| John Pilson
by Cynthia Henthorn
The grid is as ubiquitous an icon in art history as the
Madonna and Child.
In the annals of Modernism, the grid arose as a literal and metaphorical framework for
evoking order. Not merely an avant-garde signifier of purity, its spartan edges were
perceived as a "scientific" venue for rationalizing a chaotic society. In the
wake of the October Revolution, Soviet Constructivists embraced the grid as a symbol of a
new social order. An aesthetic based on engineering principles, as opposed to apotheoses
of wealth and aristocracy, would engender the ideals upheld by the Soviet revolutionaries.
De Stijl artists, in a similar vein, adopted the grid as a way to manifest social harmony,
not merely in Holland, but internationally. Re-working the total visual environment with
"pure" geometric forms, balanced by a black framework, would evoke a social
utopia making world wars and bourgious ornament obsolete.
Businessmen were also drawn to the grid. According to the
design history canon, the modern corporation merged with avant-garde aesthetics in 1907
when the German electric company, AEG, hired designer/architect Peter Behrens.
Establishing a uniform corporate identity was Behrens’s commission, and he chose the
grid to accomplish this task. Products, advertising, showrooms and catalogues were made
completely subordinate to a grid layout. The grid’s flawless appearance suggested the
technical precision of the assembly line, and thus visually reinforced a modern, or
"rational" business outlook.
John Pilson’s video installation "Above the
Grid" references the iconic role of Modernism’s rational framework within the
business world’s drive for efficiency and discipline. The title itself, and many of
Pilson’s scenes, refer to New York’s geometric street plan—a city hailed as
the Capitol of Capitalism. Pilson’s aerial views of New York (mostly blanketed by
fog) are not unlike Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand’s 1920 film Manhatta,
where straight photography of the cityscape was used to isolate the inherent abstraction
of the urban environment. Homage to the machine, the city and the perceived purity of
rectangular form inspired the impulse to minimize every facet of design and architecture,
leading to the rise of the International Style. Modernists of this ilk embraced the grid
as a god.
In our Postmodern era of exuberate ornament, ambiguity and
allegory, the rational grid of the International Style has been dubbed bland (even
formulaic), and thus relegated to the trash heap of discredit. Most egregious, according
to critics, is that its sterile appearance lacks narrative.
Pilson’s video undermines all these assumptions.
Modernism’s rational grid does emit a narrative—and Pilson shows where it
speaks volumes: the Executive men’s room. Two middle-aged men dressed in suits and
sporting the accoutrements of high voltage responsibility (i.e.: corpulent cheeks, a
sedentary paunch and thinning gray hair), attend to their post-piss toilette as they
casually recite Frankie Lyman-style doo-wop.
Several irrational vignettes are played out against rational
Modernist backdrops. These choreographed scenes inveigh against corporate hegemony and the
coercive powers of minimalist form. The grid, like a business suit, brief case or resume,
are façades—tools that enhance career and corporate ascendancy. Sadly, they also
mask idiosyncrasies that fail to fit within a prescribed box (or cubicle) —personal
flaws that don’t conform to contemporary social standards or categories. This message
erupts in a scene where rubber balls blithely bounce down a fire-exit
stairway—symbols of the robotic lemmings we hope we never become.
All the scenes appear shot in the same building, but on
different floors, underscoring the prefabricated predictability of the International
Style. However, none of Pilon’s corporate backdrops are accidental. In another
vignette, we see a cross-section of four corridors, a grid motif echoing the transept of a
Cathedral. On the floor lies a tile design of a square within a square. Three new kids on
the corporate block, swathed in chic black, slowly circle the outer square, as if it were
prey. Their pace quickens; they push and trip each other, trying desperately to
"win" the square. Yet, their ambition comes off as ridiculous, reminiscent of
musical chairs or Twister.
The lines between façade and reality are literally drawn
in a scene where two young Wall Street types stretch parallel strands of tape across a
corridor, closing our view into the corporate interior. Are they reinforcing the
regimented style of the business world or blocking off a crime scene? Pilson asks the
viewer to decide as he points out the irrational underbelly of the rational and the fact
that beneath every social or aesthetic order, lie little rebellions of absurdity.
Cynthia Lee Henthorn has a Ph.D. in art history
from City University of New York. She teaches graphic design and advertising histories at
City College of New York, and also writes for a Manhattan gallery specializing in historic
documents. Her latest articles include: "The Emblematic Kitchen: Household Technology
as National Propaganda, U.S.A., 1939-1959." Knowledge and Society vol 12, 2000. And
"Down-right Dangerous and Dirty: Tainted Trademarks of the Monstrous Feminine."
Massage, www. nomadnet.org/ massage vol 5, Fall 1999. |
