MONUMENT

New New York, 2007, 40 x 75 inches, graphite, wax on acrylic mounted on paper

Description

Recent Exhibitions

MONUMENT
Wiemar, Germany, October 2007
Murphy's, California, August, 2007
New York City, July 2007
Berlin, Germany/New York City, July 2007
Seoul, Korea, June 2007
California, May 2007
London, April 2007
New York City, March 2007
Black River Falls, Wisconsin, January 2007
A Book from a Cave, January 2007
New York City, December 2006
Washington D.C., November 2006
Germany, October 2006
"343", 9/11 Memorial, New York City, September 2006
California, James Dean Memorial, August 2006
Green River Cemetery, The Hamptons, July 2006
New York City, June 2006
California, May 2006
London, April 2006

Masters of Go, 20 x 27inches, wax crayon on found pages (from Yusunari Kawabata’s “Master of Go”), glued on paper, (Rubbings from: the Merchant Navy Memorial and various memorial plaques on the grounds of the Australian War Memorial Museum, Canberra.)

Australia, February/March, 2006
Sydney
Mackay
Shepparton
Canberra
Amsterdam/New York City, October, 2005
Background of the Monument instigator

Description
Kurt Allerslev, Marshall Weber and Christopher Wilde have been doing collaborative artworks as Organik since 1997. Organik creates books, drawings, paintings and installations in an intimate, spontaneous and passionate mode of choreographed collaboration. All three artists work simultaneously in a creative practice inspired by ongoing dialogs concerning ecology, politics and philosophy.

The MONUMENT project extends Organik's techniques into an investigation of the texts and images of architecture, public memorials and monuments. Drawings made from ink, natural pigments, and graphite and wax crayon rubbings taken from architectural elements, plaques, and statues are collaged onto paper or plastic sheets. Ranging from celebratory illumination of public artworks to critical rewriting of national war memorials, MONUMENT is a visual exploration of public art's wide spectrum of functions from historicizing authority to silent, unseen witness.

The project is also consciously anchored in public performance art practice as all MONUMENT artworks are initiated outdoors in public space often with accompanying dialogs with bystanders, who range from interested locals and tourists to security guards and other law enforcement agents.

MONUMENT drawings are material documentations of actual monuments, buildings and cultural sites. Each drawing is literally embedded with physical evidence of sites from all over the world ranging from Marilyn Monroe’s “Star” on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; to the Aboriginal War Memorial in the hills of Canberra; Australia to the streets of Amsterdam, Berlin, London, New York City, Seoul and other locations from all over the world.

MONUMENT exhibits can be installed at any site, accompanied by a new body of drawings documenting the location surrounding the exhibition space.

Recent Exhibitions
2007
June, Seoul International Artist Book Fair, Korea
April/May, Lawrence Graham Gallery, London, England

MONUMENT

Weimar, Germany, October 2007

Charlotte von Stein, 2008, 64 x 32 inches , graphite, ink, turmeric dye, wax crayon on paper, rubbing from the gate of the Goethe Family tomb, the gravestone of Charlotte von Stein and the Hafiz Memorial in Weimar. Collection of the Klingspor Museum, Offenbach Am Main, Germany.

top
Berlin, Germany/New York City, July 2007

Bibliotek Denkmal, 2007, 32 x 44 inches, graphite, ink, tumeric dye, wax crayon on paper.

top

Murphy's, California, August, 2007

Murphy’s Story, 30 x 40 inches, graphite, wax crayon on paper.
Collection of the University of California at Berkeley.

New York City, July 2007

Harbinger, 24 x 32 inches, graphite, ink, tumeric pigment paint, and wax crayon on paper.

Seoul, Korea, June 2007

Water, 34 x 22 inches, graphite, ink, wax crayon on paper.

Mad in Korea 2, 34 x 22 inches, graphite, ink, wax crayon on paper.

top
California, May 2007

Hollywood Way, 32 x 24 inches, graphite, wax crayon on paper.

London, April 2007

Edith Cavell, Brussels, Dawn, October 12, 1915, 32 x 24 inches, graphite, wax crayon on paper.

Arches, 24 x 32 inches, graphite, ink, tumeric pigment paint, and wax crayon on paper.

top
New York City, March 2007

We Bring Good Things to Life, 24 x 32 inches, graphite, ink, tumeric pigment paint, and wax crayon on paper.

Unrest, 42 x 28 inches, wax crayon and graphite on Fabriano paper.

The Standard #2, 28 x 42 inches, wax crayon and graphite on Fabriano paper.

Black River Falls, Wisconsin, January 2007

Passenger, 2007, 32 x 44 inches, graphite, ink, tumeric dye, wax crayon on paper.

top
A Book from a Cave
A unique artists book, 15 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches, 28 pages, graphite, ink, ochre pigments paint, wax crayon, on handmade Doublehand paper in a leather, copper, branded binding, 2007

With drawings and rubbings from: Amsterdam, Australia, New York City, and Germany.

top
New York City, December 2006

The Lady's Cottage in Hell, 22 x 36 inches, wax crayon and graphite on paper with ink and organic pigment paints. Rubbing from Greg Lefevre's map plaque in Union Square.

Library, 24 x 36 inches, wax crayon and graphite on paper. Rubbing from the Library Walk on 41st Street and Union Square labor history plaques.

Rise High, 28 x 40 inches, wax crayon and graphite on paper, rubbing from Greg Lefevre's architectural plaques in midtown. Private collection, London, England.

top
Washington D.C., November 2006


Vietnamese?, 38 x 24 inches, wax crayon and graphite on paper, rubbing from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington D.C.

Germany, October 2006

At the Teodor Adorno Memorial, artists book, 48 pages, 16 x 8 inches (open), wax crayon and graphite on handmade Japanese Kozo paper, rubbing from the Teodor Adorno Memorial in Frankfurt, Germany, story by Aladeen, book made by Veronika Schäpers

This book was made in six hours from 9PM, October 6th to 3AM the next day.

"As I rubbed the quotes from Adorno into the book I also made real time notes of the conversations I had with the enthusiastic, critical, funny and profound people who watched me work and kept me well supplied.", Marshall Weber.

Clement Tobias Lange said that this book was "like part of a moving waterfall."
top

Will I never have a child?, 26 x 40 inches, wax crayon on paper, rubbing from Hans Haake's memorial sculpture for Rosa Luxemburg in Berlin.

Altenheim, 30 x 40 inches, graphite on mulberry paper, rubbing from the memorial plaque for the Jewish Senior Center that was the transit point from which 55,000 Berliner Jews were sent to their deaths in Nazi era death camps.

top

"343", 9/11 Memorial, New York City, September, 2006

Fire Across Our memory, an artists book, 6 x 18 inches, 28 pages, graphite on paper from the New York City Fire Department with the printed seal of the '343' Company. In the collection of the University of California, Irvine.

Rubbings from the"343” 9/11 Memorial Wall, NY, NY

top
California, August, 2006

James Byron Dean's Constellation, diptych, each panel - 22 x 48 inches, wax crayon and graphite on paper, rubbings from the James Dean Memorial", Chalome, CA


top
Green River Cemetery/The Hamptons July 2006

Henry's View, 26 x 40 inches, wax crayon on paper, rubbings from Henry Geldzahler's grave stone, Green River Cemetery, The Springs, East Hampton, New York

Blue Pollocks #7, 26 x 40 inches, wax crayon, graphite, oil pastel on paper, rubbing from Jackson Pollock’s grave stone, Green River Cemetery, The Springs, East Hampton, New York

Poster regarding the death of Jackson Pollock, 24 x 36 inches, wax crayon, oil pastel on bamboo paper, rubbing from Jackson Pollock’s grave stone.

top
New York City

Prisoner of Customs, 22 x 19 inches, wax crayon and graphite on paper and stencil painting by Laurie Steelink, rubbings, from the Korean War Memorial, Battery Park, NYC, the National Museum of the American Indian (former Customs House Building), and the U.S. Federal Bankruptcy Court (which shares the Customs House Building), NYC.

top
California, May 2006

Sitting Bull Hollywood, 20x24 inches, wax crayon on paper, stencil painting by Laurie Steelink, rubbings from the Walk of Fame, Hollywood, CA.

Marilyn’s Star, 26 x 40 inches, graphite on paper, rubbings from Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the Walk of Fame, Hollywood, CA.

Dr. Suess, 26"x40", graphite on paper, rubbings from the Dr. Suess Memorial, La Jolla, CA

top
London, April 2006

Kinder Transport, 22 x 28 inches, wax crayon on handmade paper, 2006, rubbings taken from Flor Kent's "Fur Das Kind" sculpture located outside Liverpool Station in London. Collection of Stefan Soltek, Offenbach, Germany.

top
Australia, Febraury / March 2006
Sydney

Silent Contemplation, 24 x 18 inches, wax crayon on Mylar, 2006
(Rubbings from: ANZAC War Memorial, the Prince Albert Monument near Hyde Park, the reconcillation plaque of the Sydney Opera House, put up as an apology to the original Danish architect Joern Utzon who resigned from the project in disgust though he has recently rejoined to assist in the redesign of the interior.

top
Canberra

Aboriginal Country, 18 x 24 inches, wax crayon on Mylar,
(Aboriginal Forces Memorial – its up on the hill behind the War Memorial Museum somewhat hidden in the bush!

top

Hallowed Lies, 24 x 18 inches, wax crayon on Mylar, 2006
(Various memorials, Anzac Parade, Canberra)

Mothership, with Dianne Fogwell, 24 x 18 inches, linoleum cut relief print and wax crayon on handmade paper, 2006, now in the collection of the Australian War Memorial Museum, Canberra (Various memorial plaques on the grounds of the Australian War Memorial Museum)

New Sea Land, 18 x 24 inches, wax crayon on Mylar, 2006
(New Zealand Memorial, Anzac Parade, Canberra)
New Zealand Memorial, Rats of Tobruk Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Anzac Parade, Canberra)

top
Mackay
Yam Dreaming, Organik filled this book with painting and rubbings from Amsterdam, Australians and New York City and with writings recording conversations with Australians from diverse backgrounds. This book is in the collection of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Kunstbibliothek, Germany.

Cover from Yam Dreaming, by Organik, 8 x 15 3/4 inches, multi-media, unique, artists book, 22 pages, Doublehand paper, 2005-2006 (Rubbings from: New York City, Amsterdam, Netherlands, various locales throughout Australia.)

Pagespread from Yam Dreaming

Pagespread from Yam Dreaming

The second book, Cycle, is a collaboration with Booklyn co-founder, artist, etymologist and bookbinder, Schon Schooler, who now resides near Brisbane, and Canberra artist Dianne Fogwell who supplied various linoleum cut blocks used to complete the Cycle. Published as an edition of 8, the book is in the collection of the Library of Congress, Stanford University, CA, Smith College, MA.


Many Australian artists and poets unknowingly collaborated in the book as a the book is a homage to the public art found in the streets of Mackay.

Cycle, 7 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches, multi-media, unique artists book, 36 pages, 2005-2006 (Rubbings from various locales throughout Australia)

top
Shepparton
Organik member Weber travelled with Professor John Reid on a field trip investigating the environmental culture and politics of the Goulburn River in area around Shepparton, in Victoria State.

War Love, with Organik, 19 3/4 x 15 3/4 inches, wax crayon on handmade Doublehand paper, 2006 (New York City, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Shepparton War Memorial, Australia.)

Apology, 18 x 24 inches, wax crayon on Mylar, 2006 (Shepparton War Memorial) (Aversion of this drawing on paper was donated to the Rumbalara Aboriginal Cooperative located between Shepparton & Mooroopna.)

top
Old Amsterdam/New Amsterdam (New York City)
Organik spent six months doing a series of rubbings (both on single sheets of paper and in hand bound blank books) in New York and then traveled to Amsterdam to integrate rubbings from that city into the mix.

Jaboticabin, frottage drawing on handmade paper with human hair, assemblage of nine sheets, 60 inches by 48 inches. Jaboticabin combines visual and material components of identity on a molecular (Wilde's hair as a genomic marker, Allerslev's phytochemical research - he is the discoverer of the anti-cancer compound jaboticabin depicted in the center panel) and social level (the city of Amsterdam, the Dutch Empire).

Matchless, aspiration, cutting, frottage, ink and brush drawing, painting, pencil, on handmade paper, in a unique book, 15" x 9", 40 pages. This book is in the collection of the Deutschen Nationalbibliothek, Leipzig, Germany. Copies of Matchless from an edition of three are in the collections of the Library of Congress, the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and the University of Southern California, L.A.

Matchless takes on the entire issue of Dutch identity and its testy relationship to European and global history enigmatically mixing Dutch windmills with the Don Quixote and Pym Fortun, geisha girls with Den Hague scenery, and the Paris labor riots with Amsterdam tulip gardens.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

top

Left- "Cathedral of Light" at the Nazi Party's Nuremberg Rally, 1936
Right -"Tribute of Light", former WTC Twin Towers site, New York City, 2002

Posted by ArchitectureWeek, October 10, 2001 at 12:52:18:

In Regard to Towers of Light/Tribute of Light proposal by Creative Time

Beyond artist/publisher Christopher Wilde's astute critique of the Tower of Lights as an intense source of arrogant light pollution is the related phenomenon of the light pollution itself as an abject repetition of the initial explosion- that is an attempt to better the soldiers violent military operation of Sept. 11, 2001 in an a reflected act of violence against the 'natural' environment. Thus the Towers of Light is an aggressive act that is certainly in line with the unadorned, anti-Romantic, and anti-environmental macho aesthetics of male dominated Modernist architecture. A spectacle of environmental violence to one up the initial act of war. This is also in line with contemporary corporate and academic architecture's ongoing non-critical support of military, and anti-environmental projects.

Certainly Creative Time must realize that this solaced sculpture is a direct plagiarism, reiteration and affirmation of nothing other than Albert Speers "Towers of Lights/Catherdral of Lights" installation for Hitler's Nuremberg Rallies.

Have the architects who proposed this amnesiastic travesty forgotten their own architectural history due to some sort of misplaced nostalgia or are they actually trying to subliminally engender an affirmation of fascist aesthetics?

Despite the fact that contemporary corporate architecture has instrumental in validating and excusing Speers by often celebrating, utilizing and extending his modernist aesthetics in their corporate and governmental structures (including, ironically, the WTC Towers themselves) I can think of no other time when the reaffirmation of fascist architecture in any way would be more inhumanly inappropriate. We perch on the brink of world war in part due to the monumental arrogance of the architectural imperialism of corporate capitalism; let us not indulge in phallic monumental spectacle.

Now is the time to reaffirm the human scale, the provision of housing not office space, the intimate, not the abstract, the balanced not the invasive; and, at the risk of being interpreted as simplistic, it's time to affirm the female not the male, the creative not the destructive. As Luce Irigaray writes "The sky isn't up there, it's between us."

Certainly some sort of memorial is in order, perhaps one on a more human scale such as the oft proposed simple act of preserving a piece of the destroyed structure on the actual site.

While the sublime (read aesthetics of power, thrill and death) aspects of the Towers of Lights are tempting and beautiful in its simplistic affirmation of male prerogative, the symbolic realities and historical associations of the project will become the subtext for the substantiation of further violence.

Towers of Light in its powerful doubled phallic rape of the night sky will stand the risk of becoming an icon for revenge instead of a memorial for peace.

Marshall Weber

Posted by the Artists Network of Refuse and Resist on November 1, 2001 at 1:32:23:

To the editors of the New York Times from Marshall Weber

Dear Editors,

While some type of memorial for those who perished in the horrific attack on the World Trade Center should be considered in the future, to aggressively erect (I use the world literally and purposefully here) a light polluting "Batcall" seems hasty and ill conceived.

As the civilian casualties in our war in Afghanistan mount and surpass those murdered in the WTC Towers it seems a little callous of us to go beyond the necessary memorial services with a flippant spectacle such as the Towers of Light.

Of course, the fact that the Towers of Light are directly plagiarized from the Cathedral of Light spectacle that Nazi architect Albert Speer designed for Hitler's triumphal Nuremburg Rally in 1934 should not surprise us. We are an amnesiac nation and the creators of the New York version are, like Speers was in the 1930's, young and enthusiastic, architects who seem completely oblivious to the cynical use of their luminous war-swords. Monumental hubris, after all, is typical of the occupations of both architects and professional rich kids like George and Osama.

Speers' version had two rows of sky lights instead of just two towers, but the similarity is startling right down to the duality of design, and the technology utilized. Then as today, columns of light are penetrating the skies, announcing a purifying crusade to both the gods and the world.

Substitute Bush for Hitler, substitute Moslems for Jews, substitute detainment camp (or occupied territories) for concentration camp, remind yourself that the actual word that our illegally unelected president used in his first public speech after 9/11 was "crusade," then check your history books and recall that Bush's grandfather Prescott (an infamous anti-Semite) made quite a bit of the family money by bonding the shipping lines that supplied early Nazi Germany with the steel it needed to pursue World War Two (with his Nazi sympathizer buddy Averill Harriman and the Morgan bank ) and you've got the ingredients for World War Three.

Proud to be a New Yorker! Marshall Weber

top
A Recent Letter to Creative Time regarding the above.

Dear Creative Time,

I am currently working on a new project constructing critical context and reconsideration of war memorials.

And so I have been reminded of a plea of mine that was ignored by Creative Time and many others. Two of those letters are posted above. And while I doubt that there is anyone to read this dispatch (like most Americans you have probably moved on to some other more exciting project), I am still compelled to consider what more we could of done, as New Yorkers, to have prevented the travesties committed in part in our name.

What I find exceptional about the Tribute of Lights is that unlike most war memorials, not only is the monument not primarily sponsored by the state but it was created by groups typically identified with liberal ideologies. Yet despite the best intentions of its creators, like most war monuments it still primarily functions as a glorification of military might and as a promotion of the continued use of that might. As many suspected it was immediately appropriated as a nationalist symbol reinforcing the icon of 9/11 as the singular event validating the US government's current bloody and tragic crusade. Note the repeated use in popular culture of the the collage image of the Tribute of Light backed up by the American Flag. It is reminiscent of another proposed 'singularity' dear to some New Yorkers - the use of the Jewish Holocaust of World War Two to validate the bloody crusades of the apartheid State of Israel against the Palestinian people. Two exceptionally ill conceived military campaigns.

It is with great sadness that I note the use of the Tributes of Light as yet one other piece of the militarization of public life (right up there with the Hummers) and a well meaning but ill-conceived validation of continued US aggression.

There is still time for public reconsideration of this grand error and our attendant entrapment into the promotion of violence. Let's hope that these search lights ever seeking a ghostly terrorist target will shine no more. As our shame in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan grows, they seem beastly and more like Albert Speer's creation than even when they first stabbed our skies adding yet another bellicose insult to New York's tragic injuries.

Hoping for peace, Marshall Weber, March 21, 2006

top

Background for Marshall Weber
Artists and curator Marshall Weber has a life long commitment to anti-war activities. Growing up in the midst of the Vietnam era in the United States Weber first protested against the Vietnam war when he was eight years old by holding a candle and marching in his home town’s (Bloomfield, Connecticut) 1968 Moratorium on the War March. Since that time Weber has participated in numerous anti-war, and social and environmental justice projects. During the culture wars of the 1980’s when art making and political activism merged in the US Weber developed an interdisciplinary arts practice that informed by social sculpture and political dissent.

A student of the history of political art Weber’s work is informed by Goya, John Heartfield, Hanah Hoch, Bertoldt Brecht, Joseph Beuys, the Situationists and contemporary artists such as Guillermo Gomez Pena, Xu Bing, Hans Haacke, Adrian Piper, Mel Chin, Rigo 23, and Coco Fusco.

Weber has a large body of work concerned with the study of violence, conflict resolution and military culture. And recently he has focused on the issues of trauma and recovery and social and individual responses to catastrophe. As a witness to the 9/11 bombings in New York City (his place of origin and home for the past nine years) he has created major artworks and exhibitions concerned with responses to violence.

He has been a vocal critic of the memorial efforts surrounding 9/11, and his critique of the 9/11 Tower of Lights Memorial was published on line by various imprints including ArchitectureWeek . Weber has written and created art concerning a wide variety of military interventions and cultures including U.S interventions in Central American, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the US invasion of Iraq, and the Iliad and the Odyssey.

For more information about Marshall Weber

peace

Information or opinions expressed on this webpage are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Booklyn Inc.

This page is maintained by Marshall Weber.