through the window, language reaches us
illusion. But his contribution to Robbins's book recasts the democratic public from a distance but cannot be kept at a safe distance, nor does it violate previously
sphere in the shape of a phantom. lit Keenan links the public's ghostly aspect to the closed subjects. Rather, we are realized as subjects only by entering language, the
appearance, not disappearance, of public space. More precisely, he suggests that preexisting social fleld where meaning is produced. The entry into language alien-
the public sphere rises as a phantom only at the moment of a disappearance. ates us from ourselves, estranging us, as Freud said of the unconscious, from "our
Keenan's essay, "Windows: of vulnerability," uses an architectural element, own house." u4 Language makes us present as subjects by dividing us and opening
the window, as a figure of the differentiation between private and public realms. us to an outside. The inhabitant of Keenan's public sphere is not the unitary, private
Drawing on the pioneering work ofBeatriz Colomina, Keenan connects historical subject of classical public .space. Language undermines our self-possession-de-
architectural debates about the form and meaning of windows to current debates priving us of a basis inside ourselves-and it, too, is inadequate. Words do not
about the form and meaning of the political public sphere. "Any concept of the equal "reality"; they do not give adequate expression to things as they are. There
window," writes Colomina, "implies a notion of the relationship between inside is no preexisting meaning in language-only differences between elements.

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 PUBLIC SPACE AND DEMOCRACY AGORAPHOBIA

Composed of signifiers that acquire meaning only in relation to other signifiers- social movements-that cannot be grasped in preconceived conceptual terms or
without a fmal term and therefore always in need of additions and open to disrup- without recourse to final intentions. The phantom public sphere is invisible from
tions-language is a singularly public and singularly unstable medium. "What if political viewpoints that limit social reality to the contents that fill social space but
the peculiarity of the public;' Keenan asks, ignore the principles generating that space. If democracy is a form of society that
is destroyed if it is positivized, a democratic public space cannot be a lost state of
were-not exactly (its) absence, but-the rupture in and of the sub- political plenitude that we want but do not at present have. "We never had what
ject's presence to itself that we have come to associate with writing or we have lost," says ZiZek, for society was always ruptured by antagonisms. ns Pro-
language in general? ... In this sense, all those books and articles duced instead by the loss of the idea of plenitude, a loss that founds democratic
mourning the loss or disappearance of the public sphere in fact respond political life, public space may be the space that we as social beings are in but do
to, if in the mode of rnisrecognition, something important about the not particularly want.
public-that it is not here. The public sphere is structurally elsewhere, If so, all those boob and articles mourning the lost beginning of the public
neither lost nor in need of recovery or rebuilding but defined by its sphere are not mere responses to the fact that the public is not here. Taking the
resistance to being made present. 115 form of what Keenan calls misrecognition, they are, rather, panicked reactions to
the openness and indeterminacy of the democratic public as a phantom -a kind
And what if this pecUliarity of the public-that it is not here-is not inimi- of agoraphobic behavior adopted in the face of a public space that has a loss at its
cal to, but the condition of, democracy? This, of course, is exactly what Lefort beginning. From a sociological perspective, agoraphobia is primarily an affliction
asserts when he defines public space as the open, contingent space that emerges of women. In city streets and squares, where m~n have greater rights, women
with the disappearance of the thought of presence-the presence of an absolute devise strategies to avoid the threats that present themselves in public spaces. The
foundation unifYing society and making it coincide harmoniously with itsel£ If phobic woman may try to define, and stay within, what she considers a zone of
"the dissolution of the markers of certainty" calls us into public space, then public safety. She invents "cover stories'': explanations for her actions that, as one sociolo-
space is crucial to democracy not despite but because it is a phantom-though not gist writes, "do not reveal that she is what she is, a person afraid of public places." 119
in the sense of pure delusion, false impression, or misleading appearance. As Joan For instance, an agoraphobic who walks in the gutter, which she feels is safer than
Copjec and Michael Sorkin argue, the "phantom public sphere is no mere illusion, the sidewalk, may tell people that she is looking for something she has lost.'"
but a powerful regulative idea." 116 Democratic public space might, rather, be called The phantom public sphere is, of course, a different kind of space. It is not
a phantom because while .it appears, it has no substantive identity and is, as a conse- coextensive with empirically identifiable urban terrains-although it is no less
quence, enigmatic. It emerges when society is instituted as a society with no basis, reaL 121 It, too, harbors threats and arouses anxieties. For, as Keenan writes, the
a society, as Lefort writes, "without a body ... a society whlch undermines the democratic public sphere "belongs by rights to others, and to no one in particu-
representation of an organic totality." 117 With this mutation, the unity of society lar."122 It thus threatens the identity of"man"-the modern subject-who in this
becomes purely social and,susceptible to contestation. If the public space of debate space can no longer construe the entire social world as a meaning for itself, as
appears with the disappearance of an absolute social basis, public space is where ('mine." In the phantom public sphere, man is deprived of the objectified, dis-
meaning continuously appears and continuously fades. The phantom public sphere tanced, knowable world on whose existence he depends and is presented instead
is thus inaccessible to political theories that refuse to recognize events-like new with unknowability, the proximity of otherness, and, consequently, uncertainty in

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the self. No wonder this public sphere confronts the modern human type as an ical interrogation: the total vantage point or, in Lefort's words, "that point of view
object of dread. Like the images in "Public Vision," it comes too close for comfort. on everything and everybody," the "phantasy of omnipotence." 12" It is the security
In this situation, the story of the lost public sphere might function in a man- of this public/private divide, which shelters the subject from public space, that art
ner analogous to an agoraphobic's cover story. The story of the lost public makes informed by a feminist critique of the image has so forcefully challenged by in-
its narrator appear to be someone who is comfortable in, even devoted to, public sisting that identity and meaning are formed in public space and so questioning the
space-someone who, akin to the figures on the cover of Variations on a Theme possibility of external viewpoints. Laclau has written that the main task of post-
Park, is ill at ease when exiled from the public square. But while the story gives modern culture in democratic struggles is "to transform the forms of identification
the impression that its speaker is unafraid of public space, it also transforms public and construction of subjectivity that exist in our civilization." 126 When art inter-
space into a safe zone. The lost public sphere is a place where private individuals venes in the forms of representation through which subjects construct themselves
gather and, from the point of view of reason, seek to know the social world ob- as universal and flee from difference, should we not welcome it-along with art
jectively. There, as citizens, they "find" the object-"society" -that transcends involved in new social movements-as a contribution to the deepening and exten-
particularities and differences. There, society becomes possible. Founded, like· all sion of public space? Especially if we hope to prevent the conversion of the public
impartial totalities, on the loss of others, the lost public sphere closes the borders sphere into a private possession, which is so often attempted today in the name
of the very space that to be democratic must remain incomplete. of democracy.
Lefort analyzes totalitarianism as an attempt to reach solid social ground.
Totalitarianism, he says, originates in a hatred of the question at the heart of de-
mocracy-the question that generates public space but also ensures that it remain
forever in gestation. Totalitarianism ruins democracy by attempting to fill the void
created by the democratic revolution and banish the indeterminacy of the social.
It invests "the people" with an essential interest, a "oneness" with which the state
identifies itself, thus closing down the public space, encircling it in what Lefort
calls "the loving grip of the good society." 123 The grip of the totalitarian state
closes the gap between state and society, suffocating the public space where state
power is questioned and where our common humanity-the "basis of relations
between self and other'' -is settled and unsettled. 124
"The loving grip of the good society" warns us of the dangers inherent in
the seemingly benign fantasy of social completion, a fantasy that negates plurality
and conflict because it depends on an image of social space closed by an authorita-
tive ground. This image'is linked to a rigid public/private dichotomy that consigns
differences to the private realm and sets up the public as a universal or consensual
sphere-the privileged space of politics. But the public/private dichotomy pro-
duces another privileged site outside social space and therefore irrunune from polit-

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 NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1. In order to preserve the independence and specificity of each essay, I retained some repetitions
of material, particularly descriptions of urban redevelopment, site-specific art, and feminist cri-
tiques of vision. Wherever possible, I have condensed these descriptions and referred readers to
more detailed accounts in other essays.

2. Rosalyn Deutsche and Cara Gendel Ryan, "The Fine Art of Gentrification," October 31 (Winter
1984): 91-111.

3. Another pioneering artwork that brings together discourses about urban and aesthetic spaces
is Martha Rosier's phototcxt piece of 1974-75, The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems.
The Bowery questions the representational conventions of liberal documentary photography,
whose practitioners frequently photograph poor urban neighborhoods and city residents, espe-
cially homeless men. It examines how the messages about poverty conveyed by such photographs
are inseparable from the institutional spaces in which they are exhibited. For documentation
of Rosier's work and for her related essay, "In, Around, and Mterthoughts (On Documentary
Photography)," see Martha Rosier, 3 l'%rks, the Nova Scotia Pamphlets (Halifax: The Press of the
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1981). For a brief discussion of The Bowery in Two
Inadequate Descriptive Systems in the context of Rosier's later project about the city, see my ''Alter-
native Space," in Brian Wallis, ed., !fYou Lived. Here/The City in Art, Theory, and Social Activism:
A Project by Martha Rosier, Dia Art Foundation, Discussions in Contemporary Culture, no. 6
(Seattle: Bay Press, 1991), 45-66.
 NOTES TO PAGES 5-14
NOTES TO PACES xx·-5

6. Goldberger, The City Observed, 91.

4. For this version of "Boys Town;' 1 have added to my original comments about Harvey's use
of the house as a metaphor for Marxist theory, drawing on Mark Wigley's innovative analysis of 7. Department of City Planning, Union Square: Street Revitalization (January 1976), 28.
the house as a figure of presence in Western philosophy. See Wigley, The Architecture qf Deconstruc-
tion: Derrida's Haunt (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993). 8. For a history of the economic factors-the needs of business-that determined the develop-
ment of Ladies' Mile, see M. Christine Boyer, Manhattan Manners: Architecture and Style 1850-
KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO'S HOMELESS PROJECTION ANP THE 1900 (New York: Rizzoli International, 1985).
SITE OF URBAN "REVITALIZATION"
9. "The making of compositions, the making of streets, and the making of theater-it is these
things that define the architecture of New York far more than does any single style." Goldberger,
1. Paul Goldberger, The City Observed-New York: A Guide to the Architecture of Manhattan (New
The City Observed, xv.
York: Vintage, 1979), 92 (my emphasis).
10. KrzysztofWodiczko, "Public Projection," Canadian journal of Political and Social T11eory 7 (Win-
2. In 1986, reviewing an exhibition of Hugh Ferriss's architectural drawings held at the Whitney
ter/Spring 1983): 186.
Museum's new branch at the Equitable Center, a building that itself represented a threat to the
city's poor, Goldberger claimed that Ferriss "offers the greatest key to the problems of the sky- 11. Ibid.
scraper city that we face today" because he demonstrates "that a love of the skyscraper's power
and romance need not be incompatible with a heavy dose of urban planning." Paul Goldberger, 12. Krzysztof Wodiczko, The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for the City of New York, installation
"Architecture: Renderings of Skyscrapers by Ferriss;' New York Times, June 24, 1986, C13. (New York: 49th Parallel, Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art, 1986). Unless otherwise
noted, this and subsequent quotations by Wodiczko are from the brochure titled "The Homeless
3. Paul Goldberger, "Defining Luxury in New York's New Apartments;' New York Times, August Projection: A Proposal for the City of New York" that was distributed at the installation. The
16, 1984, Cl. installation is documented and the brochure reprinted in Krzysztof Wodiczko, "Public Projec-
tions," October 38 (Fall1986): 3-20.
4. Observing the omission of social or economic history in Goldberger's "history" of the sky-
scraper, one reviewer wrote: 13. Bernardo Secchi, "La forma del discourse urbanistico," Casabella 48 (November 1984): 14.

The building process is born of economics. . Some of these factors might be: 14. When this essay was first written, the shops along Fourteenth Street from First to Eighth
the state of the national and regional economies; the nature of the local transporta- avenues, including Mays department store facing Union Square, made up the largest shopping
tion systems; the conditions of local market supply-and-demand; the relationship district south of Spanish Harlem for Manhattan's Hispanic residents. Some of the stores' sites had
to desirable local geographic features or elements, such as proximity to a park; the already been purchased for future redevelopment. Known as La Calle Catorse, this street has
perceived or actual quality of building services and image; and the economies of traditionally provided the link between the concentrations of Hispanics on the Lower East Side
new construction techniques that reduce building costs or enhance efficiency-all and in Chelsea; both neighborhoods have recently undergone redevelopment, resulting in large
of u;hich are factors that cannot be seen simply by looking at the building~ skin. displacements of those populations.

15. Bruce London and]. John Palen, "Introduction: Some Theoretical and Practical Issues Re-
Michael Parley, "On Paul Goldberger's Tiw Skyscraper," Skyline (March 1982): 10 [my emphasis].
garding Inner-City Revitalization;' in Gentnfication, Displacement and Neighborhood Revitalization,
The factors that Parley liste4 ipdicate some of the most serious omissions in Goldberger's aesthetic
ed. J. John Palen and Bruce London (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 10.
history, although these factors, in turn, need to be placed within the framework of a broader
social structure. 16. Roger Starr, Th.e Rise and Fall qfNew York City (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 36.

5. The designation appears in Department of City Planning, Union Square Special Zoning District 17. Neil Smith and Michele LeFaivre, ''A Class Analysis ofGentrif1cation," in Gentrification, Dis~
Proposal (originally released November 1983; revised june 1984), 3. placement and Neighborh.ood Revitalization, 43-63.

331
330
 NOT!OS TO PAGBS 14-18 NOT!iS TO PACES 19-24

18. Ibid., 50. count of Battery Park City's housing and design history, see "Uneven Development: Public Art
in New York City," in this volume.
19. See in particular David Harvey, "The Urban Process Under Capitalism: A Framework for
Analysis;' in Urbanization and Urban Planning in Capitalist Society, ed. Michael Dear and Allen]. 33. Victor Marrero, chairman, Department of City Planning, preface, in Union Square: Street
Scott (London: Methuen, 1981), 91-121. Other works by Harvey include Soda/justice and the Revitalization, 3.
City (Baltimore: The johns Hopkins University Press, 1973) and The Urbanization of Capital:
34. Union Square: Street RetJitalization, 33.
Studies in the History and Theory of Capitalist Urbanization (Baltimore: The J<?hns Hopkins Univer-
sity Press, 1985). 35. Ibid., 37.

20. Harvey, "The Urban Process Under Capitalism," 108. For another analysis of the contempo- 36. Benson]. Lossing, "History of New York City," in I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of
rary constntction boom as a response to capitalist economic crisis, see Mike Davis, "Urban Re- Manhattan Island 1498-1909 (1926; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1967), 1896.
naissance and the Spirit ofPostmodernism;' New Left Review 151 (May/june 1985): 106-16.
37. Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), 11-12.
21. Smith and LeFaivre, ''A Class Analysis of Gentrification," 54.
38. Albert Halper, Union Square (New York: Viking, 1933).
22. Ibid., 46.
39. M. Christine Boyer, Dreaming the Rational City: The Myth of American City Planning (Cam-
23. Rosalyn Deutsche and C~ra Gendel Ryan, "The Fine Art of Gentriftcation," October 31 bridge: MIT Press, 1983), 50.
(Wint« 1984): 91-111.
40. See Wiebe, The Search for Order; Paul Boyer, Urban Masses and Moral Order in America 1820-
24. R. B. Cohen devised a "multinational index" for quantifying the status of U.S. cities as 1920 (Cambridge; Harvard University Press, 1978); Mario Manieri-Elia, "Toward an 'Imperial
international business centers. See Cohen, "The New International Division of Labor, Multina- City': Daniel H. Burnham and the City Beautiful Movement;' in Giorgio Ciucci et al., The
tional Corporations and Urban Hierarchy," in Urbanization and Urban Planning, 287-315. American City: From the CitJi! ffilr to the New Deal (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1979); and M. Christine
Boyer, Dreaming the Rational City.
25. 1bid., 305.
41. Harvey, "The Urban Process Under Capitalism;' 117.
26. Ibid., 306.
42. Charles Mulford Robinson, Modem Civic Art or, The City Made Beautiful (New York and
27. Department of City Planning, Manhattan Office, Union Square Special Zoning District Proposal
London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1903).
(originally released November 1983; revised june 1984), p. 17.
43.]. F. Harder, "The City's Plan," Municipal Affairs 2 (1898): 25-43.
28. Thomas]. Lueck, "Rich and Poor: Widening Gap Seen for Area;' New York Times, May 2,
1986, Bl. 44. Karl Bitter, "Municipal Sculpture;' Municipal Affairs 2 (1898): 73-97.

29. "How Many Will Share New York's Prosperity?" New York Times, January 20,1985, ES. 45. Robinson, Modern CitJic Art, 170.

30. Lueck, "Rich and Poor;' Bl. 46. Boyer, Dreaming the Rational City, 50.

31. Michael Kwarder, "Zoning as Architect and Urban Designer;' New York Affairs 8, no. 4 47. Robinson, Modern CitJic Art, 262.
(1985): 118 (my emphasi,).
48. Kurt W Forster has examined current architectural attitudes toward history and preservation
32. This process can be observed in the role that architecture and urban design played in the using Alois Riegl's 1903 study of monuments, undertaken to direct the Austrian government's
creation of Battery Park City, one of the country's largest real-estate developments. For an ac-

332 333
 NOTES TO PAGES 25-28 NOTES TO PAGES 28-39

policy of protecting the country's historic monuments. Riegl's efforts to understand the nature 61. Newman, Defensible Space, 2-3.
of what he calls the unintentional monument-the landmark of art or architectural history-led
62. Ibid., 114.
him to conclude that relative and changing values determine the course and management of
preservation programs. R.iegl devotes much of his essay to an attempt to identify and categorize 63. Ut1ion Square Park Phase I, statement by the design department of the City Park Commis-
these conflicting values. To establish unintentional monuments as landmarks is to extract art and sion (1986).
architecture from their original contexts and assign new roles in new circumstances. Relating
Riegl's insights to current architectural attitudes, Forster has designated the unintentional monu- 64. Quoted in Dierdre Carmody, "New Day is Celebrated for Union Square Park," New York
ment "the homeless of history, entmsted to public and private guardians." He points out that Times, April 20, 1984, B3.
Riegl's study fundamentally undermines the notion that architectural monuments possess stable
65. Edward I. Koch, "The Mugger and His Genes;' Policy Review 35 (Winter 1986): 87-89. For
meanings (Kurt W. Forster, "Monument/Memory and the Mortality of Architecture," and Alois
other reviews by scientists who condemn the authors' methods and conclusions, see Leon J.
R.iegl, "The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Character and Its Origins," Oppositions 25 [Fall
Kamin, "Books: Crime and Human Nature," Scientific American 254 (Febmary 1986): 22-27; and
1982]: 2-19 and 21-51, respectively).
Steven Rose, "Stalking the Criminal Chromosome;' The Nation 242, May 24, 1986, 732-36.
49. For a discussion of urban fiscal crisis and its relation to redevelopment, see "Uneven Develop-
66. Koch, "The Mugger and His Genes;' 89.
ment: Public Art in New York City," in this volume.
67. Union Square Special Zoning District Proposal, 23.
50. Union Square: Street Revit_alization, 30.
68. Friedrich Engels, The Housing Question (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1979), 71. First pub-
51. Ibid., 40.
lished as three newspaper articles in Volksstaat, Leipzig, Germany, in 1872-73.
52. William K. Tabb, "The New York City Fiscal Crisis;' in Marxism and the Metropolis: New
69. Ibid., 74.
Perspectives in Urban Political Economy, ed. William K. Tabb and Larry Sawers (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1984), 336. 70. Keith Schneider, "As Night Falls, Crime Moves into Stuyvesant Square," New York Times,
October 12, 1985, 29.
53. Roger Starr, "Making New York Smaller;' New York Times Sunday Magazine, 14 November
1976, 105. 71. Ibid., 31.

54. Union Square Special Zoning District Proposal, 2. 72. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 198.

55. Ibid., 3. 73. Walter Benjamin, "What is Epic Theater?" in Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (New York:
Schocken, 1969), 150.
56. Ibid.
74. "Speaking Up for Union Square;' New York Times, August 16, 1984, A22.
57. Ibid.
75. Paul Goldberger, "The Statue of Liberty: Transcending the Trivial," New York Times, July 17,
58. Union Square Street Revitalization, 30.
1986, C18.
59. Oscar Newman, Defensible Space: Crime Prevention through Urhatl Design (New York Collier,
76. Wodiczko, "The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for the City of New York," reprinted in
1972).
October 38 (Fall 1986).
60. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth ofthe Prison (New York: Vintage, 1977), 187.
77. Karl Marx, "On the Jewish Question," in Karl Marx: Early Writings, trans. Rodney Livingstone
Boyer analyzes urban planning as a disciplinary technology in Dreaming the Rational City.
and Gregor Benton (New York: Vintage, 1975), 211-41.

334 335
 NOTES TO PACES 40-47 NOTES TO PACES 47-50

78. Ibid., 229. concentrations of SROs or transient accommodations" and that "the survey of outrnovers does
not describe the rate of displacement among the most transient households or examine the prob-
79. See Claude Lefort, "The Question of Democracy" and "Human Rights and the Welfare lems C1ced by the homeless;' 67.
State;' in Democracy and Political Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1988) and idem,
"Politics and Human Rights," in The Political Forms <ifModern Society: Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totali- 92. 1-Iomelessness in New York State, 33.
tarianism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986). For a more detailed account of Lefort's ideas about
93. Nancy Biberman, a lawyer from MFY Legal Services who at the time this essay was ftrst
democracy and public space, see "Agoraphobia;' in this volume.
written was doing private housing consulting, represented the tenants of 1 Irving Place. She was
80. Claude Lefort, "Human Rights and the Welfare State," 23. able to obtain a good settlement for the potential victims of direct displacement. Since Zeckendorf
was eager to begin construction before December 1985 in order to be eligible for 421-a tax
81. "Glossary: Selected planning terms applicable to New York City real estate development;' abatements and since legal problems could have held him up past the deadlines, he was pressured
New York Affairs 8, no. 4 (1985): 15. into offering these tenants the option of living in the ZeckendorfTowers themselves at the price
of the tenants' old rents. For the victims of secondary displacement, Zeckendorf assumed little
82. Kwartler, "Zoning as Architect and Urban Designer;' 115.
resp?nsibility. He was required only to purchase and renovate forty-eight units ofSRO housing.
83. Ibid., 113.
94. Ernest Mandel, LAte Capitalism (London: Verso, 1975), 509.
84. Union Square Special Zoning District Proposal, 1.
UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT: PUBLIC ART IN NEW YORK CITY
85. Ibid., 6.
1. Peter Marcuse, "Neutralizing Homelessness;' Socialist Review 18, no. 1 (January/March 1988):
86. Quoted in Lee A. Daniels, "A Plan to Revitalize Union Square," New York Times, July 1,
83. Marcuse's premise-that the sight of homeless people is shocking to viewers but that this
1984, 6R.
initial shock is subsequently counteracted or neutralized by ideological portrayals-implies that
87. "Speaking Up for Union Square;' A22. viewers' responses to the presence of homeless people in New York today are direct and natural.
It thus fails to acknowledge that current experience of beggars and "vagrants" by housed city
88. "Glossary," 13. residents is always mediated by existing representations, including the naming of such people as
"the homeless" in the first place. Th_; form and icOnography of such representations not only
89. New York State Department of Social Services, Homelmness in New York State: A Report to the
produce complex, even contradictory, meanings about the homeless-the object of the represen-
Gov~'fnor and the Legislature (October 1984), 3.
tation-but also, in setting up the homeless as an image, construct positions in social relations.
90. See the statement of Nancy E. Biberman, director, Eastside Legal Services Project, MFY It is important to question these relationships as well as the content of representations of the
Legal Services, Inc., to the City Planning Commission, October 17, 1984. homeless. Despite Marcuse's ingenuous approach to the issue of representation, his description
•
of official attempts to neutralize the effects of homelessriess and his effective efforts to contest
91. Ellen Baxter and Kim Hopper, Private Lives/Public Spaces: Homeless Adults on the Streets of New
these neutralizations are extremely useful. This is especially true now, as, encouraged by the final
York (New York: Community Services Society, Institute for Social Welfare Research, 1981): 8~9,
years of the Koch administration, the media seem detennined to depict homeless people as preda-
cited in Michael H. Schill and Richard P. Nathan, Revitalizing America's Cities (Albany: State
tors, to encourage New Yorkers to refuse donations to street beggars, and to create the impression
University of New York Press, 1983), 170, note 120. Schill and Nathan quote Baxter and Hop-
that adequate city services exist to serve the needs of the poor and homeless.
per's statement only to discount it and to justify government policies that encourage redevelop-
ment. Revitalizing AmericaS Cities concludes that the displacement resulting from these policies 2. New York Ascendant: The Report if the Commission on the Year 2000 (New York: Harper and
does not justify stopping redevelopment. The authors' credibility is compromised by the fact Row, 1988), 167.
that their methodology included "an effort to avoid neighborhoods that contained high

336 337
 NOTES TO PAGllS 59-65
NOTES TO PAGES 51-59

3. David W. Dunlap, "Koch, the 'Entertainer,' Gets Mixed Review," New York Times, May 19, began, "love parades, festivals, celebrations, demonstrations and entertainments, particularly when
such occasions bring large numbers of them together outdoors." The coniiation of political dem-
1988, B4.
onstrations (rallies in Union Square were cited as a historical example) and patriotic celebrations
4. Raymond Ledrut, "Speech and the Silence of the City," in M. Gottdeiner and Alexandros (the 1976 bicentennial celebration, for one) and the reduction of both to an opportunity to enjoy
Ph. Lagopoulos, ed., The City and the Sign: An Introduction to Urban Semiotics (New York: Columbia the weather ("The finer the weather, the greater the urge to gather, the sweeter the siren call of
University Press, 1986), 122. causes") support the use of public funds and land to create public parks for a luxury redevelop-
ment project-Battery Park City. Needless to say, by the end of the editorial any reference to
5. Henri Lefebvre, ''Space: Social Product and Use Value;' inJ. W. Freiberg, ed., Critical Sociology: political demonstrations had been dropped. "What better place for New Yorkers to do their
European Perspectives (New York: Irvington Publishers, 1979), 293. public thing?" the editorial concludes ("A Public Plaza for New York;' New YOrk Times, June 16,
6. Manuel Castells, The City and the Grassroots: A Cross~ Cultural Theory if Urban Social Movements 1980, A22).

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 302. 17. Craig Owens, "The Yen for Art;' contribution to a discussion entitled "The Birth and Death
7. For a more complete definition of"exclusionary displacement," see Peter Marcuse, "Abandon- of the Viewer: On the Public Function of Art;' in Hal Foster, ed., Discussions in Contemporary
ment, Gentrification, and Displacement: The Linkages in New York City," in Neil Smith and Culture (Seattle: Bay Press, 1987), 18.
Peter Williams, eds., Gentrification of the City (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 153-77. 18. Ibid., 23.
8. Attila Kotanyi and Raoul Veneigem, "Elementary Program of the Bureau of Unitary Urban- 19. For a discussion of the concept of"the urban" that informs art history, see "Representing
ism," in Ken Knabb, ed., Silllationist International Anthology (Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, Berlin;' in this volume, and my essay "Alternative Space," in Brian Wallis, ed., lfYou Lived Here:
1981), 65. The City in Art, Theory, and Social Activism: A Project by Martha Rosier (Seattle: Bay Press, 1991),
45-66.
9. Ibid.

10. Neil Smith, Uneven Developmwt: Nature, Capital and the Production if Space (Oxford: Basil 20. Douglas Crimp, ''Serra's Public Sculpture: Redefining Site Spedftdty," in Rosalind Krauss,
Richard Serra: Sculpture (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1986), 53.
Blackwell, 1984), 54.

11. Jean Baudrillard, "The Ideological Genesis of Needs;' in For a Critique of the Political Economy 21. Ibid., 53-55.

if the Sign (Saint Louis: Telos Press, 1981), 86. 22. For a lengthier account of the controversy about Tilted Arc and the rhetoric of "use" that
pervaded the debate about the sculpture, see ''Tilted Arc and the Uses ofDemocra(.y," in this
12. Ibid.
volume.
13. "Remarks by Mayor Edward I. Koch at Awards Luncheon of the American Institute of
23. Raymond Ledrut, Les images de Ia ville (Paris: Anthropos, 1973), 28.
Architects;' May 18, 1988, 7.

14. For a discussion of one example of this process, see "K.rzysztofWodiczko's Homeless Projection 24. Eric Gibson, "Public Art and the Public Reahn;' Sculpture 7 (January/February 1988): 32.

and the Site of Urban 'Revitalization,"' in this volume. 25. Douglas C. McGill, "Sculpture Goes Public," New York Times Magazine, April 27, 1986, 45.
15. Alexander Kluge, "On Film and the Public Sphere," New German Critique, nos. 24-25 (Fall/
26. Nancy Princenthal, "On the Waterfront: South Cove Project at Battery Park City," Village
Winter 1981-82): 212. Voice, June 7,1988, 99.
16. An especially patronizing depiction of the public as consumers of mass spectacle appeared in
27. Nancy Holt, as quoted in McGill, "Sculpture Goes Public."
a 1980 New York Times editorial about' New York's public spaces. "New Yorkers;' the editorial

338 339
 NOTES TO PAGES 65-71 NOTES TO PAGES 71-76

28. Robert Jensen, "Commentary," in Architectural Art: Affirming the Design Relationship (New Question (London: Hutchinson, 1981); Edward W. Soja, "The Spatiality of Social Life: Towards
York: American Craft Museum, 1988), 3. a Transfonnative Retheorisation," in Social Relations and Spatial Structures, ed. Derek Gregory and
John Urry (New YOrk: St. Martin's Press, 1985), 90-·127.
29. See Gibson, "Public Art and the Public Reahn."
44. Gottdeiner, The Social Production if Urban Space, 264.
30. Kate Linker, "Public Sculpture: The Pursuit of the Pleasurable and the Prpfitable Paradise,"
Ariforum 19 (March 1981): 66. Linker acknowledges the function of the new public art in raising 45. For a more detailed discussion of urban ecology and its parallels with treatments of the city
the economic value of its sites, but perhaps because the article was written early in the contempo- in aesthetic discourse, see "Representing Berlin;' in this volume.
rary redevelopment process, it remains uncritical and fails to address the social consequences of
46. Smith, Uneven Development, 77.
this economic function.
47. Surrunaries of these debates and histories of spatial theories are included in Gottdeiner, The
31. As quoted in McGill, "Sculpture Goes Public;' 63.
Social Production of Space; Edward W. Soja, "The Socio-Spatial Dialectic," Annals of the Association
32. Ibid., 67. of American Geographers 70 (1980): 207-25; Saunders, SocialT11eory and the Urban Question.

33. As quoted in Princenthal, "Social Seating;' Art in America 75 (June 1987): 131. 48. Lefebvre, "Space: Social Product and Use Value," 285.

34. Ibid. 49. Ibid., 286.

35. McGill, "Sculpture Goes Public," 66. 50. For a discussion of the international urban hierarchy, see R. B. Cohen, "The New Interna-
tional Division of Labor, Multinational Corporations and Urban Hierarchy," in Michael Dear
36. Diarle Shamash, "The A Team, Artists and Architects: Can They Work Together?" Stroll: and Allen J. Scott, eds., Urbanization and Urban Planning in Capitalist Society (London: Methuen,
The Magazine if Outdoor Art and Street Culture, nos. 6-7 (June 1988): 60. !981), 287-315.

37. John Beardsley, Art in Public Places: A Survey of Community-Sponsored Art Projects Supported by 51. Smith, Uneven Development, xi.
the National Endowment for the Arts (Washington, D.C.: Partners for Livable Places, 1981), 81.
52. Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism (London: Verso, 1975), 102.
38. Michael Brenson, "Outdoor Sculptures Reflect Struggles of Life in the City," New York
11mes, July !5, 1988, C1, C28. 53. For explanations of the "rent gap;' see Neil Smith and Michele LeFaivre, "A Class Analysis
of Gentriftcation," in J. John Palen and Bruce London, eds., Gentrification, Displacement and Neigh-
39. Beardsley, Art in Public Places, 90. borhood Revitalization (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 43-63; and Smith,
"Gentrification, the Frontier, and the Restructuring of Urban Space."
40. Kay Larson, "Combat Zone;' New York (May 13, 19$5): 118.
54. Lefebvre, "Space: Social Product and Use Value;' 286.
41. Neil Smith, "Gentrification, the Frontier, and the Restructuring of Urban Space," in Gentrifi-
cation of the City, ed. Neil Smith and Peter Williams (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1986), 18-19. 55. Ibid., 290.

42. jonathan Barnett, An Introduction to Urban Design (New York: Harper & Row), 46. 56. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell,
1991), 373. Originally published as La production de l'espace (Paris: Anthropos, 1974).
43. For critiques of traditional urban studies see, among others, Manuel Castells, The Urban Ques-
tion: A Marxist Approach (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977); M. Gottdeiner, The Social Production if 57. Henri Lefebvre, Le droit ala ville (Paris: Anthropos, 1968).
Urban Space (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985); Peter Saunders, Social Theory and the Urban

340 341
 NOTES TO PAGES 77-81 NOTES TO PAGES 82-84

58. Manuel Castells, "From Urban Society to Urban-Revolution;' in The Urban Question, 86-95. Times's extensive coverage of all ;~.spects of Battery Park City's current state that raises critical
questions about the project's social history and conditions.
59. Michel de Certeau, Tie Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1984). 74. Michael deCourcy Hinds, "Vast Project Heads for '93 Finish," New York Times, March 23,
1986, Rl8.
60. Lefebvre, La production de l'espace, 420. Translated in Gottdeiner, "Culture, Ideology, and the
Sign of the City," in The City and the Sign, 215. 75. As quoted in Gottlieb, "Battery Project Reflects Changing City Priorities;' B2.

61. Soja, "The Spatiality of Social Life: Towards a Transfonnative Retheorisation;' 90-127. 76. Ada Louise Huxtable, "Plan's 'Total' Concept is Hailed;' New York Times, April17, 1969,49.

62. Walter Benjamin, ''Theses on the Philosophy of History," in flluminations, trans. Harry Zohn 77. Alexander Cooper Associates, Battery Park City: Drqft Summary Report and 1979 Master Plan
(New York: Schocken, 1969), 257. (1979), 67.

63. Claudia Gould, "Mary Miss Covers the Waterfront;' Stroll: The Magazine of Outdoor Art and 78. Huxtable, "Plan's 'Total' Concept is Hailed;' 49.
Street Culture, nos. 4-5 (October 1987): 55.
79. Maynard T. Robison, "Vacant Ninety Acres, Well Located, River View," in Vernon Boggs
64. Robin Karson, "Battery Park City: South Cove," Landscape Architecture (May/june 1988), et aL, eds., The Apple Sliced: Sociological Studies of New York City (South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin and
50-52. Garvey Publishers, 1984), 180.

65. Albert Scarino, "Big Battery Park City Dreams;' New York Times, December 1, 1986, Dl. 80. David K. Shipler, "Battery Park Plan Is Shown," New York Times, April17, 1969, 49.

66. Nancy Princenthal, "On the Waterfront;' Art in America 75 (April 1987): 239. 81. !bid.

67. John Russell, "Where City Meets Sea To Become Art," New York Times, December 11, 1983, 82. !bid.
sec. 2, p. 1.
83. David K. Shipler, "Lindsay Will Get Housing Demands," New York Times, April17, 1969, 49.
68. Ibid., p. 31.
84. Robison, "Vacant Ninety Acres," 189.
69. Ibid.
85. Shipler, "Battery Park Plan Is Shown," New York Times, April17, 1969,49.
70. Winston Williams, "Finally, the Debut of Wall Street West," New York Times, August 25,
86. David K. Shipler, "Lindsay Reverses Stand on Housing," New York Times, August 15,
1985, sec. 3, p. 1.
1969, 33.
71. Paul Goldberger, "Public Space Gets a New Cachet in New York;' New York Times, May 22
1988, H35. 87. Ibid.

88. "Battery Park City Is Given Approval;' New York Times, October 10, 1969, 55.
72. Paul Goldberger, "Battery Park City is a Triumph of Urban Design;' New York Times, August
31, 1986, HI. 89. ''Amendments to the Master Lease," Battery Park City Annual Report (1972).
73. Meyer S. Frucher, as quoted in Martin Gottlieb, "Battery Project Reflects Changing City
90. Ibid.
Priorities," New York Times, October 18, 1985, Bl. Gottlieb's article is the only account in the
91. Ibid.

342 343
 NOTES TO PAGES 88-96
NOTES TO PACES 85-88

92. Robison, "Vacant Ninety Acres," 183. 104. Ibid.

105. Alexander Cooper Associates, Battery Park City: Drcift Summary Report and 1979 Master Plan.
93. Ibid., 192.

94. Edward Schumacher, "13 Years Later, Battery Park City's an Empty Dream," New York Times, 106. David K. Shipler, "Battery Park City Plans Scored and Praised at Public Hearing," New York
October 26, 1979, B3. Times, November 9, 1969, B4.

95. Ada Louise Huxtable, "Is This the .Last Chance for Battery Park City," New York Times, 107. Battery Park City, leaflet distributed by Battery Park City Authority.
December 9, 1979, sec. 2, p. 39. 108. Paul Goldberger, ''A Realist's Battery Park City," New York Times, November 9, 1979, B4.
96. For critical analyses of urban fiscal crisis, see William K. Tabb, The Long Default: New York
109. "Esplanade Recalls Old New York," New York Times, July 3, 1986, C3.
City and the Urban Fiscal Crisis (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1982); Eric Lichten, Class,
Power and Austerity: The New York City Fiscal Crisis (South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey Pub- 110. For an analysis of the discourse of"preservation" used in New York redevelopment, see my
lishers, 1986); Michael D. Kennedy, "The Fiscal Crisis of the City," in Cities in Transformation: "Architecture of the Evicted;' Strategies, no. 3 (1990): 159-83.
Class Capital and the State, ed. Michael Peter Smith (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1984),
91-110; John Shutt, "Rescuing New York City, 1975-78," in Urbat: Political Economy and Soda! 111. Alexander Cooper Associates, Battery Park City: Drcift and Summary Report and 1979 Master
1'11eory: Critical Essays in Urban Studies, ed. Ray Forrest, Jeff Henderson, and Peter Williams Plan, 18.
(Hampshire, England: Gower Publishing, 1982), 51-77; Manuel Castells, City, Class, and Power
112. Ibid.
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1972); M. Gottdiener, "Retrospect and Prospect in Urban Crisis
Theory," in Cities in Stress: A New Look at the Urban Crisis, ed. M. Gottdiener (Beverly Hills: Sage 113. Brian Sullivan, Pratt Center for Community and Environmental Development, as quoted
Publications, 1986), 277-91. in Gottlieb, "Battery Park Project Reflects Changing City Priorities;' B2.

97. Peter Marcuse, "The Targeted Crisis: On the Ideology of the Urban Fiscal Crisis and Its 114. Gould, "Mary Miss Covers the Waterfront;' 54.
Uses;' International journal of Urban and Regional Research 5 (September 1981): 330-55.
115. Roland Barthes, "The Great Family of Man," in Mythologies (New York: Hill and Wang,
98. "Last Chance for Battery Park City," editorial, New York Times, November 17,1979. I972), 101.

99. Richard J. Meislin, · "Attempt to Revive Battery Park Plan is Readied by Carey," New York 116. Ibid., I02.
Times, October 28, 1979, 1.
117. ''A Public Plaza for New York," New York Times, June 16, 1980, A22.
100. Ibid.
118. David V. Lurie and Krzysztof Wodiczko, Homeless Vehicle Project, installation (New York:
101. Annmarie Hauck Walsh, The Public~ Business: The Politics and Practices if Government Corpora- The Clocktower, January 1988). This installation is documented in October 47 (Winter 1988):
tions, A Twentieth Century Fund Study (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978), 4. 53-76.

102. Michael Goodwin, "Constntction of Battery Park City is Now Scheduled to Begin in June," 119. The Homeless Vehicle Project builds on and revises the strategies ofWodiczko's earlier public
New York T!mes, May 16, 1980, B4. projects about homelessness in New York City, such as The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for the
City of New York (1986), discussed in "Krzysztof Wodiczko's Homeless Projection and the Site of
103. Alan S. Oser, "Battery Park City: The Newest Prestige Address," New York Times, April18,
Urban 'Revitalization,"' in this volume. In these earlier works, which also include The New
1982, sec. 8, p. 7. Museum/Astor Building ProJection (1984) and The Real-Estate ProJection (1988), Wodiczko projected

344 345
 NoTES TO PAGES 98-112
NOTES TO PAGE 96

slide images onto the surfaces of individual buildings and monuments located in Lower Manhattan relegate whole social groups to oblivion. The architecture of redevelopment is truly an evicting
architecture, corrunemorating the city's spatial violence. Applying architectural principles to an
I
:
neighborhoods that had been slated for redevelopment, inflltrating these architectural structures
with images that reveal the repressed social conflicts and effects of redevelopment. Like the slide object designed to support the activities of the evicted, the Homeless Vehicle Project projected onto
projections, the Homeless Vehicle symbolically disrupts the city's architecture, but the Homeless the city the condition of a monument and, like Wodiczko's other New York works, projected
Vehicle's mobility extends the work's target to urban space as a whole, defining architecture as the onto this monument the city's social contradictions.
For a discussion of the relationship between the Homeless Vehicle Project and Wodiczko's
construction of the city. Just as The Homeless Projection challenged the meanings that were being
projected onto the statues in Union Square Park during the area's gentrification and countered other New York works about homelessness and real estate, the multiple meanings of the term
the meanings projected by the statues, the Homeless Vehicle challenged the meanings projected projection, and the ideology of historic preservation, see my "Architecture of the Evicted," Strategies
onto urban space by real estate and state aesthetics and countered the meanings projected by the 3 (1990): 159-83.

redeveloped spaces themselves. 120. Theresa Funiciello, reply to letters, The Nation (June 18, 1988): 876.
As a description ofWodiczko's activity, the word projection refers, of course, to exhibiting
slides on a screen-in Wodiczko's case, on the surfaces of buildings, monuments, or spaces-but 121. "Homeless at Home" (New York: Storefront for Art and Architecture, 1986).
"projection" has multiple definitions and denotes more than a technical mechanism. It is also a
symbolic operation whereby concepts are visualized as external realities, and it is a rhetorical 122. David V. Lurie and KrzysztofWodiczko, "Homeless Vehicle Project;' October 47 (W!nter
device for speaking with chrity at a distance.ln these senses, "projection" refers to the procedural 1988): 61.
dimension of language. Indeed, Wodiczko treats architecture as itself a projection. The impact 123. Henri Lefebvre, "The Everyday and Everydayness," Yale French Studies, no. 73 (1988): 11.
of hls work depends on the degree to which it mobilizes in its audience an awareness that the Translation by Christine Levich, Alice Kaplan, and Kristin Ross of"Quotidien et Quotidiennetb,"
'iL' architecture onto which it projects images is not merely a group ofbeautiful or functional objects.
Encyclopaedia Universalis.
Rather, Wodiczko treats these objects as speech acts-one might say performers-transrnitting
messages about the meaning of the city. He challenges the rhetoric of these architectural images, REPRESENTING BERI.lN
the tactics whereby they impose their messages on spectators. To be effective against dominant
architecture Wodiczko's projections must disengage viewers from habitual modes of perceiving 1. "German Art in the 20th Century, Painting and Sculpture 1905-1985;' organized by Christos
and inhabiting the city, of receiving its messages. Calling attention to and manipulating architec- M. Joachimides, Norman Rosenthal, and Wieland Schmied (London: Royal Academy of Arts,
tural language, Wodiczko's works disrupt the city's speech. But they do not only interfere with
1985).
the conscious perceptions of sociologically constituted spectators; they also subvert the fantasy
projections of viewing subjects who, through modes of identification solicited by traditional 2. Richard Hiilsenbeck, "Dada Forward," (1920-21), in Lucy Lippard, ed., Dadas on Art, (Engle-
architecture, seek an imaginary self-coherence by looking at images of a city apparentiy free of wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971), 45-54.
social division. In multiple ways, then, Wodiczko's works are projections onto projections.
The Homeless Vehicle Project expanded the artist's earlier projection techniques in order to 3. Raoul Hausmann, "New Painting and Photomontage," in Dadas on Art, 60.
confront a situation in which redevelopment threatened to occupy space entirely. The Homeless
4. Ibid., 61.
Vehicle "treated the spatial organization of the city as itself a monument, if, to borrow a temt from
Alois Riegl, an "unintentional" one. (Alois Riegl, "The Modem Cult of Monuments: Its Charac- 5. Christos M. Joachimides, ''A Gash of Fire Across the World;' in German Art in the 20th Century:
Ji! ter and Its Origin;' trans. Kurt W. Forster and Diane Ghirardo, Oppositions [Fall1982]: 21-51.) Painting and Sculpture 1905-1985, 11.
A landmark of history, New York's spatial design is a memorial to urban events. With redevelop-
ment, it became a monument to the eviction of city residents. Like individual "intentional" 6. In the early 1980s several critics suggested that the term neoexpressionism is a misnomer and
monuments, such as the Union Square statues, the city's official spatial organization tries to proj- should be replaced by pseudoexpressionism. Craig Owens, for example, wrote: "In 'Neo-

' .. ! '
ect an irnage of the city as a stable entity. To do so, however, it must suppress conflicts and
i<i

347
346
 NOTES TO PAGES 112-118 l I
NOTES TO PAGES 118-122

expressionism,' however-but this is why this designation must be rejected-Expressionism is

15. Christos M.Joachimides, ''Achilles and Hector before the Walls of Troy," injoachimides and
reduced to convention, to a standard repertoire of abstract, strictly codified signs for expression. Norman Rosenthal, eds., Zeitgeist (New York George Braziller, 1983), 10.
Everything is bracketed in quotation marks; as a result, what was (supposedly) spontaneous con-
geals into a signified: 'spontaneity,' 'immediacy'. The pseudo-Expressionists retreat to the 16. !bid.
pre-Expressionist simulation of passion; they create illusions of spontaneity and inunediacy, or
17. Wolfgang Max Faust, "Zeitgest-Fragen: Ein Interview mit Christos M.Joachimides," Kunst-
rather expose the spontaneity and immediacy sought by the Expressionist's as illusions, as a con-
forum 56 (December 1982): 25.
struct of preexisting fonns." Craig Owens, "Honor, Power and the Love of Women," Art in
America 71 (January 1983): 9-10. 18. Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, "Formalism and historicity-changing concepts in American and
European art since 1945," in Europe in the Seventies: Aspects of Recent Art, exhib. cat. (Chicago: Art
7. The emblematic status of Rainer Fetting's many versions of Van Gogh and the Wall became a
Institute of Chicago, 1977).
cliche in articles on Berlin's "violent painters." See, for example, Ernst Busche, "Van Gogh an
der Mauer: Die neue Malerei in Berlin-Tradition und Gegenwart," Kunsiforum (December 19. !bid.
1981/January 1982)' 108-16.
20. Busche, "Van Gogh an der Mauer;' 109.
8. Quoted from an interview with Helke Sander by Ulla Ziemann in Berlin: A Critical View. Ugly
Realism 20s-70s, exhib. cat. (London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1978), 174. 21. Erika Billeter, "Kreuzberg-das Soho von Berlin;' DU 1 (1983): 23.

9. When this essay was first written, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City was preparing 22. Burton Pike, The Image if the City in Modem Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
the exhibition "Berlinart;' which opened in 1987. The exhibition's emphasis on establishing a 1981), 14.
relationship between expressionism and Berlin, its exclusion of artists such as Hans Haacke (de-
23. An important exception to art history's superficial treatment of city paintings is T. J. Clark's,
spite the inclusion of the work of nonresident artists working in Berlin), and its mythologization
The Painting of Modem Life: Paris in the Art ifManet and His Followers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
of the urban social conditions of West Berlin confmn the conclusions drawn in this essay. "Ber-
1986), published after this essay was first written. Clark's study of the image ofParis in nineteenth-
linart" complemented and extended the thesis of "German Art in the Twentieth Century," em-
century French modernist painting is the most sophisticated art-historical analysis of the modern
phasizing the painting of younger neoexpressionists not included in (although valorized by) the
city from a Marxist perspective. Its description of the Haussmannization of Paris is masterful.
Royal Academy show because, according to Joachirnides, the contemporaneity of their produc-
Marxist social art history differs from mainstream social art history by virtue of both its critical
tion precluded the possibility of "a comprehensive assessment."
theory of society and its political analysis of culture. In Marxist discussions of city paintings, the
10. Nicholas Serota, "Culture is not made by the Ministries of Culture;' in 13° E: Eleven Artists paintings' subject matter-the city-is inseparable from capitalist social relations, and the paint-
Working in Berlin exhib. cat. (London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1979), 5. ings are often interpreted as a form of ideology. So far, however, Marxist accounts of art and the
city have remained grounded in traditional ideas of social totality. They treat economic relations
11. Ibid. as the origin and governing factor of all social meaning, both urban and aesthetic. In this way,
they replace mainstream social art history's separation of art and the city with a predetermined
12. Hans Haacke, catalogue text accompanying Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Board of Trustees
reduction of both to the economic level. Consequently, images of the city emerge as epipheno-
in Art into Society-Society into Art: Seven German Artists (London: Institute of Contemporary Arts,
mena-no matter how elaborately mediated-of a more fundamental social realm. These inter-
1974), 63.
pretations thus trivialize the sociospatial relations of images and vision themselves. And, adopting
13. Serota, "Culture is not made by the Ministries of Culture;' 5. a unitarian epistemology that allows only a single starting point of social analysis, they treat ·the
relationship between urban space and sexuality or gender as subordinate social issues, tending,
14. Ibid.
moreover, to disregard feminist social theories. See Griselda Pollock's important feminist response

348
349
 NOTES TO PAGES 123-127 NoTES TO PACES 127-131

to Clark, "Modernity and the Spaces ofFernininity,'' in Pollock, Vision and Dtfference: Femininity, 38. Ian Jeffrey, "Concerning Images of the Metropolis," in Cityscape 1910-39: Urban themes in
Feminism and the Histories of Art (London: Routledge, 1988). See also "Men in Space:' in this American, German and British Art (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1977).
volume, where I argue that the failure of Marxist historians of city paintings to consider the social
39. Ibid.
relations of visual space is intimately related to their neglect of feminist thought, since feminism
has developed a critique of the sexual politics of images. 40. Ibid.

24. Theda Shapiro, "The Metropolis in the Visual Arts, 1890-1940;' in Anthony Sutcliffe, ed., 41. Ibid.
Metropolis 1890-1940 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), 95.
42. Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life," 413.
25. Manuel Castells, The Urban Question (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977), 73.
43. Ibid., 414.

:; r 26. Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1976). 44. Ibid., 415.
'; 27. Walter Benjamin, "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire," in flluminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, 45. Louis Wirth, "A Bibliography of the Urban Community," in Robert E. Park and Ernest W.
trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1955), 155-200. Burgess, eds., The City: Suggestions for Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967; Midway reprinted., Chicago: The University
28. Tafuri, 81. of Chicago, 1925), 219.

29. !bid., 84. 46. Writings of the Chicago School are collected in Richard Sennett, -ed., Classic Essays on the
Culture of Cities (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969) and Park and Burgess, eds., The
30. !bid., 89.
City: Suggestions for Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment. Critical histories of
31. Ibid., 86. urban ecology can be found in Peter Saunders, Social Theory and the Urban Question (London:
Hutchinson, 1981) and M. Gottdiener, The Social Production of Urban Space (Austin: University of
32. Eberhard Roters, "Big-City Expressionism: Berlin and German Expressionism," in Expression~ Texas Press, 1985).
ism: A German Intuition 1905-1920 (New York and San Francisco: Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1980), 238-51. 47. Robert E. Park, "The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the
Urban Environment;' in Park and Burgess, eds., The City: Suggestions for the Investigation if Human
33. Eberhard Raters, Berlin, 1910-1933 (New York: Rizzoli, 1982), 56. Behavior in the Urban Environment, 1.

34. Ibid. 48. SeeR. D. McKenzie, "The Ecological Approach to the Study of the Human Community,"
in Park and Burgess, eds., The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban
35. Georg Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life;' in I11e Sociology of Georg Simmel, ed. and
Environment, 63-79.
trans. Kurt H. Wolff(New York: The Free Press, 1950), 409-24.
49. For an analysis of the role played by urban ecology in naturalizing the contemporary spatial
36. Donald E. Gordon, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), 86.
organization of New York, part of an extensive cultural critique of biological determinism, see
37. For a discussion of the urban problem that elevates this presupposition to the status of an Andrew Ross, "Bombing the Big Apple;' in The Chicago Gangster Theory if Life: Nature's Debt to
unconditional fact, see Donald B. Kuspit, "Individual and Mass Identity in Urban Art: The New Society (London: Verso, 1994), 99-158.
York Case;' Art in America 65, no. 5 (September-October 1977): 66-77.
50. McKenzie, "The Ecological Approach," 64.

350 351
 -.-.-··

NOTES TO PAGES 132-136 NoTES TO PACES 136-142

51. Louis Wirth, "Urbanism as a Way of Life;' in Sennett, ed., Classic Essays on the Culture of 66. Theodor W. Adorno, "What does Coming to Terms with the Past Mean?" in Geoffrey H.
Cities, 148. Hartman, ed., Bitburg in Moral and Political Perspective, trans. Geoffrey H. Hartman (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1986), 114-29.
52. Saunders, Social Theory and the Urban Question, 92.
67. Gertrud Koch, "Torments of the Flesh, Coldness of the Spirit: Jewish Figures in the Films of
53. For a critique of art-historical interpretations of Kirchner's Berlin paintings, see Rosalyn Rainer Werner Fassbinder;' New German Critique 38 (Spring-Summer 1986): 30-31.
Deutsche, "Alienation in Berlin: Kirchner's Street Scenes," Art in America 71, no. 1 (January
1983), 64-72. 68. Adorno, "What Does Coming to Terms with the Past Mean?'' 124.

54. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 69. Billeter, "Kreuzberg-das Soho von Berlin;' 23.
1991), 92.
70. Other articles that describe Kreuzberg in similar tenns include: Ursula Prinza, "Einftihrung,"
55. For a more detailed account of these new theories of space, see ''Uneven Development: in Grftihl & Hiirte: Neue Kunst aus Berlin, exhib. cat. (Munich: Kunstverein Miinchen, 1982);
Public Art in New York City," in this volume. Harry Zellweger, "'Im Westen nichts Neues,"' Kunstwerk 35, no. 1 (1982): 27-28; Armin Wil-
dermuth, '·'City of the Red Nights: Helmut Middendorfs niichtliche Grosstadtbilder;' DU 3
56. David Harvey, "Revolutionary and Counter-revolutionary Theory in Geography and the (1983): 84-85; Johannes Halder, "Helmut Middendorf'Die Umarrnung der Nacht,'" Kunstwerk
Problem of Ghetto Formation," in Social justice and the City (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Uni- 36 (September 1983): 169-70; John Russell, "The New European Painters," The New York Times
versity Press, 1973), 120-52. For an analysis of how Harvey and other neo-Marx.ist geographers Magazine (April24, 1983): 42.
have repeated at another level the essentializing move they criticize, see "Boys Town;' in this
volume. 71. Wolfgang Max Faust, '' 'Du hast keine Chance. Nuze sic!' With It and Against It: Tendencies
in Recent German Art," Artforum 20 (September 1981): 36.
57. !bid., 137.
72. For a history of the European guest-worker system, see Stephen Castles (with Heather Booth
58. Castells, The Urban Question, 83. and Tina Wallace), Here for Good: Western Europe's new ethnic minorities (London: Pluto Press, 1984).

59. Ibid., 73. 73. Armin Wildennuth, "The Crisis of Interpretation,'' Flash Art 116 (March 1984): 8-18.

60. Ibid., 85. 74. Ernst Busche, "Van Gogh an der Mauer: Die neue Malerei in Berlin-Tradition und Geg-
enwart," Kunsiforum 47 (December 1981/January 1982): 108.
61. For a discussion of the parallels between politicized art and urban discourses, see "Uneven
Development: Public Art in New York City," in this volume. 75. Cleve Gray, "Report from Berlin: Wall Painters,'' Art in America 73, no. 10 (October 1985):
39-43.
62. Harry Zellweger, "Im Westen nichts Neues," Kunstwerk 35, no. 1 (1982): 28.
76. Robert Storr, "'Tilted Arc': Enemy of the People?" Art in America 73, no. 9 (September
63. "Berlin iiber alles," Connaissance des arts, no. 372 (February 1983): 15.
1985): 97. Clara Weyergraf-Serra later refuted Storr's assertion of the political effectiveness of
64. Helmut Middendorf, "Interview with Wolfgang Max Faust," Flash Art (Sununer 1984): 36. Borofsky's work, citing in particular BorofSky's painting on the Berlin Wall. See "Letter;' Art in
America 73, no. 11 (November 1985): 5.
65. Donald B. Kuspit, "Flak from the 'Radicals': The American Case Against Current German
Painting,'' in Jack Cowart, ed., Expressions: New Art from Germany, exhib. cat. (St. Louis and 77. Walter Grasskamp, "An Unpublished 1Cxt for an Unpainted Picture;' October 30 (Fall
Munich: Saint Louis Art Museum and Prestel-Verlag, 1983), 43-55. 1984): 19. October 30 is devoted primarily to Haacke's work. The issue contains documentation
of The Broadness and Diversity of the Ludwig Brigade, Grasskamp's essay on the installation, and ''A

352 353
 NOTES TO PAGES 143-159 NOTES TO PACES 159-168

Conversation with Hans Haacke," by Yves-Alain Bois, Douglas Crimp, and Rosalind Krauss. 2. Hans Haacke, "Provisorische Bemerkungen zur Absage meiner Ausstellung im Guggenheim
The text for The Ludwig Brigade is updated in Brian Wallis, ed., Hans Haacke: Unfinished Busi- Museum, New York," in Edward F. Fry, ed., Hans Haacke: Werkmonographie (Cologne: Verlag M.
ness (New York and Cambridge: New Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT Press, 1986), Dumont Schauberg, 1972), 65.
266-71.
3. Griselda Pollock, "Artists, Mythologies and Media-Genius, Madness and Art History," Screen
78. In 1986, after this essay was written, the Leonard Manheim AG was sold to a Swiss corpora- 21, no. 3 (1980): 57-96.
tion. Ludwig retains his interests in the Trumpf and other labels. See Wallis, ed., Hans Haacke:
Unfinished Business, 226. 4. For an example of these neutralizing approaches to Haacke's work, see Leo Steinberg, "Some
of Hans Haacke's Works Considered as Fine Art," which was included in the catalogue of the
79. Ludwig's posture, clothes, and attributes are partially modeled on a 1928 photograph of a New Museum exhibition where my essay also first appeared. See Brian Wallis, ed., Hans Haacke:
confectioner by August Sander. Unfinished Business (New York and Cambridge: New Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT
Press, 1986), 8-19.
80. Haacke's painting of Ludwig recalls John Heartfleld's photomontage Mimicry (1934), which
shows Goebbels attaching a fake beard to Hitler so that, transformed into Karl Marx, he will be S. Jeanne Siegel, "An Interview with Hans Haacke," Arts 45, no. 7 (May 1971): 19.
able to "win over for the regime any workers tending to opposition." Heartfield's photomontage
appeared on the cover of the April 19, 1934 issue of AIZ. 6. For an account of the changing political meanings of site-specific art since the mid-1960s, see
Douglas Crimp, "Serra's Public Sculpture: Redefining Site Specificity," in Laura Rosenstock,
81. Grasskamp, ''An Unpublished Text," 19. ed., Richard Serra!Sculpture (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1986), 41-56. A history of
contemporary art practices that address the site of artistic display is contained in Benjamin H. D.
82. Bois et. al., "A Conversation with Hans Haacke;' 23.
Buchloh, ·~egorical Procedures: Appropriation and Montage in Contemporary Art," Ariforum
21, no. 1 (September 1982): 43-56.
83. For analyses of the East Village art scene see Cra.ig Owens, "Commentary: The Problem with
Puerilism;' Art in America 72, no. 6 (Summer 1984): 162-63; and Rosalyn Deutsche and Cara
7. Rosalyn Deutsche and Cara Gendel Ryan, "The Fine Art of Gentrification," October 31 (Win-
Gendel Ryan, "The Fine Art of Gentrification," October 31 (Winter 1984): 91-111. ter 1984): 91-111.

84. For analyses of gentrification see "Krzysztof Wodiczko's Homeless Projection and the Site of
8. Walter Benjamin, "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century," in Riflections, trans. Edmund
Urban 'Revitalization'" and "Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City," in this Jephcott (New YOrk: Harcourt Brace jovanovich, 1978), 146-62.
volume.
9. Thomas M. Messer, letter to Hans Haacke of March 19, 1971, in "Gurgles around the Guggen-
85. See Deutsche and Ryan, "The Fine Art of Gentriftcation." heim," Studio lnternational181, no. 934 Qune 1971): 249.

86. Andrea Fra.ser, "In and Out of Place," Art in America 73, no. 6 (June 1985): 125.
10. Thomas M. Messer, statement of AprilS, 1971, in "Gurgles around the Guggenheim;' 249.
87. Craig Owens interprets the East Village art scene as an outpost of the culture industry in 11. ''Information" (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1970).
''The Problem with Puerilism."
12. Messer, statement of AprilS, 1971, 248.
PROPERTY VALUES: HANS HAACKE, REAL EsTATE, AND THE MUSEUM
13. Hans Haacke, "Editorial: Artists vs. Museums, Continued," Art News 70, no. 5 (September
1971): 21.
1. "Hans Haacke: Unfmished Business," organized by Brian Wallis (New York: New Museum
of Contemporary Art, 1986-87).

354 355
 NOTES TO PAGES 183-196
NOTES TO PAGES 170-183

28. Four years after this essay was ftrst written, Haacke did mount a critique of a "particular
14. Allan Sekula, "Dismantling Modernism, Reinventing Documentary (Notes on the Politics
cigarette brand" (Helmsboro Country [New York: John Weber Gallery, 1990]). Messer's assertion
of Representation)," in Photography Against the Grain: Essays and Photo Works 1972-1983 (Halifax:
that such a show would naturally have "damaging effects" on the purity of art institutions pre-
The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1984), 62.
sumes that there is no existing relationship between art and cigarette brands. Haacke's exhibition
15. Ibid., 67. On social documentary photography, see also Martha Rosl~.r, "In, Around, and indicated otherwise, exploring Philip Morris Companies' role as a sponsor of art exhibitions that
Mterthoughts {On Documentary Photography);' in Martha Rosler: 3 Works {Halifax: The Press serve as a smoke screen for its fmancial interests. Haacke juxtaposed the company's self-image as
of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1981), 59-86. a promoter of pure artistic expression-which, as Messer had asserted, exerts a "generalized,
exemplary force ... upon the environment"-with, among other things, facts about the health
16. "Ex-Buildings Aid Held in Petjury," New York Times, April24, 1958. risks posed by cigarettes' pollution of the environment. Haacke's work was prophetic. In 1994
Philip Morris pressured the art organizations it has funded-and from which it derives both tax
17. Jack Roth, "Shapolsky Found as Rent Gouger;' New York Times, May 2, 1959.
and public relations benefits-to speak out against proposed legislation to ban smoking in public
18. Peter Kihss, "Liability is Fixed in New Slum Bill;' New York Times, February 10, 1966. places in New York.

19. Ibid. 29. Jeanne Siegel, interview with Hans Haacke, "Leon Golub/Hans Haacke: What Makes Art
Political?" Arts 58, no. 8 {April 1984): 111.
20. Ibid.
30. Thomas M. Messer, statement published in Studio lnternational181, no. 934 (June 1971): 250.
21. Thom!J.S M. Messer, "Guest Editorial," Arts 45, no. 8 (Sununer 1971): 5 (My emphasis).
31. Messer, "Guest Editorial," 5.
22. Barbara Reise, interview with Thomas M. Messer, "Which is in fact what happened:' Studio
lnternationa/182, no. 935 (July-August 1971): 37. 32. Benjamin, "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century," 154.

23. These doubts are not allayed by the fact that by 1986 one-third of the Shapolsky properties 33. Ibid., 155.
were owned by the city of New York. Most city-owned residential buildings were acquired
34. "Eventually," wrote Messer, "the choice was between the acceptance or rejection of an alien
through ta.-x-delinquency proceedings. Once the city acquired such buildings, its intervention in
substance that had entered the art museum organism." Messer, "Guest Editorial;' 5.
the housing market consisted largely throughout the 1980s of selling parcels to private developers.
This action helped clear the way for gentrification and the consequent displacement of large
MEN IN SPACE
numbers of low-income residents in an unprecedented number of New York's neighborhoods.
These include the Lower East Side, which has undergone a particulitrly brutal gentrification.
1. Edward W. Soja, Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (Lon-
(This information is based on research by Jennifer Freda.)
don: Verso, 1989); David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of
24. Roth, "Shapolsky Found as Rent Gouger." Cultural Change (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989).

25. David Harvey, Social Justice and the City (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 2. Janet Wolff, "The Invisible Fldneuse: Women and the Literature of Modernity," Theory, Culture
171. and Society 2, no. 3 {1985): 37.

26. Messer, "Guest Editorial," 4. 3. T. J. Clark, 1he Painting of Modem Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers (New York,
Alfred A. Knopf, 1985).
27. Ibid. {My emphasis).
4. Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experierue of Modernity (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1982).

357
356
 NOT.ES TO PAGES 196-210 NOTES TO PAGES 210-226

5. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life, 6-7. 9. Ibid., x:x:i.

6. Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism and the Histories if Art (London: 10. !bid., 92.
Roucledge, 1988), 53.
11. Ibid., 93.
7. Raymond Ledmt, Les images de Ia ville (Paris: Anthropos, 1973), 21; translated in Mark Gott-
12. Ibid., 92 (my emphasis).
diener and Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulous, cds., The City and the Sign: An IntrodUction to Urban
.! Semiotics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 223. 13. Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," in Visual and Other Pleasures
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 16.
8. Fredric Jameson, "Postmodemism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism," New Left Review
146 (July/August 1984): 53-92. 14. Harvey, The Condition ifPostmodernity, 2.

9. Jameson, "Marxism and Postmodenrism," New Left Review 176 (July/ August 1989): 44. 15. Harvey, The Urban Experience, 4.

10. Liz Bondi, "On Gender Tourism in the Space Age: A Feminist Response to Postmodern 16. Stuart Hall, "The Toad in the Garden: Thatcherism among the Theorists;' in Marxism and
Geographies," paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers the Interpretation if Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana: University of
Conference, Toronto, 1990. Illinois Press, 1988), 72.

11. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 116-17, 305. 17. Referring to Stanley Aronowitz's The Crisis of Historical Materialism, Harvey writes: "Arono-
vv:itz is here seduced, I suspect, by the most liberative and therefore most appealing aspect of
12. Ibid.
postmodern thought-its concern with 'otherness"' (47, my emphasis).

BOYS TOWN 18. For a critique of Jameson's use of the psychic as a metaphor for the social, see Jacqueline
Rose, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat or A Wife Is Like an Umbrella-Fantasies of the
1. David Harvey, T1w Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change Modem and Postmodern," in Andrew Ross, ed., Universal Abandon? The Politics if Postmodernism
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989). Subsequent references to this book appear in parentheses in (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 237-50.
the text.
19. Harvey's bibliography omits basic texts about postmodernism-Craig Owens, "The Dis-
2. Giuliana Bruno, "Ramble City: Postmodernism and Blade Runner," October 41 (Summer course of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism," in Hal Foster, ed., The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on
1987): 72. Postmodern Culture (Port Townsend, Wash.: Bay Press, 1983), 57-82; Brian Wallis, ed., Art after
Modernism: Rethinking Representation (New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984);
3. David Harvey, The Urban Exp_erience (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 1.
Andrew Ross, ed., Universal Abandon? The Politics of Postmodernism (Minneapolis: University of
4. Ibid., 3-4. Minnesota Press, 1988); Victor Burgin, The End if Art Theory: Criticism and Postmodernity (Atlantic
Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International, 1986); Meaghan Morris, The Pirate's Fiancie:
5. Ibid., 3. Feminism, Reading, Postmodemism (London: Verso, 1988)-as well as film theory and the multidis-
ciplinary literature of cultural studies.
6. Michel de Certeau, The PraCtice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1984), 92. 20. Nancy Fraser and Linda Nicholson, "Social Criticism without Philosophy: An Encounter
between Feminism and Postmodernism;' in Ross, ed., Universal Abandon? The Politics of Postmod-
7. Harvey, The Urban Experieme, 2.
ernism, 83-104.
8. De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 93.

358 359
 Nanos TO PAGES 226-238 Non;s TO PAGES 239-249

21. Ernesto Ladau, "Postrnodernism and Politics," in Ross, ed., Universal Abandon? The Politics of 35. See Griselda Pollock, "What's Wrong with 'Images of Women'?" Screen Education 24
Postmodernism, 67. (1977), 123-36.

22. Paul Patton, "Marxism and Beyond; Strategies ofReterritorialization," in Cary Nelson and 36. Craig Owens, "The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism," in Hal Foster, ed.,
Lawrence Grossberg, eds., Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Urbana: University of Illinois T11e Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture (Port Townsend, Wash.: Bay Press, 1983), 59.
Press, 1988), 133.
37. Sigmund Freud, "Medusa's Head" (1922) and "Fetishism" (1927), in Sexuality and the Psychol-
23. Ibid. ogy of Love (New York: Collier Books, 1963), 212-19.

24. Harvey, introduction, in The Urban Experience, 15. 38. Burgin, "The Absence of Presence," 46.

25. Mark Wigley, The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida:, Haunt (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), 39. Jean Baudrillard, "Fetishism and Ideology: The Semiological Reduction;' in For a Critique of
129. Wigley is analyzing the use of the house as a figure of presence in the philosophical tradition the Political Economy of the Sign (Saint Louis: Telos Press, 1981), 90.
of metaphysics.
40.Judith Williamson, ''A Piece of the Action: Images of'Woman' in the Photography of Cindy
26. Ibid., 134. Sherman," in Consuming Passions: The Dynamics of Popular Culture (London: Marion Soyars,
1986), 103.
27. Ibid., 137-38.

28. Ernesto Ladau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Demo- CHINATOWN, PART fOUR? WHAT jAKE fORGETS ABOUT DOWNTOWN

cratic Politics (London: Verso, 1985).

1. Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder;' in The Simple Art of Murder (New York:
29. Sec "Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City," in this volume. Vintage Books, 1934), 17.

30. Raymond Ledrut refers to the constitutive role of fantasy in relation to "the image of the 2. Ibid., 18.
city" when he says that the city is an image "only from the moment when it becomes the locus
of a certain 'investment' by the ego." See Raymond Ledrut, "Speech and the Silence of the City," 3. Derek Gregory, "Chinatown, Part Three? Soja and the Missing Spaces of Social Theory,"
in The City and the Sign. An Introduction to Urban Semiotics (New York: Columbia University Press, Strategies, no. 3 (1990): 40-104.
!986), 223.
4. Edward W. Soja, Postmodern Geographies: The Reassert/on of Space in Critical Urban Theory (Lon-
31. Douglas Crimp, "Pictures," October 8 (Spring 1979): 74-88. don: Verso, 1989).

32. Victor Burgin, "The Absence of Presence: Conceptualism and Postmodernisms;' in The End 5. Gregory, "Chinatown, Part Three?" 41.
qfArt Theory: Criticism and Postmodernity (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International,
6. Mike Davis, "Chinatown, Part Two? The 'Internationalization' of Downtown Los Angeles,"
!986), 30.
New Lift RerAew 164 (July/ August 1987): 65-86.
33. Hans Haacke, catalogue text accompanying Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Board of Trustees,
7. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Lijit (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
in Art into Society-Society into Art: Seven German Artists (London: Institute of Contemporary Arts,
1974), 63. 8. Mike Davis, City qf Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (London: Verso, 1990), 18.
Subsequent references to this book appear in parentheses in the text.
34. Teresa de Lauretis, Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana Univer-
sity Press, 1984), 38.

360 361
 NoTES TO PAGES 252-270 NOTES TO PAGES 270-271

9. Laura Mulvey, "The Oedipus Myth: Beyond the Riddles of the Sphinx," in Visual and Other ment, ed. Holly Sklar (Boston: South End Press, 1980), 295-306. Recently, neoconservatives
Pleasures (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 190. have adopted a new rhetoric of democracy that diverges from the overt authoritarianism of the
Huntington report. Claiming to defend public space, they have begun to celebrate what neocon-
10. Mary Ann Doane, "Gilda: Epistemology as Striptease," in Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film
servative journalists and political scholars call "the new community activism" or "the new citizen-
Theory, Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge, 1991), 102.
ship." The new citizenship consists precisely of people making demands on government, which
11. Teresa de Lauretis, "Desire in Narrative," in Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema is itself now deemed "excessive." What makes the new activists acceptable, of course, is that
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 143. they agitate against the placement of social services-homeless shelters, AIDS or mental health
f<lcilities-in their neighborhoods and, more broadly, against what conservatives call "the tyran-
TILTED ARC AND THE USES OF DEMOCRACY nies of the therapeutic state." William A. Schambra, "By The People: The Old Values of the
New Citizenship," Policy Review, no. 69 (Sunnner 1994): 38.
1. For a discussion of moral rights, see Martha Buskirk, "Moral Rights: First Step or False Start?" The concerns of the new activists-no matter how diverse the socioeconomic status of
Art in America 79, no. 7 (July 1991): 37-45. the neighborhoods they seek to protect-can therefore be grouped together to support three
elements of conservative urban policy discourse: advocacy of cutbacks in social spending; the call
2. Clara Weyergraf-Serra and Martha Buskirk, The Destruction of Tilted Arc: Documents (Cambridge: for reliance on the resources of civil society-the capitalist economy as well as other nongovern-
MIT Press, 1991). Subsequent references to this volume are indicated in the text. mental institutions-rather than the state; denigration of government protection of civil rights,
which are blamed for the "breakdown of public order" and decline in "the quality of life." "The
3. For an analysis of relationships between discourses of utility and urban redevelopment and a
project to restore civil society," writes Schambra, "is a bridge over one of the most troubling
discussion of the ''new public art" see "Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City,"
chasms in American society today-between conservatives and the inner city." City Journal
in this volume.
agrees: "Citizens are rising to demand that the government stop dumping social problems onto
4. Henri Lefebvre, LA production de l'espace (Paris: Anthropos, 1974), 420 (my emphasis). their streets and start demonstrating a commonsense concern with the quality oflife in the city's
neighborhoods." Heather MacDonald, "The New Conununity Activism: Social Justice Comes
5. Laurence Tribe, Constitutional Choices (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 189. Full Circle," City Journal 3, no. 4 (Autumn 1993): 44.

6. Ibid., 203-4. 2. See, for instance, Eric Gibson, ''Jennifer Bartlett and the Crisis of Public Art," New Criterion
9, no. 1 (September 1990): 62-64. Neoconservative devotion to the right of access to public
7. Stuart Hall, "Popular-Democratic vs Authoritarian Populism: Two Ways of 'Taking Democ-
space generally serves, of course, as a rationale for censoring critical art, eliminating government
racy Seriously,"' in The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left (London: Verso,
funding of the arts, and privatizing art production-a position outlined in Edward C. Banfield,
1988), 123-49.
The Democratic Muse: Visual Arts and the Public Interest (New York: Basic Books, 1984).

AGORAPHOBIA 3. For a discussion of the language of democracy used during the Tilted Arc debate, sec "Tilted
Arc: The Uses of Democracy," in this volume.
1. Huntington is the author of the American section of The Crisis of Democracy, a report issued by
the Trilateral Commission, a private organization founded in 1973 to engineer a new world 4. Claude Lefort, "The Question of Democracy," in Democracy and Political Theory (Minneapolis:
order controlled by the liberal democracies of North America, Western Europe, and japan. The University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 10.
commission included promin~nt government, business, academic, and professional figures. For a
5. Nancy Fraser, ''Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually
discussion of "The Crisis of Democracy," see Alan Wolfe, "Capitalism Shows Its Face: Giving
Existing Democracy," in Craig Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge: MIT
Up on Democracy," in Trilaterialism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planningfor World Manage-
Press, 1992), 109.

362 363
 NOTES TO PACES 272-275 NOTES TO PAGES 276-277

6. Chantal Mouffe, "Pluralism and Modern Democracy: Around Carl Schmitt;' in The Return of power. This terminological difference does not mean that the ideas of the two writers are polar-
the Political (London: Verso, 1993), 117. ized. On the contrary, they have certain affinities. Although Lefort is not writing specifically
about urban space, his appropriation-the occupation of public space by giving it an absolute
7. Lefort, "The Logic of Totalitarianism," in The Political f'orms of Modern Society: Bureaucracy,
meaning-resembles what Henri Lefebvre calls the domination of space-the technocratic desig-
Democracy, Totalitarianism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986), 279.
nation of objective uses that bestow an ideological coherence on space. Moreover, Lefort's appro-
8. Claude Lefort, ''The Question of Democracy," in Democracy and Political Theory (Minneapolis: priation and Lefebvre's domination are similar to Michel de Certeau's notion of"strategy" as the
University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 19. relationship that becomes possible when a subject with power postulates a place that can be de-
limited as its own. See Henri Lefebvre, Tiw Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith
9. Ibid., 17. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991) and Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1984), 36. All three endow space with proper meanings and uses
10. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Toward a Radical Democratic
and, in this proprietary manner, set up a relation with an exterior that threatens those uses. In
Politics, trans. Winston Moore and Paul Cammack (London: Verso, 1985), 122.
fact, de Certeau uses the adjective appropriated to delineate a space-"a place appropriated as one's
own"-that serves from inception "as a base from which relations with an exteriority composed
11. Ibid., 125.
of targets or threats ... can be managed."
12. Ibid. Mouffe and Ladau formulate their concept of "antagonism" in distinction from both The actions described by Lefort, Lefebvre, and de Certeau call for countervailing demo-
"contradiction" and "opposition:' which designate relationships between objects-conceptual cratic procedures: "depropriation" (a tenn that, as far as I am aware, Lefort does not explicidy
or real-that are full identities. Antagonism, by contrast, is a relationship that prevents the fullness use), Lefebvre's "appropriation," and what de Certeau calls "making do." In this context, depro-
of any identity. See Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, 124. Mouffe and Ladau priation and Lefebvre's appropriation have similar (though not identical) meanings. Like de Cer-
also distinguish the negativity inherent in the concept of antagonism from negativity in the dialec- teau's making do, they imply some kind of undoing by the outside of a space that has been made
tical sense of the term. The negative, for them, iS not a moment in the unfolding of a concept proper, a taking account of exclusions and differences, and consequent exposure of power where
that is then reabsorbed in a higher unity. It is an outside that affirms an identity but reveals its it has been naturalized and obscured.
contingency. Antagonism is not negation in the service of totality but the negation of a closed
totality. Laclau, "New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time;' in New Riflections on the 17. Sam Roberts, "The Public's Right to Put a Padlock on a Public Space," New York Times, June
Revolution of Our Time (London: Verso, 1990), 26. 3, 1991, B!.

13. Laclau, "New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time;' 61. 18. Fred Siegel, "Reclaiming Our Public Spaces," Tlze CityJournal2, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 35-45.

14. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 19. Roberts, "The Public's Right," Bl.

1948), 296. 20. Siegel, "Reclaiming Our Public Spaces," 41.

15. Etienne Balibar, "What Is a Politics of the Rights of Man?" in Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies
21. Theodor Adamo, "What Does Coming to Tenns with the Past Mean?" in Bitburg in Moral
on Politics and Philosophy Before and Afier Marx, trans. James Swenson (New York: Routledge,
and Political Perspective, ed. Geoffrey H. Hartman {Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986),
1994), 211. 127-28; translated from Gesammelte Schr!ften 10, pt. 2 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1977),
16. Since I am applying Lefort's ideas to a discussion of contemporary urban discourse, it is 555-72. Adorno continues: "So long as one wants to struggle against anti-Semitism within indi-
important to note that Lefort uses the term appropriation in an opposite sense from Henri Lefebvre, vidual persons, one shouldn't expect too much from recourse to fucts, for they'll often eit~er not
whose concept of appropriation has been so compelling for critical urban thought. For Lefort, be adrnitted or be neutralized as exceptions. One should rather tum the argument toward the
appropriation refers to an action of state power; for Lefebvre, it denotes an action against such people whom one is addressing. It is they who should be made conscious of the mechanisms that
provoke their racial prejudice."

364 365
 NOTES TO PACES 277-279 NOTES TO PACES 279-283

22. Ibid., I28. 30. Patricia Phillips, "The Public Art Machine: Out of Order," Artjorum 27 (December 1988): 93.

23. Slavoj ZiZek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (London: Verso, 1989), 128. 31. Kathy Halbreich,- "Stretching the Terrain: Sketching Twenty Years of Public Art," in Going
Public: A Field Guide to Developments in Art in Public Places, 9.
24. Ibid., 127.
32. Suzanne Lacy, ''Cultural Pilgrimages and Metaphoric Journeys," in Suzanne Lacy, ed., Map-
25. The idea that the visibility of homeless people might reinforce the image of a unified urban ping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art (Seattle: Bay Press, 1995), 20.
space casts doubt on the more common assumption of critical urban discourse-that the mere
presence of homeless people in public spaces challenges the appearance of harmony that official 33. Allen, "How Art Becomes Public," 246.
representations try to impose on dominated urban sites (I make this claim, for example, at the
34. Ibid., 250.
beginning of"Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City," in this volume). The visibil-
ity of homeless people neither guarantees the social recognition of homeless people nor legiti- 35. Harriet F. Senie and Sally Webster, ed., Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and
mates conflicts over public space; it is just as likely to strengthen the image of an essentially Controversy (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), xi.
harmonious public space, which legitimates the eviction of homeless people.
But raising questions about the conditions and consequences of visibility does not negate 36. Ibid.
the importance of m.1.intaining the visibility of homelcssness, where visibility implies resistance
37. Ibid., 17!.
to efforts to expel homeless people from public space and coercively assign them to shelters. The
demand for visibility, understood as the declaration of the right of homeless people to live and 38. Michael Sorkin, "Introduction: Variations on a Theme Park," in Michael Sorkin, ed., varia-
work in public spaces, differs from a specular model of visibility, in which homeless people are tions on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space (New York: The Noonday
constntcted as objects for a viewing subject. The first demand challenges established legitimacy, Press, 1992), xv.
questioning the legality of state power in evicting people from public spaces. The presence of
homeless people can, then, reveal the presence of power in places, like parks, where it was for- 39. Ibid.
merly obscured. As power becomes visible and drops its veil of anonymity, the homeless person
40. The combination of proftt-maximizing and desexualizing tendencies in contemporary urban
also emerges from her consigrunent to an ideological image into a new kind of visibility. It is,
planning is manifest both in the use of Disneyland as a model for contemporary urbanism and in
then, imperative to struggle against the possibility that, as the state exercises its monopoly on
the role played by the Disney Development Company in actual urban redevelopment. Since the
legitimate violence and evicts the homeless from public spaces, both state power and homeless
publication of Sorkin's book, Disney has become financially and symbolically useful to the current
people will fade into invisibility.
partnership being forged in New York between real-estate interests and moral crusaders who
26. See "KrzysztofWodiczko's Homeless Projection and the Site of Urban 'Revitalization,"' and want to repress urban sexual cultures. Disney's instrumentality emerged clearly in a recent New
"Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City," in this volume. York Times article that announced the city's choice of the Disney Development Company and
the Tishman Urban Development Corporation to rebuild the corner of 42nd Street and Eighth
27. For a case study of the role played by parks in gentrification and redevelopment, see "Krzysztof Avenue as part of the redevelopment of Times Square: ''The S303 million project is the center-
Wodiczko's Homeless Projection and the Site of Urban 'Revitalization,"' in this volume. piece of state and city efforts to transform 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues
from a seedy strip with its ever-present husders and sex shops into a glitzy family-oriented enter-
28. See "Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City," in this volume.
tainment center.... But perhaps of even more value is the Disney name. In its effort to turn
29. Jerry Allen, "How Art Becomes Public," 1985; reprinted in Going Public: A Field Guide to around a neighborhood long synonymous with urban danger and degradation, the city now has
Developments in Art itt Public Places (Arts Extension "Service and the Visual Arts Program of the a partner that is a symbol of wholesome entertainment worldwide." Shawn G. Kennedy, "Disney
National Endowment for the Arts, 1988), 246. and Developer Are Chosen To Build 42nd Street Hotel Complex:' New York Times, May 12,
1995,Bl.

366 367
 NOTES TO PAGES 283-290 NoTES TO PAGES 291-299

41. Sorkin, "Introduction: Variations on a Theme Park;' xv. 53. See Craig Owens, "The Yen for Art," in Hal Foster, ed., Discussions in Contemporary Culture,
Discussions in Contemporary Culture, no. 1 (Seattle: Bay Press, 1987), 23.
42. For an analysis of the functions of the preservationist rhetoric that accompanied redevelop-
ment, see my "Architecture of the Evicted;' in Krzysztof Wodiczko: New YOrk City T(/.bleaux and 54. See "Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City," in this volume.
The Homeless Vehicle Project, exhib. cat. (New York: Exit Art, 1989), 28-37, reprinted in Strategies
3 (1990): 159-83; and "KrzysztofWodiczko's Homeless Projection and the Site of Urban 'Revital- 55. Owens discussed Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt's notion of an oppositional public sphere
ization,'" in this volume. in the talk he delivered in 1987 as a member of a panel on the "The Birth and Death of the
Viewer: On the Public Function of Art'' at the Dia Art Foundation but published a completely
43. Paul Goldberger, "Bryant Park, An Out-of-Town Experience," New York Times, May 3, different essay in Discussions in Contemporary Culture, the book that documents the paneL
1992, I-!34.
56. Owens, "The Yen for Art," 20.
44. "Whatever Became of the Public Square? New Designs for a Great Good Place," Harper's
(July 1990)' 49-60. 57. Fraser, "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing
Democracy," 131.
45. Bruce Robbins, "Introduction: The Public as Phantom," in Bruce Robbins, ed., 1'11e Phantom
Public Sphere, Cultural Politics 5 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), viii. 58. "Public Vision," an exhibition of the work of Gretchen Bender, Jennifer Bolande, Diane
Buckler, Ellen Carey, Nancy Dwyer, Barbara Kntger, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Diane Shea,
46. Jiirgen Habermas, The Struct11ral Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Cindy Sherman, Laurie Sinunons, and Peggy Yunque, organized by Gretchen Bender, Nancy
Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge: Dwyer, and Cindy Sherman at White Columns, Ne.w York, 1982. White Cohunns, during this
MIT Press, 1989); originally published as Strukturwandel der Ojfentlichkeit (Dannstadt: Hermann innovative period in its history, was directed by Josh Baer. I would like to thank Gretchen Bender
Luchterhand Verlag, 1962). for help in reconstructing "Public Vision."

47 .Jiirgen Habermas, "The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964)," New German Critique 59. For accounts of early postmodern theory's blindness to feminism, see Jane Weinstock, "A
(Fall1974)' 44-55. Laugh, A Lass and a Lad," Art in America, 71, no. 6 (Summer 1983): 8; and Craig Owens, "The
Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism," in Hal Foster, ed., The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays
48. Immanuel Kant, ''An Answer to the Question: 'What is Enlightenment?'" in Kant: Political
on Postmodern Culture (Port Townsend, Wash.: Bay Press, 1983), 57-82.
Writings, introd. Hans Reiss, traiL~. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1970), 54-60. 60. "The Revolutionary Power of Women's Laughter,'' organized by JoAnna Isaak at Protetch
McNeil, New York, 1983.
49. Vito Acconci, Making Public: The Writing and Reading cif Public Space (The Hague: Uitgever,
1993), 16. This publication accompanied "Vito Acconci: Models, Projects for Streets, Squares, 61. "Difference: On Representation and Sexuality," organized by Kate Linker and Jane Wein-
and Parks;' an exhibition at Stroom: The Hague's Center for Visual Arts, 1993. stock at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 1985.

50. Chantal Mouffe, "Democratic Citizenship and the Political Community," in Chantal Mouffe, 62. Clement Greenberg, "Modernist Painting;' in Gregory Battcock, ed., The New Art (New
ed., Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community (London: Verso, 1992), York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1966), 66-77.
234.
63. Rosalind Krauss, Cindy Shem1an 1975-1993 (New York: Rizzoli, 1993), 192.
51. Ibid., 235.
64.Judith Williamson, "A Piece of the Action: Images of'Woman' in the Photography of Cindy
52. Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Genealogy of Morals;' in On the Genealogy cif Morals and Ecce Shennan;' in Consuming Passions: The Dynamics cif Popular Culture (London: Marion Boyars,
Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale (New York: Random House, 1967), 77. 1986), 103.

368 369
 T
NOTES TO PAGES 300-305 NOTES TO PAGES 306-310

65. For an excellent discussion of Kruger's early work, especially of her use of the pronoun you, 77. Craw's use of civic humanism to create a unity between modernism and the "dematerializing
see Jane Weinstock, "What she means, to you;' in Barbara Kruger: We Won't Play Nature to Your practices" of the late 1960s is odd. The latter practices were, after all, opposed to the very aspect
Culture, exhib. cat. (London: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1983), 12-16. of modernism-the claim of transcendence-through which Crow relates modernism to civic
humanist aesthetics in the first place. Crow can only overcome this contradiction by treating as
66. Mark Wigley, The Architecture if Deconstruction: Derrida's Haunt (Cambridge: MIT Press,
a given his contention that the dematerializing practices sought, albeit differently from modem-
1993), 138.
ism, to unifY the art audience. But this contention-and Craw's consequent assimilation of the
67. Laura. Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," in Brian Wallis, ed., Art After Modern- critique of autonomy mounted in the 1960s and 1970s to the ideals of civic humanism-is itself
ism: Rethinking Representation (New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art and David R. highly problematic. In the 1960s and 1970s many of the artists undertaking a critique of modem-
Godine, 1984), 366. ism did so precisely to challenge, not to support, the notion that in museums or galleries, viewers
are united as "citizens of art." For example, Martha Rosier's artwork The Bowery in Two Inadequate
68. Slavoj ZiZek, For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor (London: Verso, Descriptive Systems and her essays "In, Around, and Mterthoughts (On Documentary Photogra-
1991), 174 n. 38. phy)" and "Lookers, Buyers, Dealers, and Makers: Thoughts on Audience'' as well as Hans
Haacke's various Gallery-Goers' Residence Profiles drew attention to the class, gender, or racial
69. Love for Sale: The Words and Pictures of Barbara Kruger, text by Kate Linker (New York: Harry
compositions of art audiences. Unlike Crow, Rosier and Haacke did not focus on the disparity
N. Abrams), 61.
between the social identity of actual viewers, on the one hand, and the supposedly transcendent
70. Thomas Keenan, "Windows: of vulnerability," in Bruce Robbins, ed., The Phantom Public viewer addressed by traditional aesthetic institutions, on the other, in order to set up the ideal
Sphere (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 121-41. viewer as "a standard against which the various inadequacies of art's actual consumers could be
measured and criticized." Ratl:;.er, these artists wanted to demonstrate that the transcendent viewer
71. Hal Foster, preface, in Hal Foster, ed., Discussions it1 Contemporary Culture, Dia Art Foundation addressed by modernist aesthetic discourse is an imaginary entity, a disavowal of the fact that
Discussions in Contemporary Culture, no. 1 (Seattle: Bay Press, 1987). aesthetic space is itself immersed in conflictual social relations. Rosler and Haacke therefore chal-
lenged the illusion, perpetuated in aestheticism and civic humanism, of a higher, abstract unity
72. Following the strong critical response that Craw's talk provoked from other speakers and
among people who might really belong on different sides.
members of the audience, he substantially rewrote the text for the book documenting the Dia
discussions. The published essay leaves his concept of the public sphere essentially unaltered, 78. Barrell, The Political Theory of Painting, 79.
however, so that, by coupling the essay with the transcript of the original discussion that followed
the panel and is included in the book, Craw's initial position can be reconstructed. 79. Robert R. Wark, ed., Reynolds's Discourses on Art, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1975), 202.
73. "Discussion, The Birth and Death of the Viewer: On the Public Function of Art:' in Hal
Foster, ed., Discussions in Contemporary Culture, Dia Art Foundation Discussions in Contemporary 80. Etienne Balibar, "'Rights of Man' and 'Rights of the Citizen': The Modern Dialectic of
Culture, no. 1 (Seattle: Bay Press, 1987), 24. Equality and Freedom" in Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy Bifore and A.fter
Marx, trans. James Swenson (New York: Routledge, 1994), 59.
74. Thomas Crow, "These Collectors, They Talk about Baudrillard Now," in Foster, ed., Discus-
sions in Contemporary Culture, 1-2. Subsequent references to this essay are indicated in the text. 81. Iris Marion Young, "Impartiality and the Civic Public: Some Implications of Feminist Cri-
tiques of Moral and Political Theory," in Feminism as Critique, ed. Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla
75. "Discussion, The Birth and !)eath of the Viewer," 26. Cornell (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 60.

76. John Barrell, The Political Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt: 'The Body of the Public' 82. Ibid.
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 3.
83. Ibid. Here Young is citing Michael Sandel's critique of the radically unsituated subject. See
Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits ofjustice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

370 371
 NoTES TO PACES 310-315 NOTES TO PACES 316-323

84. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), 99. Edward W Said, "Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies, and Community," in Hal Foster,
234. ed., The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture (Port Townsend, Wash.: Bay Press, 1983),
135-59.
85. See Samuel Weber's discussion of objectivity in "Objectivity Otherwise," in Objectivity and Its
Other, ed. Wolfgang Natter et. al (New York: Guilford Press, 1995), 36-37. 100. Bruce Robbins, "lnterdisciplinarity in Public: The Rhetoric of Rhetoric," Social Text 251
26(1990), 115.
86. Martin Heidegger, "The Age of the World Picture;' in The Question Concerning TechnOlogy
and Other Essays (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), 115-54. 101. See "Men in Space" and "Boys Town," in this volume.

87. Barrell, The Political T11eory of Painting, 65-66. 102. Adorno, "What Does Coming to Terms with the Past Mean?" 129.

88. Homi K. Bhabha, ''A Good Judge of Character: Men, Metaphors, and the Common Culture;' t'03. Bruce Robbins, "Introduction: The Public as Phantom;' in Bruce Robbins, ed., The Phan-
in Toni Morrison, ed., Race-ing]ustice, En-gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, tom Public Sphere, Social Text Series on Cultural Politics 5 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
and the Construction of Social Reality (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 242. Press, 1993).

89. This denigration of questions of subjectivity in public art discourse is frequently supported 104. Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, Public Sphere and Experience: Toward an Analysis of the
by urban and architecture discourses-the very discourses introduced into the left art world in Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere, trans. Peter Labanyi, Jamie Owen Daniel, and Assenka
the 1980s in tandem with d~scussions of "the public" to forge more democratic concepts of Oksiloff (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 3; originally published as Offentlich-
public art. keit und Eifahrung: Zur Organisationsanalyse von bii.rgerlicher und proietarischer Offentlichkeit (Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp, 1972).
90. David Trend, "Beyond Resistance: Notes on Community Counter-Practice;' Afterimage
(April1989)' 6. 105. Robbins, "Introduction: The Public as Phantom," x.

91. Ibid. 106. Ibid.

92. George Yudice, "For a Practical Aesthetics," Social Text 25126 (1990): 135. 107. Ibid., x:xiv.
93. Ibid., 134.
108. Iris Marion Young, "Social Movements and the Politics of Difference:' in Justice and the
94. Trend, "Beyond Resistance;' 4. Politics of Dijjfrence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 171.

95. Ibid. 109. The reminder that difference is interdependence and thus raises these questions was made
by William E. Connolly in "Pluralism and Multiculturalism;' a paper presented at the conference
96. Yudice, "For a Practical Aesthetics;' 135. "Cultural Diversities: On Democracy, Community, and Citizenship," held at the Bohen Founda-
tion, New York, in February 1994.
97. Ibid., 134.
110. Iris Marion Young, "The Ideal of Community and the Politics of Difference," in Linda].
98.Jacqueline Rose, "Sexuaijty in the Field of Vision;' in Sexuality in the Field of Vision (London: Nicholson, ed., Feminism/Postmodernism, Thinking Gender Series (New York: Routledge), 304.
Verso, 1986), 231. Barbara Kruger cited this passage as an epigraph to her contribution to the
second Dia panel discussion on "The Cultural Public Sphere;' where, the week after Craw's 111. Thomas Keenan, "Windows: Of Vulnerability," in Robbins, ed., The Phantom Public
presentation, Kruger and Douglas Crimp insisted, in different "":'ays, on the relevance of issues of Sphere, 121~41.
sexuality to the public sphere.
112. Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1994), 134.

372
373
 NOTES TO PAGES 323-325 Nons TO PAGES 325-326

113. Keenan, "Windows: OfVulnerability," 127. Unproblematized references to real spaces seal off the spaces in question from contestation pre-
cisely by repressing the fact that spaces are produced. More than that, to draw a hierarchical
114. Sigmund Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, trans. Joan Riviere (New York:
opposition between spaces is to produce space, a political activity masked by the claim tbat one
Simon and Schuster, 1935), 252.
is simply addressing a real spatial object. If our goal is to reveal and intervene in the political
115. Keenan, "Windows: Of Vulnerability," 135. stmggles producing spaces, we should not focus on distinguishing hierarchically among heteroge-
neous spaces, on pronouncing one space inherently more political than another, calling some real
116. Joan Copjec and Michael Sorkin, "Shrooms: East New York," Assemblage 24 (August and others metaphorical, or on defending traditional spaces-urban squares, for example-
!994)o 97. against the supposed dangers to reality of new spatial arrangements-such as the media, informa-
tion systems, and computer networks. These approaches deter us from investigating the real
117. Lefort, "The Question of Democracy," 18.
political struggles inherent in the production of all spaces and from enlarging the fteld of struggles
11R ZH:ek, For They Know Not What They Do, 168. to make many different kinds of spaces public.

119. Carol Brooks Gardner, "Out of Place: Gender, Public Places, and Situational Disadvantage," 122. Keenan, "Windows: Of Vulnerability," 133.
in Roger Friedland and Deirdre Boden, eds., NowHere: Space, Time and Modernity (Berkeley:
123. Claude Lefort, "Politics and Human Rights," in The Political Forms of Modern Society: Bureau-
University of California Press, 1994), 349.
cracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986), 270.
120. Ibid., 350.
124. Recently, Jacques Derrida has written something similar about totalitarianism when, in an-
121. In the course of this essay, as I examine current debates about "public space," I not only other context, he speculated that totalitarianism originates in the terror inspired by a phantom.
question the meaning of the term public but problematize the word space. As I tried to suggest Jacques Derrida, Specters if Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work if Mourning, and the New Interna-
from the opening sentence, space is not an obvious or monolithic category. It can be a city or a tional, trans. Peggy Kamuf (New York: Routledge, 1994).
building, but it can also be, among other things, an identity or a discourse. Some critics try to Derrida refers to a different phantom-not the phantom public sphere but "the specter
keep these spaces separate, transforming the difference between them into an opposition, treating of communism." In defining communism as a specter, Derrida recalls the f.1mous opening line of
the first kind of space as more "real" than the second. In other words, these critics accept a The Communist Manifesto: "A specter is haunting Europe-the specter of communism." Unlike
classical opposition between the extradiscursive and the discursive-hence, between reality and Marx and Engels, however, speaking from a different historical conjuncture, Derrida writes about
thought-and map this opposition onto different categories of space. A democratic critique of the fear that this specter called forth not in communism's adversaries but in its proponents. Derrida
space must, I think, break with these dichotomies. For no space, insofar as it is social, is a simply gives the Manifesto's announcement a deconstructive inflection. For him, spectrality is a constitu-
given, secure, self-contained entity that precedes representation; its very identity as a space, its tive feature of communism. Communism is destroyed by being realized because it exists only in
appearance of closure, is constituted and maintained through discursive relationships that are a disjointed space and time; it is never fiilly present but "always still to come." In this sense,
themselves material and spatial-differentiations, repressions, subordinations, domestications, at- communism stands for a destabilizing force that makes a fully constituted society impossible and
tempted exclusions. In short, space is relational, and consequently, as Mark Wigley writes, "There therefore promises different solutions to social problems. This promise is not, however, directed
is no space without violence and no violence that is not spatial." Editorial, Assemblage 20 (April toward and therefore beholden to an ideal-something known but not yet present. Rather, it
!993)o 7. exists only when society itself is a problem-open to unknown futures, unable to reach any real
When critics draw ari·opposition between "real" or "concrete" spaces, which are suppos- closure. Totalitarianism is the attempt to have closure. It is the consequence of an effort to escape
edly constituted by extradiscursive processes, and other spaces that are held to be merely "meta- society's essential incompletion and to bring about "the real presence of the specter, thus the end
phorical" or "discursive," they not only drastically restrict the field of"reality"; they also conceal of the spectral." Totalitarianism, says Derrida, is "the monstrous realization" of a specter. By the
the politics through which the space of their own categories is constructed, presupposing that the same token, however, the collapse of totalitarianisms does not mean that conununism is finished.
object of their discourse is a purely objective fteld constituted outside any discursive intervention. Rather, it is freed from its monstrous realization to rise as a ghost and haunt capitalist societies.

374 375
 NO'TllS TO PAGE 327

Derrida likens the specter of communism to democracy. Communism, he writes, "is dis-
tinguished like democracy itself, from every living present understood as plenitude of a presence-
to-itself, as totality of a presence effectively identical to itself." At this point Derrida's analysis
CREDITS
seems to parallel that of Lefort: totalitarianism, an attempt to conjure away democracy, springs
from discomfort with the idea that democracy's uncertainties cannot be finally resolved without
its destruction. Slavoj ZiZek has recently argued, however, that Derrida conceives of the specter
i j

i: as a "'higher' stratum. of reality ... that persists in its Beyond" and is thus itself a positivization.
For ZiZek, Derrida's specter gives "quasi-being" to a void and is therefore an attempt to escape
something even more terrifying-"the abyss of freedom." See Slavoj ZiZek, introduction, in
Slavoj ZiZek, ed., Mapping Ideology (London: Verso, 1994), 1-33.

125. Lefort, "Politics and Human Rights," 270.

! 126. Ernesto Laclau, "Building a New Left," in New Reflections on the Revolution <if Our Time
1· (London: Verso, 1990), 190.
]i
Versions of these essays have appeared previously:

"Krzysztof Wodiczko's Homeless ProJection and the Site of Urban 'Revitalization,'" October 38
(Fall 1986).

"Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City," October 47 (Winter 1988).

"Representing Berlin: Urban Ideology and Aesthetic Practice," in Irit Rogoff, ed., The Divided
Heritage: T1temes and Problems in Gennan Modernism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991).

"Property Values: Hans Haacke, Real Estate, and the Museum," in Brian Wallis, ed., Hans Haacke:
i' Unfinished Business (New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT Press, 1986).

"Men in Space," Artforum 28, no. 6 (February 1990).

"Boys Town," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 9 (1991), Pion Limited, London.

"Chinatown, Part Four? What Jake Forgets about Downtown;' Assemblage 20 (April 1993).

"Tilted Arc and the Uses of Democracy," Design Book Review 23 (Winter 1992).

"Art and Public Space: Questions of Democracy," Social Text 33 (1993).

[,

l!i'
,,
!
I 376
i
 INDEX

Note: fllustrations are indicated by page numbers in italics.

Abstract space, 75-78, 92, 162 All That Is Solid Melts into Air (Bennan), 196
Acconci, Vito, 288 American Institute of Architects, 51
Activism Antagonism, 274, 278, 364n.12
of artists, 313,316-317 Anti-Semitism, 277-278, 365n.21
new conununity, 363n.1 Architecture discourse
Adorno, Theodor, 136, 277, 365n.21 and theories of public space, 283-286
Aesthetics. See also Art; Contextual aesthetics and urban redevelopment, 5-7
and autonomy, 61, 135, 149,233, 236-237, Arendt, Hannah, 275, 310
261-262 Aronowitz, Stanley, 359n.17
idealist, 223-224 Art, 60-61, 233, 357n.28. See also Aesthetics;
and real estate, 43-48 Gem1an art; Modernism; Public art; Site-
and urban redevelopment, 7, 55 specificity; Visual images; specific styles
and utility, 55-56 activist; 313, 316-317
After Egon Schiele (Levine), 297, 298 audiences for, 166, 371n.77
Agoraphobia, 325-326 autonomy of, 61, 135, 149, 233, 236-237,
AIZ (Arbeiter lllustrierte Zeitung), 110, 111 261-262
Allen, Jerry, 279, 280, 281 and the city, 80, 121-128, 133, 135-142,
Allende, Salvador, 183 163-165, 170
Allseitig reduzierte PersOnlichkeit-REDUPERS contingent meanings of, 116-117,295,
(Sonde,), 113-114 316
 INDEX iNDEX

Art (cont.) leased to private/ commercial developers, Berman, Marshall and the production of space, 73-78, 92, 162
institutional-critical, 116-117, 152, 163, 85-86, 88-89 All That Is Solid Melts into Air, 196 uneven development of, 74-75
182-183, 228, 229 Lindsay's proposal for, 83-84 Bhabha, Homi, 312 Carey, Hugh, 87
interdisciplinary approaches to, 195-196 optimism about, 81-82 I3iberman, Nancy, 337n.93 Castells, Manuel, 53, 77, 123
and the public/private divide, 281 and public art, 79-81, 91-93 Board of Estimate (New York City), on urban culture, 134-135
social production of, xiii-xiv, 236-237 public beneftts from, 91-93 84-85 Central Business District Redevelopment
as spatial praxis, 78-79 Rockefeller's proposal for, 83 Bondi, Liz, 200 Project (Los Angeles), 103-104
and a unified public, 305-307, 311, 371n.77 tenant-group opposition to, 83, 84 Borofsky, Jonathan Chandler, Raymond, 245~247
Art history, 60, 204 Urban Development Corp. ownership of Running Man, 140 Chicago School of urban sociology, 130-133,
and art/city relationship, 80, 121-128, land, 87 Bourgeois public sphere, 58-59, 287, 319 134
134-135 as a work of art, 79-81 Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems, Chile, 183
and city painting, xvii, 122-123, 126-128 World Financial Center, 79, 88, 90 The (Rosier), 329n.3, 371n.77 Chinatown (Polanski), 248, 250-251
social, 61, 122 Battery Park City Authority (New York Boyer, Christine, 22 "Chinatown, Part Three?'' (Gregory), xx,
Art-in-Architecture Program for Federal City), 79, 83, 86, 90 Brenson, Michael, 67 247-248
Buildings (GSA), 261 Baudrillard, Jean, 55, 243-244 Broadness and Diversity if the Ludwig Brigade "Chinatown, Part Two?" (Davis), XX, 247-248,
Art into Society-Society into Art (ICA), Baxter, Ellen, 337n.91 (Haacke), xvii, 112,141-143, 142, 144- 250-251
116-117 Beardsley, John, 66-67, 68 145, 145-150, 354nn.79-80 Cities. See also City painting; Urban
Artists Association (East Gem1any), 147 Beauty. See Aesthetics BYiicke expressionism, 119-120 expressionism
Artists' moral right$ vs. private property Benjamin, Walter, 34, 79, 124, 164, 191-192 Bruno, Giuliana, 204 as artworks, 80
rights, 266 Berlin, 113-119,133-141. See also Berlin Bryant Park (Manhattan), 285 as ~nctionalized, 51-54, 63, 105
Authorities (public corporations), 87-88 Wall paintings; Violent painters Buchloh, Ber~amin, 120, 266 and individualism, 129
Autonomy, 233, 236-237 associated with expressionist art, xvii, 111- Burgess, E. W., 133 as international business centers, 16-17,
and expressionism, 297 112,118,120, 348n.9 Burgin, Victor, 233, 241 332n.24
and modernism, 61, 135, 149, 150, 261-262 Be<lin Wall, 114, 137, 141 Burton, Scott, 65-66 as social forms, 52-53, 70, 224
vs. site-specificity, 261-262 dada, 110-111, 121 Buskirk, Martha technocratic view of, 69-70
"Durchblick" (exhibition), 142-143 The Destruction of Tilted Arc: Documents, 258, as visual image, 197, 209-215, 224, 360n.30
Balibar, Etienne, 272, 275, 308 Kreuzberg section, 137 260-261,262-264,267,268 Citizenship, 305-312
Barrell, John, 307, 311 squatters' movement in, 137, 138-139 City journal, 276,277, 363n.l
Barthes, Roland, 92, 204 "13° E: Eleven Artists Working in Berlin" Capitalism City Observed, The (Goldberger), 3, 5
Bartholdi, Frederic August (exhibition), 115-118 and accumulation, 15, 16, 74, 218 City of Quartz (Davis), 248-250
Lafayette Monument, 9, 34, 43 "Berlin: A Critical View" (exhibition), 115 and commodification of land/neighbor- City Options grant (New York City), 19
Battery Park City (Manhattan), xvi, 79-93, "Berlinart" (exhibition, MaMA), 348n.9 hoods, 15, 54, 180 City painting, xvii, 122-126. See also Urban
105-106, 343n.73 Berlin Street Scene (Kirchner), 109, 110 and democracy, 39-41, 57 expressionism
bonds for funding of, 84-85;· 86, 88 Berlin Wall paintings, 139-141 and division of public and private spheres, Marxist discussions of, 349-350n.23
Cooper-Eckstut development plan for, and site-specificity, 140-141 40-41, 43, 58, 191-192, 287 City planning. See Urban planning
90-91 Vtm Gogh und Mauer, 112, 113, 139-140, and gentrification, 15-16, 151 City Planning Commission (New York City)
housing planned for, 83-85, 86, 91 348n.7 and postmodernism, 198-199,200 and Battery City Park, 84-85

380 381
 INDEX INDEX

City Planning Commission (cont.) ownership of tenement buildings, 168, 172, and human rights, 40-42 East Side Tenants Council and City Wide
contextual plarming by, 18 177, 178 Lefort on, xxiii, 40-41, 272-273, 275, 324 Anti-Poverty Committee on Housing,
and Union Square, 35-36 (see also Union public, 87-88 and public art, xxii, 270, 279-290 84
Square) Crime and public space, 267-270, 273-279, 324 East Village (Manhattan)
Civic humanism, 305-307, 311, 371n.77 biological determinist theory of, 29 and the public sphere, 288, 289, 324 art scene, 150-151, 153, 157, 354n.87
Clark, T. ]., xix and surveillance of urban space, 28-29 and rights, 39-43, 272 gentrification of, 151, 164
The Paintit1g of Modern Life, 196-197, Crime and Human Nature (Wilson and and totalitarianism, 326 romantic, bohemian image of, 151
349-350n.23 Herrnstein), 29 and uncertainty, 41, 272, 273-274, Eckstut, Stanton, 89, 90-91
Clocktower, 94. See also Homeless Vehicle Crimp, Douglas, 233, 373n.98 282-283, 324 Ecological model of urban life, 71-72, 130-
Project on Tilted Arc, 62, 267 Derrida,Jacques, 375-376n.124 131, 133-134
Cohen, R. B., 332n.24 Crisis of Democracy, The (Trilateral Conunis- Destruction of Tilted Arc: Documents Electric Night (Middendorf), 114
Colomina, Beatriz, 322-323 sion), 362n.1 (Weyergraf-Serra and Buskirk), 258, 260- Elitism, 264, 265, 270
Commission on the Year 2000, 49 Critical Issues in Public Art (Senie and Webster), 261,262-264,267,268 Engels, Friedrich
Conunodification, 14-15 282 Devalorization cycle, 14-15 on ghetto formation, 134
ofland/neighborhoods, 15, 54, 180 Critical realism, 115 Dia Art Foundation, 303 on Haussmannization, 30-32
Communism, 375-376n.124 Crow, Thomas, 292, 303-311, 315, 370n.72, Diamond, William, 257, 260-261, 264, 265, Enlightenment aesthetics, 305-307
Communist Manifesto, The (Marx), 375n.124 371n.77 266, 270 Enlightenment concept of public sphere, 287,
Community Redevelopment Agency (Los Cuomo, Mario, 82, 91 Difference, xx-xxi, 219, 252, 301 305-308
Angeles), 102-104, 250 and feminism, 204-206, 208-215, 238-242, Expressionism. See also Neoexpressionism;
Condition r:if Postmodernity, The (Harvey), xviii, Dada, 110-111,121 301, 315 Urban expressionism
x~.xx. 195,200,203-244 Darwinism, 130, 131 as interdependence, 321-322, 373n.109 associated with Berlin, xvii, 111-112, 118,
feminist theory disregarded in, xix, xx, 199, Davis, Mike and pluralism, 321-322 120
203-205, 208-209 "Chinatown, Part Two?", xx, 247-248, vs. totalization, 204-206, 208-215 Briicke, 119-120
Marxism in, 216-218, 220, 225, 226-228, 250-251 "Difference: On Representation and Sexual- dada criticism of, 110-111
232 City of Quartz, 248-250 ity" (exhibition, New York City), 294 vs. fascist/foreign oppression, xvi, 109, 111,
totalizing vision of society in, 201,205-206, De Certeau, Michel, 209, 210-211, 213, DiLorenzo, Alex, 168 120
225, 231-232 248, 365n.16 Disciplinary specialization, 315-316
on visual images, 229-230, 231 Declaration of the Rights of Man, 40-41, Disney Development Co., 366n.25 Fascism, mythologizing of, 136
on voyeuristic perspective, 209 273, 274-275 Disneyland, 283, 366n.25 Fassbinder, Rainer
Connolly, William E., 373n.109 Defensible space, 28 Doane, Mary Ann, 252 Garbage, the City and Death, 112
Conservatism. See Neoconservatism De Lauretis, Teresa, 238, 252 "Durchblick" (exhibition, Berlin), 142-143, Faust, Wolfgang Max, 137, 139
Contextual art, 236-237, 264 Democracy, 269-327. See also Radical 148 Feminism, 228, 239-240, 301, 316
Contextual planning, 18, 44-48 democracy and civic humanism, 311
Cooper, Alexander, 89, 90-91 and capitalism, 39-41, 57 Eagleton, Teny, 218 and difference, 204-206, 208-215, 238-
Alexander Cooper Associates, 89 and communism, 376n.124 East Germany. See also Berlin 242, 315
Copjec, Joan, 324 and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, art sponsorship by, 142 on film noir, 251-252
Corporations 39-43,273,274-275 East-West relations, 143-144 and Marxist urban theory, 197-198, 201,
globalization of, 16-17 "excess" of, 270 socialist realist art of, 147 203-204, 209, 213-215, 251-253

382 383
 INDEX iNDEX

Feminism (cont.) Genealogy, 290 Goldman, Sol, 168 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Board of
on positive and negative images of women, General Services Administration, U.S., 257- Gordon, Donald, 127 Timtees, 116-117,159,183, 184-190
238-239,295,296,297 268. See also Tilted Arc Gottdiener, Marc, 71 Habermas, Jtirgen, 58, 307, 319-320
and psychoanalysis, 240-241 Gentrification, xiv, 13-14, 25. See also Re- Grand Central Terminal (New York City), 51 The Stmctura{ Traniformation of the Public
and the public sphere, xxiii-xxiv, 304-305 development; Revitalization Grasskamp, Walter, 142, 147 Sphere, 287
and the visual image, 197, 198, 201-202, and capitalism, 15-16 "Great Meeting in Union Square, The" Hall, Stuart, 216, 266
224, 238-242, 294, 301, 315 of parks, 24-37, 44-45, 279 (Harper's Weekly), 19-20 Halper, Albert
"woman as image" vs. "images of women," and production of labor power, 15-16 Greece, ancient, 306, 311 Uuion Square, 20-21
239-241 residents dislocated by, 27, 151, 356n.23 Greenberg, Clement, 233, 239, 294, 306 "Hans Haacke: Unfinished Business" (exhibi-
Ferriss, Hugh, 330n.2 Gem1an art, twentieth-century, 109-133. See Gregory, Derek, xx, 247-249, 250 tion, New York City), 159
Fetishism, sexual, 232, 240~243, 301 also Berlin; Urban expressionism Guest workers (Gastarbeiter; West Berlin), Harlem (Manhattan), 181
Fetting, Rainer, 119, 121 Art into Society~ Society into Art, 116-117 137-138 Harper's, 285
Min Go,t;;h und Mauer, 112, 113, 139-140, "Berlin: A Critical View" (exhibition), 115 Guggenheim, Solomon R., Museum, 117 Harvey, David. See also The Condition if
348n.7 Briicke expressionism, 119-120 cancellation of Haacke exhibition, xviii, Postmodernity
Film noir, xx-xxi, 245-253 critical realism, 115 159, 163, 164-166, 168-169, 171, 179, on institutions of community, 22
Fine Arts Program (New York City), 90 expressionism, dada criticism of, 110-111 182 The Urban Experience, 209-215
Fiscal crisis, urban, 86-87 expressionism vs. fascist/foreign oppression, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Board if urban theory of, 15, 74, 133-134, 180
Forster, Kurt W., 334n.48 xvi, 109, 111, 120 Trustees (Haacke), 116-117, 159,183, Haus am Waldsee (Berlin), 119
Foster, Hal, 303 "German Art in the Twentieth Century" 184-190 Haussmann, Georges, 196
Foucault, Michel, 32 (exhibition), xvi, 109-112, 115 Haussmannization, 30-32, 196-197,
Fragmentation, x:x:, 317-318 socialist realism, 147 Haacke, Hans, 121, 141-150, 295-296 349n.23
and capitalism, 198-199, 200, 317 "13° E: Eleven Artists Working in Berlin" Broadness and Diversity if the Ludwig Brigade, Hausmann, Raoul, 111
and postmodernism, 216, 219-221 (exhibition), 115-1.18 xvii, 112,141-143, 142, 144-145, 145- Heartfield,John, 110, 111, 121
Fraser, Nancy, 226, 271, 292 "German Art in the Twentieth Century" 150, 354nn.79-80 Mimicry, 354n.80
Freedom, principles of, 34, 35 (exhibition, London, 1985), xvi, 109-112, Gallery-Goers' Residence Profile, 166, 371n.77 "Heftige Malerei" (exhibition, Berlin), 119
Free speech rights, 265~266, 283 115 Guggenheim Museum's confrontation with, Heidegger, Martin, 310
Freud, Sigmund, 240-241 German Democratic Republic. See East xviii, 159, 163, 164-166, 168-169, 171, Heisig, Bernhard, 14 7, 148
Friedrichstrasse, Berlin (Kirchner), 109, 110 Gennany 179, 182 Helms, jesse, 314
Friends of jackson Park, 276, 277 Ghettos "Hans Haacke: Unfmished Business" (exhi- Helmsboro Country (Haacke), 357n.28
Frucher, MeyerS., 91 formation of, 133-134 bition), 159 Hermeneutics, 299
Fukuyama, Francis, 272 and landlord exploitation, 178, 180 1-Ielmsboro Country, 357n.28 Herrnstein, Richard J.
Gilligan, Carol, 205 MoMA Poll, 166, 167, 168 Crime and Human Nature, 29
Gaiking Bazoler photographs (Lawler), Gold~erger,Paul, 6, 330n.2, 330n.4, 331n.9 real estate works of, xviii, 159-165, 179 Hispanic neighborhoods, 331n.14
156-157 on Bryant Park, 285 Shapolsky eta{., Manhattan Real Estate Hold- Historic preservation
Galerie am Moritzplatz (Berlin), 119 The City Observed, 3, 5 ings, xvii-xviii, 161, 169, 169-172, 173- and Union Square redevelopment, xV, 5-6,
Ga!lery-Goers' Residence Profile (Haacke), 166, and New York redevelopment, 3-4 176, 177-178, 179-182 19-20,24,27-28,33,46
371n.77 on the Statue ofLiberty, 37 Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo Manhattan in urban planning, 5-6, 18-20, 24, 334n.48
Garbage, the City and Death (Fassbinder), 112 on Union Square, 3, 5 Real Estate Holdings, 161 History if Art (Janson), 238

384 385
 INDEX
INDEX

HOdicke, K. H., 120 Identity, social, 27 4 orders hospitalization of homeless people, 93 Lefort, Claude, 274, 327
"Homeless at Home" (exhibition, New York Images. See Visual images on uses of public spaces, 51, 53, 55-56, 105 on appropriation, 275, 364-365n.16
City), 102-104 Impartiality, ideal of, 309-311 Koch, Gertmd, 136 on democracy, xxiii, 40-41, 272-273, 324
Homeless people, xv, 47, 49-50, 51, 70, 94- Ink, Dwight, 257 Kovel, Joel, 267 on totalitarianism, 326, 376n.124
98, 104, 318 Institutional-critical art, 116-117, 152, 163, Kramer, Hilton, 314 Leftist artists/intellectuals
causes ofhomelessness, 54 (see also Gentrifi- 182-183, 228, 229 Krauss, Rosalind, 260, 299 and definitions of public space, 282-327
cation; Redevelopment) lnterdisciplinarity, 195-196, 207-208 Kreuzberg (section of Berlin), 137 and democracy, 264--265, 267-268
documentary photography of, 329n.3 Interesting (Lawler), xvii, 145, 152-153, 153- Kruger, Barbara, 372-373n.98 and elitism, 264, 265
as ideological figure, 276-277, 278, 366n.25 157, 155-158 Untitled (You delight in the loss of others), 299- Levine, Sherrie
legitimacy of, 51, 54, 366n.25 Interior, bourgeois domestic, 191-192 302, 300 After Egon Schiele, 297, 298
and public space, xiv-xv, 43, 51-52, 93- Interiority, construction of, 227-228, 243, Untitled (You molest from afar), 212 Liberal social documentary, 170
108, 276-279 299 Untitled (You thrive on mistaken identity), 207 Liberty, principles of, 34, 35
representations of, 337-338n.1 Ki.insderhaus Bethanien (Berlin), 141 Lindsay, John, 83-84, 89
visibility of, 49, 366n.25 Jackson Park (Greenwich Village), 276- Linker, Kate, 302, 340n.30
Homeless Projection, The (Wodiczko), xiv, 6-7, 277 Labor force Lippmann, Walter, 319
8-11, 12, 37-39, 346n.119 Jameson, Fredric and gentrification, 15-16 Los Angeles, 246, 248, 249, 250
setting of, 32-33 on postmodernism, xviii, xix, 198-199, global reorganization of, 16-17 Skid Row, 103-104
as symbolizing rights of homeless people, 221-222, 317 La Calle Catorse (Manhattan), 331 n.14 Los Angeles school of urban studies, 247,250
42-43 Janson, H. W Lacan,Jacques, 231 Lower East Side. See East Village
as threatening the public/private divide, History if Art, 238 Laclau, Ernesto, 226, 228, 272, 327 Ludwig, Peter
41-42 Jew, as ideological figure, 277-278 on antagonism, 274, 278, 364n.12 capitalist interests of, 143, 145-146, 354n.78
use of Union Square Park statues, xv, 33- joachimides, Christos, 115-116, 118-119, Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe, 272 "Durchblick" (exhibition), 142-143, 148
34, 41-43 348n.9 Lacy, Suzanne, 279 image as a unifier of Germany, 142, 145,
Homeless Vehicle Project, The (Wodiczko), 93- Ladies' Mile (Manhattan), 6 147, 149
107, 96-104, 346n.119 Kant, Immanuel, 233, 287 Language, 323-324 Ludwig Foundation for Art and International
impermanence of, 105-106 Keenan, Thomas, 303, 322-324, 325 Late capitalism. See Capitalism Understanding, 143
as legitimating homeless people, 98-99, 105, Kennecott Copper Corp., 183 Lawler, Louise Ludwig Institute for Art (East Germany), 142
106-107 Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig Interesting, xvii, 145, 152-153, 153-157, Lurie, David V., 96, 106
as visualizing homelessness/ redevelopment Berlin Street Scene, 109, 110 155-158 Lyotard, Jean-Franyois, 216-217
relationship, 95, 104-105 Friedrichstrasse, Berlin, 109, 110 Ledrut, Raymond, 52, 63, 197, 360n.30
Hopper, Kim, 337n.91 street scenes by, 121-122, 127, 136 LeFaivre, Michele, 14-15 Mandel, Ernest, 48, 74
House, as metaphor for political space, 227- Kluge, Alexander, 58-59, 320 Lefebvre, Henri, 53, 73, 107 Marcuse, Peter, 49, 86, 337-338n.1
228, 360n.25 Knowledge on abstract/capitalist space, xiii-xiv, 75-78, Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin), 119. See also
Housing, low-income, 46-48,. 54, 83, 91 authority of, 195-196 92,262 Violent painters
Housing New York Corp., 91 and disciplinary specialization, 315-316 on appropriation, xvi, 364-365n.16 Marx, Karl
Human ecology, 130 vision as a metaphor for, 211 criticism of, 77 The Communist Manifesto, 375n.124
Humanism, civic, 305-307, 311, 371n.77 Koch, Ed, 87, 91 on right to the city, 76 and human rights, 40, 41
Huntington, Samuel P., 270, 362-363n.1 on crirrie, 29-30

386 387
 IND!";X INDEX

Marx, Karl (cont.) Moritzplatz painters. See Violent painters New York City, 17-1.8, 29,43-48, 54. See Patton, Paul, 226
and the modern state, 39-40 Mouffe, Chantal, 228, 272, 289 also Battery Park City; East Village; Union Pechstein, Max, 120
on the public/private split in bourgeois on antagonism, 274, 278, 364n.12 Square Phantom public, xxiii, 319-322, 324-326
society, 39-43 Movements, social. See Social movements Commissioner's Map (1811), 23, 181 Philip Morris Co., 357n.28
Marxism, 76, 216-217, 227-228, 271, Mulvey, Laura, 252, 301 crime in, 29-30 Phillips, Patricia, 279
360n.25 "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema;' Department of City Planning, 19, 26 Photography, 170, 242, 243, 299, 302-303,
and city paintings, 349-350n.23 213-214 ftscal crisis in, 25 329n.3
Marxist spatial theory, xii, 71-79, 134-136 Municipal art movement, 22-24 Grand Central Terminal, 51 Photomontage, 110-111
exclusion of feminism in, xii, xviii-xxi, Municipal Art Society (New York City), 89 as international business center, 16-17, Pluralism, 321-322
197-201, 203-209, 228-229, 251 Museum of Modern Art, 166, 348n.9 54, 73 Polanski, Roman
Masculinism, 312 Museums, 116-117, 162, 166, 168, 170 redevelopment of, xiii-xvi, 7, 12-13, 15-19, Chinatown, 248, 250-251
Medusa, 241 49-108, 259-260, 278-279 Politics of representation, 200-202, 230-232,
Messer, Thomas, 165-166, ~68, 179, 191, Nancy, Jean-Luc, 272 residential buildings owned by, 356n.23 237-244,294-303,314-316,326-327
357n.28, 357n.34 Narcissistic looking, 213-214 urban planning in, 16-19, 25-26 Polke, Sigmar, 121
"Metropolis and Mental Life, The" (Simmel), Nazism New York Times Pollock, Griselda, 161, 196, 197"
127-130 vs. expressionism, xvi, 111 on Battery Park City, 343n. 73 Postmodern Geographies (Soja), xviii, xix, 195,
Middendorf, Helmut, 119, 121 mythologizing of, 136 on public space, 276-277, 339n.16 199-200,247,248
Electric Night, 114 Negativity, 364n.12 on Union Square, 35-36, 46 Postmodernism, xii, xviii-xx
Mimicry (Heartfield), 354n.80 Negt, Oskar, 58-59 Nicholson, Linda, 226 and capitalism, 198-199, 200
Minimalist art, 162 Neighborhoods Nietzsche, Friedrich, 290 and complexity/fragmentation, 216,
Modernism Hispanic, 331n.14 Noir, xx-xxi, 245-253 219-221
and aesthetic autonomy, 61, 135, 149, 150, and production oflabor power, 15 contextual art, 236-237, 264
261-262 and "protection" from the state, 363n.1 Objective vs. subjective culture, 129 definitions of, 215-216, 226
antipathy to capitalism, 306 Neoconservatism Olympia and York Properties, 88 and feminist critiques of visual representa-
definitions of, 233 on "excessive" government, 270, 363n.1 Owens, Craig, 59-60, 240, 291, 348n.6, tion, 197, 198, 201-202, 224, 238-242,
as a response to spatial reorganization of and public space, 63, 270, 313-314, 363n.2 354n.87, 369n.55 294, 315
Paris, 196-197 urban policy of, 363n.1 and social unity, 204-206
and a unified art public, 306, 311, 371n.77 Neoexpressionism, xvi-xvii, 112, 118, 149, Painters of the new vehemence. See Violent Povwy, 50-51, 133-134, 180
and visual purity, 294-295 \ 348n.6. See also Berlin Wall paintings; painters Pseudoexpressionism, 112, 348n.6
Modernity, 124, 129, 280-281 Urban expressionism; Violent painters Painting if Modem Life, The (Clark), 196-197, Psychoanalysis, 240-241
Modern state, 39-42, 273 as neutralizing history, 135-136 349-350n.23 Public art, xv-xvi, 55-56, 59-70, 80, 93-
MoMA Poll (Haacke), 166, 167, 168 and urbanism, xvii, 114-115, 135-137 Panopticism, 28 108, 269-327. See also Battery Park City;
Monarchy, state authority under, 40-41, 273 Newman, Oscar, 28 Park, Robert, 130-132, 133-134 Public space; Public sphere; Tilted Arc
Manheim, Leonard, Corp. (West and East New Museum/Astor Building Projectiotz, The "The City: Some Suggestions for the Study (Serra)
Germany), 143-144, 354n.78 (Wodiczko), 346n.119 of Human Behavior in the Urban Environ- and activism, 313
Monuments, 21-22, 36-37, 334n.48 "New Spirit in Painting, The" {exhibition, ment,'' 131 authoritarian populist notions of, 266-267
in Union Square, xiv, 19, 20, 24, 34-35, 39, London), 118 Parks, gentrification of, 24-37, 44-45,279 collaborative, 66-68, 70
41-42 New York Ascendant, 50 Parley, Michael, 331n.2 and democracy, 270, 279-290

388 389
 lNOEX INOEX

Public art (cont.) Real estate, 15, 25-26, 55-57, 163-165, Declaration of the Rights of Man, 40-41, Serota, Nicholas, 115, 117
and gentrification, 68-69 171-181 273, 274-275 Serra, Richard. See Tilted Arc
and neoconservatism, 63, 270, 313-314 and aesthetics, 43-48 free speech, 265-266, 283 Sexual fetishism, 232, 240-243, 301
''the new public art:' xv, 63-70, 259-260 Real-estate pieces (Haacke), xviii, 159-192 Lefort on, 40-42, 273-275 Shapolsky, Harry, 177-178, 179
and the public sphere, 59,267, 286-289 Real~ Estate Projection, The (Wodkzko), Marx on, 40-41 Shapolsky eta!., Manhattan Real Estate Hold~
and site-specificity, xv, xxii, 68-69, 260- 346n.119 and social movements, 272 ings (Haacke), xvii-xviii, 161, 169, 169-
262, 264 Realism, 160 and the state, 40-42 172, 173-176, 177-178, 179-182,
and urban redevelopment, 49-108, 259- Redevelopment, xiii-xvi, 7, 12-19, 49-108, Right to the city (Lefebvre), 76 356n.23
260,279 259-260, 278-279. See also Gentrification; Robbins, Bruce, 285-286, 316, 319, 320 Shapolsky family organization, 168, 172, 177,
Public corporations, 87-88 Revitalization on the phantom public, xxiii, 319, 320-321 356n.23
Public space, xiii, xiv, xxi-xxiv, 23, 42, 49- and crime prevention, 27-28 Robinson, Charles Mulford, 23 Shelters (for homeless people), 96-98
108, 258-260, 265-266, 269-327. See al" and historic preservation, 24, 334n.48 Robison, Maynard T., 85 Sherman, Cindy, 204, 229, 242-243, 314
Public art; Public sphere and public ort, 49-108, 259-260, 278-279 Rockefeller, Nelson, 83, 166, 291 Untitled Film Stills, 232-233, 234-235, 243,
and democracy/citizenship, 267-270, 273- residents displaced by, xiv, 25-27, 30-32, Rose, jacqueline, 315 297-299
274,308-310,324 43, 46-48, 70, 331n.14, 337n.91 Rosenthal, Norman, 116, 118 Simmel, Georg
fear of, 325-326 and uneven development of capitalism, Rosier, Martha, 305 "The Metropolis and Mental Life," 127-
Lefort on, 273-275 74-75 The Bowery in 11vo Inadequate Descriptive Sys~ 130
privatization of, 56-57 Rent gap, 14, 75 terns, 329n.3, 371n.77 Single-room-occupancy hotels, 47-48,
Renaissance square as archetype of, 283-286 Representation Roters, Eberhard, 126-127 337n.93
and subjectivity in representation, 286, feminist theories of, 197, 198,201-202, Royal Academy of Arts (London), 109, 118 Site-specificity, xv, xxii, 61-62, 68-69, 140-
310-311 224, 294, 301 Running Man (Borofsky), 140 141, 260-264
Public sphere, xxii-xxiii, 58-59, 287-327. politics of, 200-202, 230-232, 237-244, Russell, John, 79-81 Situationism, 54-55, 106
See also Public art; Public space 294,303,314-316,326-327 Ryan, Cara Gendel, 16 Slumlords, 178
bourgeois, 58-59, 287 subjectivity in, 286, 310-311, 316-317 Smith, Neil, 14-15, 69, 72
and civic humanism, 305-307,311, 371n.77 Revitalization, 12-13. See also Gentrification; Said, Edward, 316 on uneven development, 74-75
Crow on, 292, 303-311, 370n.72, 371n.77 Redevelopment Salome, 119 Socialist realism, 147
and democracy, 288, 289, 305, 324 aesthetics as a disguise for, 7, 55 Sander, Helke Social justice and the City (Harvey), 133-134
and impartiality, 309-310 residents displaced by, 25-27, 30-32, 43, Die allseitig reduzierte PersOnlichkeit- RE~ Social movements, 272, 304-305, 315
andlanguage,323-324 46-48, 70, 331n.14, 337n.91 DUPERS, 113-114 artists' support of, 313,316-317
as "phantom," xxiii, 319-322, 324-326 "Revolutionary Power of Women's Laughter, San Francisco, 16-17 Sociobiology, 29
"Public Vision" (exhibition, New York The" (exhibition, New York City), 294 Saunders, Peter, 133 Soja, Edward
Cicy),292,293,294,295,296-303,307- Reynolds, Joshua, 306, 307 Schambra, William A., 363n.1 Postmodern Geographies, xviii, xix, 195, 199~
308, 314 Richter, Gerhard, 121 Schiele, Egan, 297 200,247,248
Riegl, Alois, 334n.48 Schmidt-Rottluff, Karl, 120 on spatial praxis, 78
Radical democracy, xxii-xxiii, 228, 272-275, Rights Sekula, Allan, 170 Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo Manhattan
289 artists' moral rights vs. private property Senie, Harriet F. Real Estate Holdings (Haacke), 161
Rand, Jock, 84 rights, 266 Critical Issues in Public Art, 282 Solomon-Godeau, Abigail, 266

390 391
 INDEX INDEX

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Board of Tafuri, Manfredo, 124-126, 134-135 residents evicted from, 12, 25-26, 331n.14, Urban redevelopment. See Redevelopment
Tmstees, The (Haacke), 116-117, 159, 183, "13° E: Eleven Artists Working in Berlin" 337n.91, 337n.93 Urban studies, xvii, 71-73, 133, 195
184-190 (exl1ibition, London), 115-118 Union Square Special Zoning District Proposal, as excluding feminist criticism, 197-198,
Sorkin, Michael, 324 Tilted Arc (Serra), x:xi-xxii, 62-65, 257-268 19,26-27 199,201,206
variations Orl a Theme Park, 283-284, 284, The Destmction <if Tilted Arc: Documents, 258, Union Square: Street Revitalization, 19-20, 21, and fllm nair, 245-253
285-286, 367n.40 260-261,262-264,267,268 25, 26-27 Marxist, xii, 71-79, 134-136
South Cove (Manhattan), 79, 90 and Federal Plaza coherence, 62, 262 Untitled (You delight in the loss of others) Urstadt, Charles J., 83
Space, 325, 374-375n.121. See also Abstract neoconservative assaults on, xxi-xxii, 63, (Krugec), 299-302, 300 Utility and aesthetics, 55-66
space; Public space 260 Untitled (You molest from afar) (Kruger), 212
capitalist production of, 73-78, 92, 162 site-specificity of, xxii, 62, 260-262, 264 Untitled (You thrive on mistaken identity) van Gogh und Mauer (van Gogh and the VVcill;
as functionalized, 51-52, 62-63 supporters of, xxi, 263, 266-268, 270 (Kruger), 207 Fetting), 112, 113, 139-140, 348n.7
masculinist, xviii-xxi, 201, 251-253 and use of public spaces, 62-63, 258-260, Untitled Film Stills (Sherman), 232-233, 234- Vanguardism, 268
as social construction, 52, 199-200, 223 265, 270 235, 243, 297-299 Variations on a Theme Park (Sorkin), 283-284,
social production of, xiii, 71-79, 133-134, Times Square (Manhattan), 366n.25 Urban conditions, xiii 284,285-286
199 Tishman Urban Development Corp., ecological model of urban life, 71-72, 130- Violent painters, 119, 121-122, 137, 139. See
Special zoning district, 44-45 366n.25 131, 133-134 also Neoexpressionism
Specificity, 179. See also Site-spe"Cificity Tocqueville, Alexis de, 272 and neoexpressionism, xvii, 114-115, Visual images, 197-198, 200
Squatters' movement (West Berlin), 137, Totalitarianism, 271, 326, 375-376n.124 135-137 city as image, 197,209-215, 224
138-139 Totalization quality of urban life, 275-276, 363n.1 feminist critique of, xix, xx, 197-198, 200-
Starr, Roger, 25-26 vs. difference, 204-206, 208-215 Urban Design Council (later called Urban 202,213-215,237-244,294-303,308,
State, modern. See Modem state vs. universalizability, 226 Design Group; New York City), 89 326-327
State Art Trading Agency (East Germany), Trend, David, 313, 314,316 Urban designers, 88-89 positive/negative, 238-239
142 Tribe, Laurence H., 265-266 Urban Development Corp. (New York and theories of representation, 197, 198,
Statue of Liberty, 37 Trilateral Conunission, 362n.1 State), 87 201-202,224,230-231,301
Statues. See Monuments Trump£ chocolates, 143 Urban ecology, 71-72, 130-131, 133-134 and visual purity, 294-295, 296
Stern, Henry]., 32 Urban Experience, The (Harvey), 209-215 and voyeurism, 299-301
Storefront for Art and Architecture (New Union Square (Halper), 20-21 Urban expressionism, xvii, 123-124, 126- "woman as image" vs. "images of women,"
Yock City), 102-103 Union Square (Manhattan), 3-13, 19-48. See 127, 134-135 239-241
Street/heights opposition, 248 also Homeless ProJection, The; Zeckendorf and the "violent painters," 121-122, 139 "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"
Structural Traniformation of the Public Sphere, Towers Urban ideology, 134-135 (Mulvey), 213-214
The (Habermas), 287 and historic preservation, xv, 5-6, 19-20, "Urbanism as a Way of Life" (Wirth), 132 Voyeuristic perspective of the city, 209-
Stuyvesant Square (Manhattan), 32 24,27-28,33,46 Urban planning, 53, 78. See also Battery Park 215
Subjective vs. objective culture, 129 history of, 23, 34-35 City; Union Square
Subject-object relationships, 15'0, 214-215, image of, 26-27 conte.:_(tual, 18, 44-48 Walsh, Annmarie Hauck, 88
310-311 monuments in, xiv, 8-11, 19, 20, 24, 34- historic preservation in, 5-6, 18-20, 24, Webster, Sally
Surveillance of urban space, 28-29 35, 39, 41-42, 43 334n.48 Critical issues in Public Art, 282
Sutton, Percy E., 83 park restoration, 25, 26, 27-29, 30-31 in New York City, 16-19, 25-26 West Gennan Federal Labor Office, 137

392 393
 iNDEX

West Germany. See also Berlin Zimmer, Bernd, 119, 121

East-West relations, 143-144 Ziiek, Slavoj, 277-278, 301, 325, 376n.124
foreign workers in, 137-138 Zoning, 44-46
Weyergraf-Serra, Clara, 266 Zoning Resolution (1961, New York City),
The Destruction of Tilted Arc: Documents, 258, 44-45
260-261,262-264,267,268
Whitechapel Art Gallery (London), 115
White Columns (Manhattan), 292, 369n.58
Whitney Museum of American Art, 330n.2
Wigley, M"k, 227, 228, 301, 360n.25,
374n.121
Williamson, Judith, 244, 299
Wilson, James Q.
Crime and Human Nature, 29
Window, as metaphor for public-private
divide, 322-323
Wirth, Louis, 130-133
"Urbanism as a Way of Life," 132
Wodiczko, Krzysztof, 35, 96, 106. See also
Homeless Projection; Homeless Vehicle Project
The New Museum/Astor Building Projection,
346n.!!9
T1w Real-Estate Projection, 346n.119
Wolff, Janet, 196
World Financial Center (Manhattan), 79,
88,90

Young, Iris Marion, 309-310, 321-322

Yudice, George, 313-315

Zeckendorf, William, Jr., 27, 45, 337n.93

ZeckendorfTower-s (Manhattan), 27-28, 33,
35, 36
residents displaced by, 47-48, 337n.93
zoning for, 45-46
"Zeitgeist" (exhibition, Berlin), 118

394