| Michael Rakowitz
by William V.Ganis
Prime Clime as Sign
Michael Rakowitz’s Climate Control, 2000, may be taken
at face value as an unconcealed ventilation device. This complex of galvanized steel ducts
encompasses the approximately 12’ x 30’ gallery in which it is installed, and
extends a couple feet through the room’s west window.
The pipes are not without their own aesthetic, especially
as they refract light from their silvery surfaces and display the geometry of twentieth
century ingenuity. In this installation Rakowitz controls visual balance as well as
climate. This system is without doubt circular, especially as the place of exchange, an
approximately seven foot cube, is described by three outputting and three intaking pipes.
Upon stepping into the gallery, a viewer walks into this center of subtle action;
unwittingly interacting with the ventilation network. The entire contraption seems Rube
Goldbergian; the constant input, circulation and output results in a stasis in air
temperature, humidity and quality, but for what? Climate Control asserts its ostensible
function through the hum of its intake fans and the vibration of the metal as pressurized
currents move through the ducts. This din assures us that the urban air we breathe is
neither natural nor free, but like art, is incontrovertibly mediated.
This galvanized arrangement is akin to the HVAC (heating,
ventilation, air conditioning) that exists in most buildings. Though such conduits are
usually invisible, they are the fundamental lungs that make buildings like hospitals and
skyscrapers usable. Specialized HVAC systems are even more important in museum
infrastructures as the climate control networks often protect fragile artworks from
humidity and airborne pollutants. The acquisition of such climate modifiers in
institutions like the Barnes Collection or the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum have been
recent museological milestones. P.S.1 lacks such a unified and hermetic climate control
outside of its main gallery spaces. Many of its gallery floors and walls have fissures,
dirt, and other institutional breaches that constitute their own microenvironments and
reinforce P.S.1’s identity of urban renewal. Rakowitz’s installation is thus
site informed—a substitute for institutional lack. Because most museums keep these
systems out of sight, Rakowitz’s functioning but very visible structure slips into
the metaphorical.
His installation suggests other institutional
infrastructures that are equally covert but intrinsic; and include the politics of money
and patronage that are ultimately manifested in architectural expressions. Rakowitz’s
material construction evokes Peter Halley’s Neo-Geo conduit compositions, especially
as this Home Depot arrangement also functions as a simulacrum of all institutional
systems. The sheer physicality makes Rakowitz’s installation more optically complex
but no less symbolic than Halley’s graphic presentations. Halley, too, emphasized the
substantiality of artificial materials through Cleotex surfaces and fluorescent pigments.
On the gallery’s north wall, two sentinels testify to
the climate’s control. A white digital square registers degrees Fahrenheit and
percent humidity. The analog dial argues for slightly different conditions. One or both of
these devices is obviously wrong, but the matter is moot in an organizational complex that
like the worst governments, consumers, foundations or corporations, exists only to
maintain itself.
--William V. Ganis
William V. Ganis writes art criticism for international
arts publications, is an adjunct professor in New York University’s Department of Art
and Art Professions, and is the author of the forthcoming dissertation, Iconophiliac: Andy
Warhol’s Photographic Serialities. |
