"genius" or just good p.r.?
Frank Gehry's Hollywood star turn leaves some doubt
by James Culham
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I had to be in Los Angeles on another story during the unveiling of the new Frank Gehry designed Walt Disney Concert Hall and concurrent opening of L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art's retrospective "Frank O. Gehry: Work in Progress" - so I decided to try to get someone to take a story on one or the other - or both. Gehry is himself a kind of Disney of architects - guaranteeing a crowd-pleasing spectacle for one and all - particularly editors who readily take stories on a quotable man with great images attached - usually without having to send their own photographer. In the course of a five minute conversation, the editor of a major publication took the story and it was underway.
I have only written about Gehry's work once before - a fairly negative appraisal of his Experience Music Project in Seattle. That building aside, his work has always been of a certain interest. He was the person who, more than any other, made architects consider the sculptural aspects of their work. He also expanded the palette to include lowbrow materials in high brow commissions and has done some interesting things with computer design programs originally intended for aerospace industries. However, I've not even come close to using the word "genius" in relation to the man or the work - and I'm bemused by how frequently it pops up in other writers' profiles.
My call to Gehry's Santa Monica office was redirected to a public relations firm - one of the most prestigious in the world of art and culture. The same people who handle the communications of major arts institutions also manage this small, somewhat frail looking, soft-spoken, 73 year old architect. But it was only once I spoke with the representative that I realized what was happening. In the upside-down-land of big league public relations it is the p.r. people who interview the writer before anyone gets access to the client - nothing is left to chance.
So I explained, at some length, the angle of my intended story. Gehry had first become famous back in the 70s by royally pissing off his Santa Monica neighbors with his plywood and chain-link and corrugated steel design of his own house on an otherwise conservative, middle-class street. The new Walt Disney Center is situated in downtown LA amongst other potentially unwelcoming neighbors.
Along Grand Street are buildings by other well-known international architects such as Arata Isozaki's MOCA, Raphael Moneo's Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral and office towers and urban parks by I.M. Pei and Arthur Erickson. My somewhat ambitious article, titled "What Will the Neighbors Think?" would attempt to address the question of architecture and context, particularly as it pertains to architecture as spectacle - by celebrity practitioners, etc.
I intended to interview as many of Gehry's critical 1970s neighbors as possible - since the object of their irritation has gone on to become the world's most famous architect. Also I would discuss various aspects of the building, its context and the nature of celebrity and architecture with the other luminaries on the block. This was to be a fresh perspective on an otherwise over-exposed architect and both my editor and I considered the angle to be ripe with possibilities.
Of course, for this specific a story I would need to have at least a short interview with Mr. Gehry himself at some point over the next month - to write it without his input was unthinkable. It was clear from the dead air on the other end of the phone that this was not the kind of cheer-leading press they were hoping for. Their answer? "I can't promise anything" - which translated from p.r. terminology is not promising indeed. It was only then that I considered they may even have a copy of my earlier, generally negative article about Gehry on file. Using clippings services is standard procedure in sophisticated public relations.
Soon after I was told that an interview with Mr. Gehry would not be possible - but that I could be part of a future group tour. Shortly after receiving this news I found the issue of Vanity Fair - fully two months prior to the building's opening - featuring a glowing profile - with lengthy interview(!) and written by the same person and publication which gave Gehry his most adoring press four years earlier in Bilbao, Spain.
By this time conspiracy theories were being confirmed - as expected, in the absence of an interview with the subject my editor had killed the story. My planned group tour was still weeks away when several other rave reviews came out - by writers who were given much earlier and closer access than I. The publication I was writing for is as prominent as any of theirs - yet somehow they are deemed to be higher up the food chain - or at least were expected to be uncritical and follow some variation on the generally accepted "genius" angle. Such universally psychophantic press doesn't happen by accident.
Since I was in town anyway, I kept my appointment for the group tour - along with members of nearby hotel staff. Proof positive that I was considered B-List press all along.
By coincidence I attended a house party that week where several members of Gehry's staff were in attendance. Conversation gradually turned to the new building, the MOCA exhibition and Gehry's work generally. What was discussed, off the record, by those who actually know the man - was infinitely more interesting than the genius posturing taking place in the press.
On the weekend thousands attended the opening of the retrospective at the MOCA - perhaps hoping for the chance to catch a glimpse of their hero. Not a chance - he's as isolated and coddled as any other Hollywood star.
James Culham
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