Art in the Desert 2 Selected artworks from the Desert-X Biennale

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Desert-X is a biennale of site-specific art installations in the desert, about 100 miles east of Los Angeles, spread over a large area in the Coachella Valley, about 100 miles east of Los Angeles. The 2025 edition, its fifth, exhibited several artists from different parts of the world. The following is a selection we made, best visualized in the short documentary included here.

Truth Arrives in Slanted Beams, by Sarah Meyohas
Five things you can’t wear on TV, by Raphael Hefti
Five things…detail
Soul Service Station, by Alison Saar
Soul Service Station, by Alison Saar
The Living Pyramide, byAgnes Denes
The act of being together, by Jose Davila
Adobe Oasis, byRonald Rael
G.H.O.S.T. Ride, byCannupa Hanska Luger

Sarah Meyohas’s installation,  Truth Arrives in Slanted Beams, immediately caught our attention,. The fluid serpentine form of the sculpture relates to the context with an architectural quality. Following some research on this young artist, I realized that she is an original thinker. The range of the media in which she works includes photography, film, holography and artificial intelligence.

For the preview presentation, she brought a dance company from Los Angeles, Jacob Jonas, that performed in synchronization with Meyohas work. These two works, the installation and the dancing group, respectively, reminded me the works of two Israeli artists: sculptor Dani Karavan and choreographer Ohad Naharin (Mr. Gaga.)

On the opposite side of Meyohas’s freshness, was the Hungarian American environmental artist and writer Agnes Denes, 94.  She had been ahead of her time in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the principles of the Land Art movement were established. Here, in desert, she used the iconic form of a pyramid, titled The Living Pyramide, to express the life cycle of native vegetation.

Architect-artist Ronal Rael’s work Adobe Oasis built zigzagging walls entirely of mud, using a 3D printer and robotic programming. This approach could be meaningful for the future of architecture in many parts of the world.

Swiss artist Raphael Hefti’s Five things you can’t wear on TV brings the effects of great distance to proximity. The oscillating line blurs our sense of spatial perception, scale and distance and resonates with the surrounding landscape.

Alison Saar is an LA artist who created Soul Service Station, which was inspired by gas stations around the country.

Jose Davila’s made this installation, The act of being together, out of large marble blocks extracted from a quarry a few hundred miles across the U.S- Mexico border.

Canuupa Hanska Luger created G.H.O.S.T. Ride, an installation meant to house a family from an unknown time.

Into LA Art Show A Choice of Artworks

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The La Show of 2025 was the best of its genre that we have seen in years. We noticed a rise in the general quality of the art exhibited.

Poster

The short documentary included here shows the works of a few artists of which we knew nothing about before our visit.

The work that immediately caught my attention was “The Birth of the Niamand,” by Slovak artist Viktor Frešo, presented by the Danubiana Museum in Bratislava, Slovakia. I was also unaware of this institution’s existence. I was lucky to meet Frešo at the site. Although he seemed reclusive, he agreed to make a short statement on camera.

The Birth of the Niamand
The Birth of the Niamand
Viktor Frešo

There were other uplifting surprises. “The Journey,” by Guillermo Bert, showed 20 highly detailed, life-sized laser-cut wood sculptures honoring an army of immigrant heroes.

The Journey

The discovery of video sculptures by the Swiss artist Marck reminded me of Bill Viola’s work. Marck’s work is striking, particularly the one named “Black Hair,” which shows a woman whose hair is fuming.

Black Hair

Another surprise were the images created without using a camera through text-to-image AI software. Jerry Weber creates compelling images that hover between abstraction and reality.

AI-generated image by Jerry Weber
AI-generated image by Jerry Weber

Three works by four Argentinean artists were remarkable: a 120-foot long textile that commemorates LGBTQ communities by the duo Leo Chiachio and Daniel Giannone; Cristian Castro’s 27 dee-sea robotic fishes made out of discarded components to remind us of ocean pollution; and Luciana Abait, large-scale “Agua / Water”, a projected waterfall to foster a poetic awareness of water as a sacred resource for humanity, some details of which shows as a background to the credits in my film.

Pride Flag
27 Peces
Agua / Water – Luciana Abait

I found creative humor in the work of two artists: Farad Harouni’s “Lips” and Antuan Rodriguez’s interactive installation of punching bags.

Parted Lips
Left and Right

Two contrasting artworks in painting were Walter Erra Hubert’s multi-layered abstractions and German artist Anton Hoager’s “Stop Smearing,” a skillfully painted work of social criticism.

Walter Erra Hubert paintings
Stop Smearing

Carol Bodlander brings a narrative that blends elements of classical mythology, astronomy, and indigenous wisdom traditions.

Our selection included the Korean artists Han Ho, who made a massive nine-part multi-media panel inspired by Michelangelo’s Last Judgement, and Anese Eun Cho, who created playful designs.

The Last Judgement
The Second Floor

An additional surprise was to meet Marisa Caichiolo, a curator of several of the works exhibited. After a brief conversation, we realized that we have common friends. Caichiolo is the founder of Building Bridges International Art Foundation, conceived to be a platform for critical thinking and researching.

Marisa Caichiolo

Israel 75 Israel Multi-layered Complexity: People, Environment, Architecture.

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ISRAEL 75 from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

Israel 75 Card

The State of Israel is seventy-five years old. The Jewish nationhood celebrates the rebirth of the People of the Book’s physical, spiritual, and political sovereignty, based on secular principles of freedom and equality of justice for all.

Saroma Market, Tel Aviv
Sarona Market – Bakery
Mamila Shopping, jerusalem
Outdoor Cafe, jerusalem
Bus driver
Pride parade, Tel Aviv
Workout, Tel Aviv
Yoga, Tel viv
Fishing, Tel Aviv
Memorial Day, Tel Aviv

This event happens while there is turmoil within and without Israel. From within, democracy is in peril. Its check and balance laws are under attack. From the outside, Israel must confront viral anti-Semitism (frequently masquerading as anti-Zionism) and a conspiracy of delegitimization.

Demonstration ov Veterans
Demonstration in Tel Aviv
Iran’s leader threatening Israel

The short documentary accompanying this blog tries to give an idea of Israel’s multi-layered complexity. As an architect, my observations mostly look at the environment, the diversity of people, and some selected works of architecture.

Memoril odf the Fallen, Jerusalem
Memorial of the Fallen, Jerusalem
Supreme Court, Jerusalem
Supreme Court, Jerusalem
Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
Moshav Nahalal
Museum of Design, Holon
Porter School of Environmental Studies, Tel Aviv University
View of Tel Aviv
View of Tel Aviv

The Land of Israel remains subjected to two truthful and mutually contradictory narratives. The Jewish narrative relates to its ancient history, to the Land of Israel, to Hebrew as a spoken language, to multi-cultural traditions, to dispossession, persecution, massacres, and reemergence.

The Arab narrative tells of its prolonged residence in the land that the Romans renamed “Palestine” to erase the memory of the Jews’ presence, sovereignty, and attachment to Judea. They referred to it as “Judea Capta,” captured Judea.

For real peace to be possible, both narratives must learn to tolerate and internalize the other side’s narrative. This will need education on both sides, and it will take, most likely, several

An EYE on BERLIN Present, Memory, Architecture and Art

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An EYE on BERLIN from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

An EYE in BERLIN illustrates contemporary architecture and art examples within a consciousness of the city’s history between 1933 and 1989. It includes the Reichstag dome, the Jewish Museum, and the Sony Center. It also illustrates aspects of the city’s past and present and a visit to the Hamburger Bahnhof art museum and the German Historical Museum.

A City in Flux

Thirty years after the fall of the Wall, Berlin still struggles with its urban form. It is a city in flux, complicated, with an urban fabric that seems to resist all attempts to reorder it. It is a reminder of the more messy, contradictory, and organic qualities that all cities should have. It is charming and full of life, not for its beauty or wealth, but because of its vitality.

The city has become a mecca for artists, a place of attraction to architects and filmmakers, and recognized as one of the hottest cities of the 21st century. With an atmosphere buzzing with creative energy, serious members of the contemporary art world can only stay away from Berlin for a short time. It’s become an essential stop on the art circuit, as a junction between east and west.

Buildings in Berlin are manifestos, propaganda, memorials, and battlefields. The city as a whole is a disjointed urbanization in search of identity. Some areas seemed too large, flat, or insipid box-like structures produced as merchandise.

ARCHITECTURE

The Reichstag – Architect: Norman Foster
The Reichstag – Architect: Norman Foster
The Reichstag – Architect: Norman Foster
Berlin Philharmonic – Architect: Hans Scharoun
Berlin Philharmonic – Architect: Hans Scharoun
Berlin Philharmonic – Architect: Hans Scharoun
D.Z. Bank – Architect: Frank Gehry
Sony Center – Architect: Helmut Jahn
Potsdamer Platz – Architect: Richard Rogers
German Historical Museum Extension Hall – Architect: I.M. Pei
German Historical Museum Extension Hall- Architect: I.M. Pei
Jewish Museum – Architect: Daniel Libeskind
Jewish Museum- Architect: Daniel Libeskind
Jewish Museum- Architect: Daniel Libeskind

The Reichstag Dome: The People Above the Government

The Reichstag is the dominant component of a democracy of the troika, together with the Chancellery and the Paul Löbe parliamentary building. The dome sits on top of the Bundestag, the German parliament, symbolizing that the people are above the government. A mirrored cone in the dome’s center directs sunlight into the building. A large sun shield tracks the sun’s movement electronically and allows carefully filtered light to wash down into the chamber. The dome can be climbed by a vertiginous double-helix made of two lightweight steel ramps, which inspired Foster to design London’s City Hall.

Berlin Philharmonic

Berlin Philharmonic, Hans Scharoun’s masterpiece, remains as a reminder of great post-WW II architecture. Completed in 1963, it preceded Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall by forty years.

It embodies organic architecture principles, in which the buildings are designed from within. The sequences of spaces leading to the hall play with tension and release. Low, small entrance areas lead to a vast, multi-layered foyer.

The main hall presents a vineyard-style arrangement of the stage and audience, with terraces rising around a central orchestral platform. This feature led to the tent-like design of the hall’s ceiling, with a higher center draping down towards the edges.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Designed by architect Peter Eisenman, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is a vast field of concrete slabs in the historic heart of Berlin, which, before the Nazis came to power, had the largest Jewish population in Germany. Paradoxically, the monument is a few hundred yards from the site of Hitler’s bunker.

No other country had erected a monument to “the biggest crime in its history” in the middle of its capital. Covered with 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field, the project was designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere. The whole Memorial aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.

The Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum in Berlin is the masterwork of the Polish-born musician-turned-architect Daniel Libeskind. The zinc-clad structure is designed to create a sense of disorientation interspersed with feelings of claustrophobia and panic. Corridors tilt, cross, and funnel to nothingness. The world outside is glimpsed only occasionally through slit windows.

Libeskind’s building has no entrances or exits of its own. There are promises of doors, but they turn out to be dead ends The floors slope. The concrete walls oppress. You are not in charge of your destiny.

The Garden of Exile denies us the relaxation we expect of a garden. It is a plantation of concrete columns from which Russian olive trees cascade. Nothing is as it should be here. The ground won’t stay still, and the sky itself appears displaced. People wander this disconcerting garden a long time, uneasy and reflective.

Sony Center and Potsdamer Platz

The Sony Center, designed by Helmut Jahn and Peter Walker as landscape architect, is one of Berlin’s most impressive public spaces. It is one of the few buildings in the area which offers a public plaza that is always lively and happening. An umbrella-shaped roof covers its vast atrium.

Potsdamer Platz, an important public square and traffic intersection in the center of Berlin, results from extensive competitions, designs, and planning. Nineteen of the buildings in the area were conceived and designed by an international team of architects headed by Renzo Piano.
Renzo Piano’s master plan for the area called for typical Berlin blocks courtyard buildings with a maximum height of 9 stories. British architect Richard Rogers designed a project on commission from Daimler Chrysler. It contains offices in the first two blocks and residential in the last block. Retail functions occupy the ground and lower floors. Rogers reinterpreted the constraints and designed courtyard buildings with an eroded corner. This would open up the courtyard, allowing sunlight and air to circulate.

D.Z. Bank

The DZ Bank Building is a mixed-use building comprised of a commercial component, housing the Berlin  headquarters of DZ Bank and a residential component consisting of 39 apartments.

A glass canopy covers the main entry to the building from Pariser Platz. A high-volume foyer immediately inside the main entry offers a view into the building’s large interior atrium, which features a curving glass ceiling and a curving glass floor. Office spaces are organized around the atrium, and are oriented inward to take advantage of the natural light that floods through the glass ceiling.

The building’s primary conference hall is located within a highly sculptural shell in the center of the glass floor of the atrium. Clad in stainless steel on the exterior and wood on the interior, the conference room is the physical and spiritual heart of the project.

German Historical Museum Extension Hall

Chinese-born, U.S.-based architect I. M. Pei designed a small extension to the German Historical Museum. The four floors of the Exhibition Hall are devoted to the Museum’s temporary exhibitions. The new building had to be connected with the baroque architecture of the German Historical Museum.

ART

At the Bahnhof Museum
Urban light on the cathedral
Urban light on the cathedral
Urban light on the cathedral
Urban light
People – Artist: Inges Idee
At the Bahnhof Museum
Kiss
Berlin wall
Cafe Cinema
Installation – Artist: Qin Yufen

Berlin is home to hundreds of galleries and art museums with unparalleled collections. Cultural projects are generously funded and supported by many large and powerful institutions in the city. The ever-so-avant-garde contemporary art scene can flourish in this environment.

The documentary includes the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, an original railway station from the mid-19th century, turned into an art museum in 1996; the Berlinische Galerie and the Konig Galerie; and the extraordinary and revealing German Historical Museum.

An EYE on PARIS People, Places, Architecture, Art

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An EYE on PARIS from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

What makes cities great? Streets, public spaces, and architecture physically express its residents’ values, belief systems, lifestyles, and self-expression through the arts. Lifestyle is expressed through our work, how we act, spend our leisure time, and follow social patterns.

“An Eye on Paris” focuses on observing daily life and on some new outstanding works of architecture, public spaces, and some museums (there are about 130 in the city) less notorious than the Musée du Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay.

View from the Centre Pompidou

LIFESTYLE

Dancing bt The Seine
Having a brake at a cafe
Steak Tartare
Enjoying public spaces
Music Day
Learning from markets

The French honor the time dedicated to eating. Sitting around the table for a meal is sacred in French culture. People are always concerned about the quality of their food ingredients. That is why they are loyal to their local farmers’ market and tend to do most of their shopping there.

Cafés in Paris have always served as social spaces, the classic Parisian meeting place to relax or refresh. During the summer, outdoor terraces are packed with people.

Paris has many outdoor events. In this documentary, we captured some of the yearly Day of Music and one of the many places offered to dance by the Seine, in this case, at the Quai Saint-Bernard.

PARKS

We studied three parks: the Park de Bercy, the Park de la Villette, and the Promenade Plantée.

 

Parc de Bercy
Promenade Plantee
Promenade Plantee
Parc de la Villette
Parc de la Villette
Parc de la Villette

 

PARC DE BERCY
Designed by architects Bernard Huet, Madeleine Ferrand, Jean-Pierre Feugas, Bernard Leroy, and by landscapers Ian Le Caisne and Philippe Raguin, the park is made of three gardens connected by footbridges: The “Romantic Garden”, which includes fishponds and dunes; The “Flowerbeds”, dedicated to plant life; and “The Meadows”, an area of open lawns shaded by tall trees.
In the north-east of the park stands the Cinémathèque Française (the former American Center) designed by Frank Gehry, and on the raised terraces are the 21 sculptures of Rachid Khimoune’s “Children of the World” installation, created in 2001 to honor children’s rights.
The park is adjacent to a major sports arena, the Palais Omnisports, with a sitting capacity of 20,000.

PARC DE LA VILLETTE

The Parc de la Villette is a 37-acre / 55 hectares area that houses one of Paris’ largest concentrations of cultural venues. These include the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie (City of Science and Industry, Europe’s largest science museum), three major concert venues, and the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris.

The park was designed by architect Bernard Tschumi in partnership with Colin Fournier on the site of the huge Parisian abattoirs (slaughterhouses) and the national wholesale meat market. He conceived thirty-five architectural “follies “to give a sense of orientation to the visitors. In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily as an ornament but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose.

Since the creation of the park, museums, concert halls, and theatres have been designed by several noted contemporary architects. These include the City of Science and Industry, La Géode (an IMAX theatre inside of a 36-meter / 118 ft diameter geodesic dome;) The City of Music, designed by Christian de Portzamparc, which opened in 1995 and it also includes a museum of historical musical instruments with a concert hall, also home of the Conservatoire de Paris. The Philharmonie de Paris opened in January 2015, designed by Jean Nouvel.

PROMENADE PLANTÉE

The Promenade Plantée is an extensive green belt that follows the old Vincennes railway line. Beginning just east of the Opéra Bastille with the elevated Viaduc des Arts, it follows a 4.7 km (2.9 mi) (2.9 mi) path to the Bois de Vincennes. At its west end, near the Bastille, the parkway rises above the surrounding area and forms the Viaduc des Arts, over a line of shops featuring arts and crafts.

The design was created by landscape architect Jacques Vergely and architect Philippe Mathieux. The Viaduc des Arts was designed by architect Patrik Berger, who also designed the recently completed Canopy of Les Halles. The project includes different types of gardens, it traverses existing buildings, and it crosses boulevards. Twenty years after its construction, the Promenade Plantée inspired the successful High Line in New York.

THE LOUIS VUITTON FOUNDATION BUILDING

Vuitton Foundation
View from the Vuitton Foundation
Vuitton Foundation
Vuitton Foundation
Vuitton Foundation – Site Plan
Vuitton Foundation – Section

The Louis Vuitton Foundation building was designed by Frank Gehry. It is a museum and cultural center like no other one. This unique 11,000 square-meter monument of 21st-century architecture was conceived as an iceberg surrounded by glass that takes the form of a sailboat’s sails inflated by the wind. The structure of the glass roof allows the building to collect and reuse rainwater and improves its geothermal power.

THE FOUNDATION JÉRÔME SEYDOUX-PATHÉ

Foundation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé

You can walk along Avenue de Gobelins and not notice a hidden gem of architecture designed by Renzo Piano. The clever use of the site includes a main entrance on a restored and preserved facade along the Avenue des Gobelins which features sculptures by Auguste Rodin.

The Foundation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé is dedicated to preserving the history of the French film company Pathè and to promote cinematography. It houses its archives and the foundation’s offices. It is located in the courtyard of a 19th-century block that includes a complex of historical Hausmann-era buildings. The 839 m2 headquarters is located in Paris’ 13th arrondissement. Its construction was completed in September 2014. The site’s major limits determined the peculiar design, which looks like a greenhouse.

NEW PALAIS DE JUSTICE – COURTHOUSE

New Paris Courthouse

The new Courthouse, located on the northern edge of Paris, is 160 meters high, have an internal area of around 100,000 m2 and accommodates up to 8,000 people per day. The complex reunites 90 courtrooms and about 1,300 offices under one roof. In developing the scheme, Renzo Piano sought to reduce the apparent scale of the building by breaking it down into four volumes of decreasing size. They include three roof terraces with 500 trees and other vegetation. From an environmental standpoint, the project employs a range of strategies including the use of natural ventilation, the incorporation of photovoltaic panels on the façade, and the collection of rainwater.

THE CANOPY OF LES HALLES

Canope of Les Halles

The long-awaited cultural center and metro station were created by architects Patrick Berger and Jacques Anziutti on the site of a historic Paris marketplace. The design at Les Halles is known as the Canopy due to its enormous umbrella-like glass roof, which comprises 18,000 pieces of glass supported by 7,000 tons of steel.

The completed Canopy and the center below replace a deeply unpopular concrete shopping complex – nicknamed “the hole of Les Halles” – which was built in the place of the market’s original 19th-century glass and iron buildings designed by architect Victor Baltard. They were demolished in the 1970s in an act many critics have described as cultural vandalism.

The creation of a humane urban quality does not depend only on the quality of a city’s buildings. The design quality of open public spaces, way beyond landscape architecture, is critical. It demands imaginative long-term thinking accompanied by the political vision and will.

Always Unfinished Anselm Kiefer in L.A.

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Always Unfinished – Anselm Kiefer in L.A. from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

The exhibition of Ansel Kiefer’s “Exodus” at the Gagosian Gallery in L.A., staged at the Marciano Foundation, exemplifies his breadth and originality. The documentary included here illustrates his work, thinking, and personality. Words matter. They inspire Kiefer’s output. He finds sources in the Old and New Testaments, in Kabbalah’s mysticism, and the poetry of Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann. But it is not only words. Landscapes of nature, ruins of bombarded cities, and of cultural behaviors also converged into the reinterpretations and reassembling of his architect’s mind.

Exodus, 2012-20
Gagosian Gallery Exhibition
Gagosian Gallery Exhibition
Gagosian Gallery Exhibition
Gagosian Gallery Exhibition
En Sof, 2020–22
The emanation of Wolkensäule (Column of Clouds) (2009–21). 
Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead, 2020
Carts and Gold
Carts and Gold
Exodus, 2020
Detail
Detail
Detail
Parabole, 2019-22
Exhuming Special Action 1005) – 2021-22

 

Kiefer’s use of straw in his work represents energy. He claims this is due to straw’s physical qualities, including the color gold and its energy and heat release when burned. The resulting ash makes way for new creation, thus echoing the motifs of transformation and the cycle of life.

Stored Crass – Kiefer’s studio
Grass
Painting with grass
Painting with grass

 

Kiefer’s oeuvre encompasses paintings, installations, books, drawings, watercolors, collages, and altered photographs. The physical elements of his practice—from lead, concrete, and glass to textiles, tree roots, and burned books—are as symbolically resonant of complex events of history, memory, and the ancestral epics of life, death, and the cosmos. Full of symbolic thresholds between peoples, places, and times, the paintings are metaphysical allegories that meditate on loss and deliverance, dispossession, and homecoming.

Drawing, 1980s
Der Gordische Knoten, 2019
The Veneziano Amplitude, 2019
Vetrine Installation
Ancient Civilization
Painting with grass
Phoenix with books

 

Anselm Kiefer was born in 1945, a few months after the end of World War II in Donaueschingen, Germany. Following studies at different schools, he received his art degree in 1969. He lived about twenty years in Hombach (midway between Frankfurt and Stuttgart.) In 1991, the artist left Germany to travel around the world—to India, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, and the United States. In 1992 he settled in Barjac, France (about 50 km from Montpellier and 100 km from Lyon.) From 2008 he lived in Paris, in a large house in the Marais district, with his second wife, the Austrian photographer Renate Graf, and their two children.

Anselm Kiefer

Working
Barjac property
Barjac property
Barjac property

 

Kiefer fascination with Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann, whom he considers “the best poets of the second half of the 20th century,” is revealing. The love affair between Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan constitutes one of the most dramatic chapters of literary history after 1945. The respective backgrounds of the lovers who came together in May 1948 in occupied Vienna could not have been more different: she, the philosophy student daughter of an early Austrian Nazi member; he, a stateless German-speaking Jew from Czernowitz who had lost his parents in a concentration camp and was himself a survivor of a Romanian labor camp. They both wrote in high German, frequently hard to understand even when knowing the language.

Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann
Paul Celan
Ingeborg Bachmann

 

Two major recent exhibitions were a colossal installation at the at Palazzo Ducale in Venice (2022) and at Paris’ Grand Palais (2021.)

Grand Palais, Paris, 2021
Grand Palais, Paris, 2021
Grand Palais, Paris, 2021
Jacopo Tintoretto – Gloria del Paradiso – Sala del Maggior Consiglio
Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 2021
Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 2021
Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 2021

 

ZEVI – Our Story A Partially Autobiographical View of Bruno Zevis Genius

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ZEVI – Our Story from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

Poster of the documentary ZEVI – Our Story

Bruno Zevi (1918-2000) NOW – WHY? 

 

This is a time of major transformations: scientifically, technologically, demographically, and politically. Climate change has already reached a point where the question is not if but how we will cope. Bruno Zevi, an architect, historian, critic of architecture, writer, publisher, and politician, continues to be a source of inspiration for the invention of the future.

 

The documentary that leads this blog is partially autobiographical. It shows some samples of how ideas and a rich cultural environment such as that of Italy in general, and of Rome, in particular, can impact the minds of young people, as it did to us. It gives the audience a visualization of how a charismatic intellectual influenced his generation’s best architects and thinkers. Besides his knowledge of history, Zevi’s primary source of inspiration was Frank Lloyd Wright, the greatest thinker-architect of at least the last five hundred years. 

 

Zevi was one of the few critics of architecture that Wright respected. Still, many other architects in Europe, the United States, and Latin America admired him. Also, politicians listened to him, even those who disagreed with his premises. His capacity to communicate ideas and inject enthusiasm into architects of all ages – and not only to architects – was unique. At the base of his exuberance was a passion for questioning “assumed truths.” He brought to the surface what was meaningful about a particular place, time, culture, and architecture. He believed that culture and politics should be intimately related, with culture leading politics and not the other way around.   

 

While supporting the positive aspects of the 20th Century’s Rationalist architecture – the Bauhaus’ architects, Le Corbusier, and his followers – he acknowledged their limits. He knew that Frank Lloyd Wright’s principles of Organic Architecture were long-lasting because they were based on nature and history’s essentials. 

 

Zevi’s writings, like Wright’s, must be read. You can’t read Zevi’s books lying on a couch. They have to be studied. Similarly, the monthly magazine he published for fifty years, L’Architettura, was filled with content on projects of relevance. Architect John Lautner once said it was the only architectural magazine he read.

The Pantheon from above.
The Pantheon’s oculus.
Piazza del Campidoglio, designed by Michelangelo
View from Adriana’s terrace
Church of the Autostrada. Architect: Giovanni Michelucci.
Condominium in Rome. Architect: Lucio Passarelli.
Model of the Italian Pavilion at Expo Montreal, 1967.
Brion Tombs. Architect: Carlo Scarpa.
L’Architettura magazine
L’Architettura magazine
L’Architettura magazine
Zevi’s Architects exhibition at MAXXI.
Conference on Zevi at Israel’s Technion
Zevi with Frank Lloyd Wright
Zevi’s campaign ad.
History and Counter-History of Architecture in Italy.
Wright congratulates Zevi for organizing the best exhibition ever.

Zevi and Us

 

Our relationship with Zevi spanned over thirty years. To tell the many stories surrounding our bond through letters and one-to-one discussions would take many pages. Still, a few paragraphs can give an idea.

 

As a teacher, Zevi demanded to visit at least once all the important architectural monuments in Rome and many other across Italy. That meant intense traveling, photographing, writing notes, and drawing. 

 

In 1971, when we made our “Wright pilgrimage” across twenty-five states, Zevi introduced us to Edgar Kaufmann Jr., then the director of the Industrial Design Department at MOMA, who facilitated for us exclusive access to Fallingwater. 

Contact proofs, Fallingwater.
Contact proofs, Guggenheim Museum, Beth Sholem.
Contact proofs, Johnson Administration Building, Johnson House, Greek Orthodox Church
Ruth photographing Fallingwater.
Rick photographing Fallingwater.

In 1975 we won the first prize in a conceptual design competition on high density in Israel. He wrote about our project in an article published in L’Espresso magazine. When we finished our first tiny apartment in Tel Aviv, he climbed ten floors – the elevators were not functioning – to visit us. He asked me to send him photographs of it and a project for a memorial in Golan Heights, which we had not won. Over the years, he published several of our projects: our house in Westwood, which was the first on record to have had solar panels and a vegetable garden, and our Senior Housing project in Jaffa.

 

We met Zevi for the last time in 1998 when returning from a three-week workshop in Palermo between Italian, Israeli, and Palestinian architects. The news of his passing in January of 2000 reached us in Los Angeles while on a short visit at the turn of the millennium. When we returned to Tel Aviv, I wrote “Pronto Professore.” The poem was later on read at the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles by poet-actor Jack Grapes. 

Sample of letters received from Bruno Zevi between 1973 and 2000.

The New OCMA A Placemaking Museum

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The opening of the new Orange County Museum of Art is good news for architecture, art, and especially for community life. The museum has a poetic edge without being overwhelming; the space has flow and transparency, and artworks can be seen with good lighting and without distractions. More than a museum, it is an educational facility that stimulates social interaction.

Poster of The New OCMA documentary

OCMA Museum. Richard Serra’s “Connector” in the foreground. Copyright: R&R Meghiddo. All Rights Reserved.

Night view of OCMA from its terrace. Copyright: R&R Meghiddo. All Rights Reserved.

Orange County has grown from a semi-rural farming area to an urban development that includes the South Coast Plaza shopping center and the John Wayne Airport in seventy years. It has a balanced ethnic mix, with 66% of its population under 45.

OCMA’s pivotal location is relevant to generating a cascade of public spaces. The 53,000-square-foot new museum completes a cultural campus that includes the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, the South Coast Repertory Theater, the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, and the Samueli Theater. Richard Serra’s 64-foot tall sculpture, “Connector,” defines a clear point of reference.

OCMA’s project’s architect, Pritzker Price winner Thom Mayne, known for his “muscular architecture,” confronted the 73,000 square-foot site sensibly to its surroundings. He has produced here a more lyrical and well-balanced project. Brandon Welling was the Partner-in-Charge. The building’s primary structure is composed of structural steel and concrete.

Terrace level Plan. Courtesy of Morphosis.
Heidi Zuckerman, OCMA’s CEO and Director
OCMA’s architect, Thom Mayne, FAIA.
OCMA’s front view from the piazza.
OCMA’s rear view.
Grades at the entrance.
Grades’ detail
Terrace’s stairs
Atrium’s detail.
Lobby.

A sculptural wing hovers over the lobby atrium. It is an inspiring, artful, and dynamic architectural space of curved walls covered with white terracotta tiles. A full-height irregular window overlooks the large terrace. Within the building, fluidity is stimulated by transparency. The relationship between indoors and outdoors is graceful at the terrace’s level.

The building’s entrance faces the piazza where Serra’s sculpture sits. The eastern elevation, facing Avenue of the Arts, has a street-lever curtain wall that shows artworks in conversation with the street. The other two sides (west and north elevations) are introverted. This design approach works particularly well in the rear, where the building’s identification is defined only by the OCMA sign. By doing so, the new building pays respect to Cesar Pelli’s Plaza Tower, the Samueli Theater, Peter Walker’s landscape design, and Aiko Miyawaki’s Utsurchi G1 sculpture.

The museum’s director, Heidi Zuckerman, started her new position at OCMA with an admirable job. In this exhibition, she was seconded by Courtenay Finn as the Chief Curator and a team of curators that helped assemble the various in-tandem shows. These include:

  1. “13 Women” pays homage to the 13 women who founded the Balboa Pavilion Gallery, the earliest iteration of OCMA, which opened sixty years ago.
  2. The “California Biennial 2022: Pacific Gold “exhibits sixty works of art, including ceramics, painting, sculpture, textiles, video, and large-scale installations. Some of these have been commissioned for this exhibition.
  3. Fred Eversley, a former consulting engineer for NASA, brings samples of his work at the mezzanine, which spans forty years of practice as an artist.

At the terrace, Sanford Biggers’ 24-foot wide by 16-foot-tall outdoor sculpture is a two-dimensional stage with an allegoric reclining black male figure that combines an archetype reclining male figure with non-Western culture symbolisms.

Ndlovukazi, by Simphiwe Nodzube
View of main gallery.
Coyota, by Hector Dionicio Mendoza
View of main gallery
Supernova, by Lee Bul
View of lobby from outdoors.
View of lobby.
Detail view from Avenue of the Arts.
Night view.

Director Zuckerman’s statement clearly defines OCMA’s direction: “Our mission here is to enrich people’s lives in a diverse and fast-changing community. We carry out this work with the conviction that access to art is a basic human right. And we want to provide that access in such a way that everyone feels welcome and at home.”

View of atrium.
OCMA – Window
View of atrium.
View of atrium. Detail.

Rethinking Symbolism Takashi Murakami + This Is Not America’s Flag at the Broad

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Rethinking Symbols from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

The “Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow” and “This Is Not America’s Flag” combined exhibitions at the Broad bring us the power of symbolism and its interpretations through multiple artists and evolving cultures. Muramaki uses “augmented reality” to express trauma and disaster. The artists featured in “This Is Not America’s Flag” challenge the meaning of patriotism and one of its main symbols, the American flag.

The Octopus Eat6s Its Own Leg

 The curator of Murakami’s works is Ed Schad, whose extraordinarily well-curated exhibitions on Jasper Johns and Shirin Neshat I have covered. Sarah Loyer, the young curator of “This Is Not America’s Flag,” successfully orchestrates an ensemble of disparate artists, from Jasper Johns to Alfredo Jaar, to Vito Acconci, to Wendy Red Star. What is extraordinary about this double-feature show is that the two contrasting exhibitions blend seamlessly. Although each one could have a stand-alone in its own right, the synergetic togetherness demonstrates that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow

 Murakami’s work is powerful, whether he expresses himself at the scale of In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, 984 x 118 inches (2500 x 300 cm), or in My arms and legs rot off, and though my blood rushes forth, the tranquility of my heart shall be prized above all. (Red blood, black blood, blood that is not blood), 32 x 27 in (83 x 70 cm,) or humorously is the Nurse Ko2 “ overly-sexualized” female nurse, a distant cousin of America’s Barbie Doll.

 

The “Not America’s Flag” exhibition holds its power as a whole. Although Jasper John’s Flag is a heavyweight, it is the multiple interpretations under one roof that forces us to rethink symbols at a time when “The Big Lie” is followed by 35 percent of Americans and over 80 percent of Russians approve of Putin’s war.

Of Chinese Lions, Peonies, Skulls and Fountains, 2011
Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, 2014
Red Blood, Black Blood, Blood that is not Blood, 2008
Warp, 2009
Oval Budda Silver, 2008
Nurse Ko2, 2011
TIMES: America Too, 2018
Alfredo Jaar: A Logo for America, 1987
Glen Ligon: Double America 2, 2014
Center – David Hammons: African American Flag, 1990
Wendy Red Star: The Indian Congress, 2021
Jeffrey Gibson: Nothing is Eternal, 2020

 

Watching on livestream Muramaki’s conversation with Etsuko Price (1) at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center in Los Angeles was instructive. Although known for his eccentric exhibitionism, listening to what he says (through translation) helps get into his mind and better understand the complexity of his multi-layered architectural thinking.

 

Note (1) During our trip to visit and photograph Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower, I visited Joe and Etsuko Price at their house and gallery in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. The house’s architect, Bruce Goff, was there (some of our photos can be seen in https://archidocu.com/sideways-1971/ scrolling down to BARTLESVILLE, OKLAHOMA.)  

Takashi Muramaki in conversation with Etsuko Price, Japan House, Los Angeles, May 20, 2022

Ruth Meghiddo
Rick Meghiddo – Selfie

 

Ukrainian Bullets Young Ukrainian Artists at the Forefront of Art, Architecture, and Music

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Ukrainian Bullets from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

With the war in Ukraine entering most people’s lives worldwide, Ukrainian Bullets shows creative alternatives from life before the beginning of the war. In delineating a short documentary, I focused on contemporary young artists at the forefront of art, music, and architecture.

Artist: Alina Samanova
Artist: Alina Samanova
Artist: Alina Samanova
Artist: Pazza Pennello
Artist: Stepan Ryabchenko
Artist: Daria Marchenko
Kiev Mural
Kiev Mural
Kyiv Crematorium
Flatness – SPRW Architects
Flatness – SPRW Architects

Artists

 

Daria Marchenko graduated from Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design. She is best known for her involvement as an advocate for public art in Ukraine. She has created wall murals in over thirty countries. In “The Face of War,” she portrays Putin made from 5,000 bullet casings. Trump’s portrait “The Face of Money,” made together with Daniel Green, is made out of mostly pennies, nickels, and poker chips.

 

Pazza Pennello (b. 1987) is a Ukrainian pop artist born in Odessa. She lives in Kyiv. Her artworks are part of private collections in Ukraine, France, Switzerland, and the USA.

 

Alina Samanova (b. 1993) graduated from the University of the Arts in London. She lives in Kyiv. Her paintings depict both confident and vulnerable women in their chosen environment.

 

Stepan Ryabchenko was born in Odessa (b. 1987) in a family of artists. Hi graduated as an architect.

 

Musicians

 

Antonii Baryshevskyi is a pianist and composer. He was born (b. 1988) in Kyiv. He studied music at the Tchaikovsky National Academy of Music of Ukraine and at the École Supérieure de Musique in Paris.

 

DakhaBrakha is a Ukrainian folk quartet that combines the musical styles of several ethnic groups.

 

Dakh Daughters is a Ukrainian music and theater project started in 2012 in Kyiv. The band consists of seven women who play various instruments and sing in different languages (English, French, Russian, German) and dialects of Ukrainian. Dakh Daughters has performed in various Ukrainian cities and Poland, the Czech Republic, France, Russia, and Brazil. 

 

Go_A is a Ukrainian electro-folk band first formed in 2012 sent to represent Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 in Rotterdam, Netherlands (canceled due to COVID-19.)

 

Architects

 

SPRW Architects, based in Kyiv, with architect Vitaly Vorobey and designer Aleksey Zvoliansky, conceived “Flatness,” an art gallery.

 

Daria Marchenko
Alina Samanova
Pazza Pennello
Stepan Ryabchenko
Antonii Baryshevskyi
Featured To ArgentinaCopyright: R&R Meghiddo - All Rights Reserved.

To Argentina: Another Look A Different Perspective of Buenos Aires and Cordoba through a Feature Documentary

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To Argentina: Another Look from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

“TO ARGENTINA: Another Look” brings a different perspective of Buenos Aires and Cordoba, as observed during three weeks in late 2021. Rather than being “a three-act story,” this feature documentary, partially autobiographical, it is a sort of “quilt,” bits and pieces stitched together as a unity. It will take you to places, people, and events rarely noticed by visitors or even by residents.

Calle Florida, Buenos Aires

Calle Florida, Buenos Aires

  • It will walk you through Belgrano, one of Buenos Aires’ forty-eight neighborhoods, a success story of urban high density to learn from;
  • it will take you to a unique 96th birthday celebration with opera singers from Teatro Colón;
  • it will take to Parisian-like boulevards, to Old Palermo neighborhood filled with young people, to Casa FOA, a place dedicated to raising awareness of contemporary design, and also to “Villa 31,” the worse shantytown in the city;
  • it will tour you throughout Teatro Colón, considered to have the world’s best acoustics; and it will also take you to the recently inaugurated Colón Fábrica, where you will see full-size stage designs fabricated at the theater;
  • it will take you to encounter remarkable women: a writer-journalist, an art critic, a sculptor in marble, a choreographer of aerial dancing, a film director, and more;
  • it will tour you through Buenos Aires’ new Museum of the Holocaust guided by its architect;
  • it will take you to the Córdoba province, where you will be surprised by its architecture, by its Northern Italy-like landscapes, and even by discovering the gathering place of ex-Nazi expatriates;
  • it will show you the rich horizons of Argentina’s pampas, at eye level and from the air.
Avenida de Mayo
Avenida de Mayo
Avenida de Mayo
Belgrano, Condominium
Belgrano, Condominium
Casa del Angel, Belgrano
Palermo Soho
Teatro Colon
Teatro Colon
Teatro Colon
Teatro Colon
Teatro Colon – Detail
Teatro Colon – Performance G20
G20 Leaders
Argentina’s President, Mauricio Macri
G2 Leaders
G2 Leaders
G2 Leaders
G2 Leaders
President Macri
Colon Fabrica
Colon Fabrica
Colon Fabrica
Mural by Daniel Cortez
Palacio Duhau
Martha Wolff and Martin Wullich
Martha Wolff
High Tea at Laura Feinsilber
Sculptor Norma D’Ippolito
Sculptor Norma D’Ippolito
Author Maria Susana Azzi
Choreographer Brenda Angiel
Brenda Angiel Dance Company
Director Adriana Yurkovich
Jesuit Church, Cordoba
Jesuit Church, Cordoba
Capuchins Church, Cordoba
Capuchins Church, Cordoba
Capuchins Church, Cordoba
Paseo del Buen Pastor, Cordoba
Cordoba Cultural Center
Gustave Eiffel’s Prefabricated House, Cordoba
Estancia Jesuita de Alta Gracia
Che Guevara’s House, Alta Gracia
Che Guevara’s Ride
Che Guevara’s Motorcycle
Hotel Eden, La Falda, Cordoba
At Hotel Eden, La Falda, Cordoba
At Hotel Eden, La Falda, Cordoba
Rio Cuarto Countryside
At Chichi’s 96th Birthday Party
Dra. Martha Luz Frenkel, 96.

L.A.’s New Icon Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences

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Los Angeles has a new icon: the spherical Geffen Theater, a state-of-the-art place for film projections designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano. It is part of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, inaugurated last September.

 

The City of Angels is not short of icons, but few have visual clarity. The most explicit are the Theme Building at LAX, the Hollywood Sign, the Watts Towers, and the Disney Hall. To these, the Geffen Theater marks a significant addition. It becomes even more important because it is linked to the adaptive reuse of the May Company Building of 1939, now renamed the Saban Building.

 

The Geffen Theater, a concrete-and-glass sphere -150 feet in diameter – on the north side of the museum, seems to be suspended in space like a spaceship from another planet that just landed. It was first called “Death Star,” like the space station and galactic superweapon featured in Star Wars. Piano detests that label! He suggests “Dirigible,” “Zeppelin,” “Spaceship,’ “Flying Vessel,” “Soap Bubble.” I would call it “The Geffen Sphere.” Geffen means grapevine in Hebrew. The theater’s shape relates to the spherical grapes that produce the human finest drink, wine.

 

Context

Museum’s context: building, art

The museum is amid eclectic surroundings. The neighboring Pavilion of Japanese Art, designed by Bruce Goff and realized by Bart Prince, is the jewel of the lot. But there are others. The functional yet not exiting Resnik Pavilion, also designed by Piano; Michel Heizer’s “Levitated Mass,” intended to be a “large-scale” 340-ton granite megalith that in reality will remain minuscule in relation to the surroundings; across the Saban Building, the exhibitionist Petersen Automotive Museum red box structure wrapped in a series of convulsing steel ribbons; the now-under-construction $750-million LACMA Museum expansion, designed by another Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Peter Zumthor; and further away, the La Brea Tar Pits Park and Museum define a prehistoric area in total contrast to the Geffen Sphere’s modernity.

 

Some Details

 

The new 300,000 square-foot new museum includes 250,000 square-foot exhibition areas, the 288-seat Ted Mann Theater, the 1,000-seat David Geffen Theater, and the cascading glass-covered Dolby Family Terrace, where guests have stunning views of the LA skyline and the Hollywood Hills. Additional uses include the Shirley Temple Education Studio, the Debbie Reynolds Conservation Studio, the Fanny’s restaurant and café, and the Academy Museum Store.

 

The museum Director and President, Bill Kramer, was pivotal in the puzzle of coordinating the design team. It included Renzo Piano Building Workshop, executive architect Gensler, preservation architect John Fidler, structural engineers Buro Happold, general contractor MATT, and the exhibition’s designer, Kulapat Yantrasast, from Thailand, founder of the LA-based firm wHY. Yantrasast worked closely with Academy representatives and more than a dozen curators. They wrangled the Academy’s extensive array of film artifacts and memorabilia into immersive experiences rich with diverse narratives.

Plaza Level View – Link between the Geffen Sphere and the Saban building
Bridge to the Dolby Family Terrace
Under the bridge
Terrace’s glass cover
Column with seismic isolators
View of atrium
View of atrium
Night view of bridge
General night view of surroundings

 Piano stripped the former May Co. department store to its bones. Then he created an atrium that contains the escalators and the elevators. A glass curtain wall entirely replaced the north façade of the Saban Building. The two parts of the building are connected by filigree steel-glass bridges. The bridges consist of glass roofs and parapet glazing. The museum’s massive, 690-panel theater is supported by four columns with seismic isolators and can move freely up to in an earthquake. The Geffen Sphere is covered by a steel-glass dome that has been manufactured and installed by the German firm Gartner.

 

“The idea of the sphere,” says RPBW project architect Jonathan Jones, “was to create an otherworldly object that transports you, as movies do.” With most of its form hovering above a pedestrian plaza, the sphere was envisioned, explains RPBW partner Luigi Priano, “almost like a spaceship—levitating above the ground, as if ready to take off as soon as the movie starts.”

Entrance to the exhibitions
Almodovar movies exhibition
Movies exhibition
Movies exhibition
Exhibition area
Costumes exhibition
Costumes exhibition
E.T. Alien – Model
R2-D2 Robot – Model
C-3PO Robot – Model
Ground Level exhibition area
Shooting at details

 

Unlike many famous architects, past and present, Renzo Piano is not a mannerist of his style. He confronts projects open-mindedly, relating to the surroundings in many different ways. In the building that made him famous, the Pompidou Center, Piano and his British partner, Richard Rogers, approached the Parisian project through total contrast. On the other extreme, at The Fondation Jerôme Seydoux-Pathé, he developed the building inconspicuously, behind an entrance made by young August Rodin. In my film As We Saw It- Paris Builds, you may appreciate the contrast between this poetic project and Paris’ new huge Palais de Justice.

 

Beyond becoming a new icon in Los Angeles, the Geffen Sphere is a new landmark of architecture from now on.