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ISSUE NO. 01VOLUME NO. 01

WEDNESDAY, MAY 08, 2013

PAT RO N AG Ethe art of the university of Southern california

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cover photo: portrait sculpture of hephaestus

the god of fire and patron of craftsmen and sculptors

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Index

4-7.......Trojans Lend Me Your Ears8-13..... Artwork in the Arnold Plaza14-19... Sandro Chia20-29... Sculpture Garden

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TROJ

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LEND M

E YOU

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EA

RS

By John Pollini

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1987, when I first came to USC for a job interview, I read in a AAA Tourbook- ad-mittedly, not the best source- that a “boulder” from the ancient city of Troy stood in the center of campus. As a professor of classical art and archaeology, I was delighted to learn that USC had some remnant of sacred Troy, the city from which my ancestors had traced their descent through Trojan Aeneas, son of Anchises and the god-dess Venus. But during my short visit, I was unable to find this “boulder” on proud display in the center of campus, or anywhere else, for that matter. When I asked colleagues about it, they did not have a clue what I was talking about.

Later on, after I had joined the faculty of USC, I renewed my quest for the mystery “boulder”, and was told that it was in front of Mark Taper Hall of Humanities. I was quite surprised by this out-of-way location. I had expected such a historical treasure to be promi-nently displayed, perhaps right next to the statue of Tommy

for over 40 years, USC has displayed a fragment of a column

said to be from the Temple of Apollo in the ancient city of Troy.

But is the “Trojan Column” just another misconveived notion?

USC Roman art and archaeology professor, John Pollini,

sheds light on this great claim.

Trojan. I realize times have changed, but in ancient times an object of great antquity with a sacred aura was generally located at the center of civic life. Such was the case, for excample, with the lapis niger (“black stone”), which was brought to Rome from Asia minor and placed in the Roman Forum, where it can still be seen. When I finally did lay eyes upon the “Trojan boulder,” I saw that it was only a frag-ment - a granite-like column shaft about 2 feet 10 inches in height and about 16 inches in diameter. And I noticed something odd: this fragmnet had clearly been part of a monolithic column; that is, a column fashioned from a single block of stone. I knew that in typical ancient Greek construc-tion, by contrast, columns were generally made up of a number of drum-like sections fastened together. On each of the three slanting sides of the cement base of the column is a small bronze plaque inscribed with bits

of inspirational modern poetry relating the column to ancient Troy. The large dedicatory plaque reads as follows:

This section of a column from the leg-endary Troy, quarried and polished without the aid of iron tools at an unknown date before 1200 B.C., stood in the courtyard of a public building, believed to have been a temple of Trojan Apollo. It was presented to The University of South-ern California by the Republic of Turkey, and dedicated on October 29, 1952...

That’s strange I said to myself. I knew of no pol-ished granite-like mononlitihic columns used as Troy during the entire period before or, for that matter, after 1200 B.C., approximate time fixed by tradition for Homer’s Troy. Equally strange was the claim that the column once “stood in the courtyard belived to have

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6 been a temple of Troy Apollo.” What temple of Apollo at Troy? Since the discovery of Troy in the 19th century, no one has ever claimed to have found the site of any temple of Apollo. My archeological curiosity was piqued, and I was dtermined to get to the bottom of this little mystery.

I discovered that the stone used for our “Trojan Column” is a quartz monzonite, a hard, granite-like stone known in antiquity as marmor troadense (“marble of the Troad”) because it is found in the Troad, the large geographical area around Troy in the northwest part of Turkey. Modern researchers have discovered the site of the ancient quarries of marmor troadense on the northwestern slopes of a mountain south of ancient Troy. In late Roman times these quarries were run by the state, with most of the hard physical labor being done by convicts.

But all of the evidence indicates that marmor troadense was not quarried before classi-cal period (ca. 480-400 B.C.).

It was not until the Hellenistic period that marmor troadense columns were used in the mearby coastal city of Alexan-dria Troas, founded in 310 B.C. by Antigonos, one of the gen-erals of Alexander the Great. By the Roman period, columns of marmor troadense were shipped all over the Roman Empire. These columns have been founded, for example, in Arles, France (ancient Gaul); Palmyra (modern Tadmor), Syria; and Alexandria, Egypt. Oddly enough, there is very little evidence for columns of marmor troadense being used at Troy itself, and this only in very late Roman times, prob-ably in the Constantinian period at the beginning of the fourth century A.D.

Yet another inconsistency: the relatively small diameter of USC’s “Trojan Column” indicates that it would not have been used in a monumental temple, but rather in a colonade

or the elaborate gateway of a sanctuary. Unfotunately, little is known about these columns. One of the difficulties often en-countered by archaeologists is not having the original context for discovered objects. Over the centuries a great number of artifacts have been carted off, especially by those who used ancient sites as “quarries” from which to obtain materials and/or cut stone for buildings.

From where (and when), then, did this “Trojan Column” come? Without any context or decorative parts to help us, it is extremely difficult to say. In classical world of Greece and Rome, such polsihed monolithic granite and granite-like columns tend to date fairly late, either in the late Hellenistic period (ca. 200-300 B.C.) or, more likely, in Roman imperial period.

(LEFT) TROJAN COLUMN. C. 30 BCE TO 400 CEFROM UNKNOWN, ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. LOCATED OUTSIDE TAPER HALL.

GIFT OF THE ACACIA FRATERNITY ON BEHALF OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY

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The Greco-Roman cities of the Roman province of Asia (largely western Turkey) reached the height of prosperity in the second century A.D., when marmor troadense was widely exported throughout the Roman Empire.

If it did not come from ancient Troy, how can the Trojan connection, mentioned in the dedicatory plaque, be explained? To answer that, I looked into how the col-umn came to USC in the first place. The university’s archives indicate that it was members of the Acacia Fraternity (no longer at USC) who “first thought of getting a relic [for the univer-sity] from the ruins of ancient Troy.” Working with the Turkish Information Office in New York and the American Embassy in Istanbul, the fraternity was able to get a column fragmnet

shipped to the United States.At the dedication ceremony, Dr. Gursoy, a professor from the University of Ankara then studying public administration at USC, presented it to USC on behalf of the Turkish ambassa-dor and the Republic of Turkey. I noticed, though, that the only mention of the column’s orgin in Dr. Gursoy’s speech was the comment that this “piece of stone” was “part of the soil of [his] ancient country.”

In other words there was no official pronouncement that the column fragmnet was actually from ancient Troy. It could of come from some other location in Turkey, most likely the Troad where temples of Apollo were likely to be found. When the fraternity brothers of Acacia made their request for a “relic from the ruins of ancient Troy,” it would have been difficult for

the Turkish government to let any antiquity from troy out of the country, since it is one of the most imprtant sites in all Turkey. Perhaps they thought a “relic” from a less famous location would suffice, espe-cially if it were from the Troad, which was said to be under the control of Priam, king of Troy at the time of his Homeric Trojan War. Without specific details about the exact orgin of the column, the men of the Acacia Fraternity had every reason to think they had gotten a piece of ancient Troy.

In short, it was probably an honest misunderstnding between a Turkish Governmnet eager to please and a fraternity eager to be pleased. In any case, everyone seemed happy with the gifts, and another Trojan myth had been added to the pantheon.

From where (and when)then did this Trojan Column come?”“

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a r t wo r k i n t h e

a n n a b i n g a r n o l d p l a z a

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(Right Above) Portrait Sculpture of Ignancy Jan Paderewski, 2007. Artist Jesse Corsaut.

The text on the plague reads “Jan Paderewski (1860-1941), Pianist, Composer and Statesman.

In recognition of Paderewski’s ties to USC and Southern California, this

monument was erected under the honorary patronage

of the First Lady of Poland “

(Right Below) BUST OF GREGOR PIATIGORSKY, 1978Artist, ANTHONY AMATO.

One of the greatest cellists of the 20th century, Gregor Piatigorsky (1903–1976) played for the Bolshoi Theatre as a teenager, defected from Russia to study music in Berlin and Leipzig as a young man and enjoyed a long career performing with renowned European and American orchestras before spending his final years teaching at USC.

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(RIGHT) SCULPTURE OF EVELIA DE PIE, 1978ARTIST, FRANCISCO ZÚÑIGA (1912–1998)

EVELIA DE PIE (EVELIA STANDING) IS AN EVOCATIVE WORK BY RENOWNED

20TH-CENTURY LATIN AMERICAN POLITICAL ARTIST FRANCISCO ZÚÑIGA. ZÚÑIGA

CREATED SEVERAL EVELIAS, REPRESENTING THE STOIC, INDIGENOUS-LOOKING FEMALE

FIGURE IN VARIOUS POSITIONS

(BELOW) RECLINING MALE NUDE, ARTIST UNKNOWN

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(ABOVE) VISTA FOR A RARE SPIRIT. 1974A SCULPTURE BY MIKI BENOFF

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA-BASED SCULPTOR MIKI BENOFF IS KNOWN FOR HER ABSTRACT, SEMI-ORGANIC, SEMI-INDUSTRIAL FORMS. THIS SCULPTURE IS RUMORED TO BE MODELED AFTER THE BONE OF AN EAR CANAL.

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Artist Interview Conducted

by Giancarlo Politi

S A N D RO C h i a

Muralist in Viterbi Museum at USC Viterbi School of Engineering

Italian artist Sandro Chia created three impressionist ceiling murals to honor communications pineer Andrew J. Viterbi, who earned one of the first USC doctorates in electrical engineering (1962) and went on to profoundly influence the University and the world. Chia’s murals evocatively represent the union of Erna and Andrew Viterbi (whose families fled Italy and Sarajevo in advance of World War II), Viterbi’s fascination with the spacelessness of wireless communications, and the vast number of people Viterbi has influenced and connected.

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andro Chia: I thought it was “as stupid as a tenor”! Pavarotti once came to see me in my studio, and justified his very basic comments by saying that tenors were notoriously stupid. Duch-amp also claimed to make art sans le savoir (without realizing). Stupidity, it would seem, is the preserve of people who aren’t stupid at all, in the currently accepted meaning of the word – which doesn’t take into account its original meaning, which comes from surprised, astonished, startled, stunned, or daz-zled by an event or vision, like Paul on the road to Damascus. The dead lan-guage of painting. As we all know, we live in a world where things, concepts and experiences are simultaneously real and apparent – a world where every shape and language changes and wears out rapidly. All languages have a short life; although, thanks to the relentless mechanism of revival, their death is not eternal. Painting should never have been a language; it should never have accepted replica-tion or foreshadowing reality and, if it’s to be considered dead, may it rest in peace. Nowadays there are thousands of languages and means of communi-cation that are fascinatingly simple and efficient. Painting isn’t one of them. It survives in us, as a form of mania or absurd vice; a faint, languid autism that nobody can take away, because it’s our freedom. Painting may have died as a language, but it’s alive as a deviation of the character and customs of some humans. The critical apparatus should also, no doubt, be revised and adjusted to the fact that painting is not a language but a prodigy.

Giancarlo Politi: Tell us about your meeting with Enzo Cuc-chi at the end of the 1970s, and the association that result-ed. I think it was important, and would be interested to know your point of view. Sandro Chia: We met by chance at the end of the 1970s at a gallery opening in Rome. Before long we were talking shop and I remember telling him that I was preparing an exhibition in a small but enthusiastic gallery in Rome. He told me about a sculpture he was working on – a kitchen-knife as big as a room. That sounded interesting! But I was even more intrigued by the way he talked, by his use of words to express almost incomprehensible thoughts. I think anybody listening to our conversation would have gone crazy trying to understand. But, for us, everything was clear. We decided to write a book – an illustrated book. The idea was to mix our texts, conversations and drawings. After a few weeks of hard work the book was ready, and we started to look for a publisher. After several refusals we decided to talk to Mazzoli from Modena, who was not a publisher

Giancarlo Politi: you paint in a “dead language,” as some curators and artists say,

so in the words of Marcel Duchamp, “as stupid as an artist,”

Do you think you are stupid?

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(ABOVE) SANDRO CHIA’S MURAL IN THE GALLERY IS MEANT TO DEPICT ANDREW VITERBI’S FASCINATION WITH THE

SPACELESSNESS OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS.

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but who, we thought, might go for our project as he was a very enterprising art dealer. On the train to Modena, Enzo and I conspired to create a series of drawings – the idea was to give Emilio Mazzoli something that might tempt him to sponsor our book. Our materials were limited to what we found on the train, so we drew in pen on Ferrovie dello Stato toilet-paper. In Modena everything workedout fine: Emilio agreed to publish our book, and even bought the drawings we’d done on the train. It was far more than we’d expected!Back in Rome we met Achille Bonito Oliva and told him about our literary/artis-tic project. Achille said he was very interested and wanted to contribute to the book by writing a text for it. That’s how the Tre o Quattro Artisti Secchi exhibition came about – the first of many fruitful projects together.

Giancarlo Politi: Do you share the idea that the Transavan-guardia said everything it had to say in the 1980s – or do you think that Transavanguardia still has something new to say, and can still astonish us?

Sandro Chia: My instinctive reaction is to say things just aren’t like that. Talking about this episode in such terms would be banal, or like trying to prove a point. I find it demoralizing to comment on concepts like “art world” or “production.” My relationship with my work is so exclusive, delicate, and complex that I find it futile and vulgar to think of an external world of users or spectators who find my art more or less impressive. I realize such words reflect a pious illusion – an absurd dream that is unproductive and pathetic. It’s time to face reality. Thirty years on, it’s time to remove the mask. It’s time, for instance, to answer the ques-tion about my own work and its potential impact in today’s world. I attacked plenty of art which I considered redundant, decorative and no longer expressive. Take the Ibsen drama that centres on a character who contracts a mortal disease, syphilis. When science found a cure for syphilis, the play immediately lost its dramatic raison d’être.Sometimes you can replace this raison d’être by updating it or render-ing it symbolic; sometimes you can’t. The more art is tied to specific and contingent causes, the more it’s subject to attrition. The unpredictability of fashion, whose products are only meant to last for a season, is different. Often the germ of decadence, or of the partial loss of relevance given the work’s timeframe, correspond to the same germ of novelty. It’s a cruel game, but a necessary one; it’s a game that means looking to ourselves, to our own work, for the germ that swarms about in various different forms. It’s also an exercise of memory, to remember where we deliberately installed that germ, and see where it migrates to, or how it

(RIGHT) ARTIST SANDRO CHIA WITH HIS BELOVED DOG STYLIN TYLER.

changes or proliferates. Works from the 1970s and ‘80s – so close to the poetic performance of theatre, celebrating consumerism – included the notion of self-destruction. The impromptu immediacy and transitional idea were inside the work; they were necessary attributes, and also formed a safety device, offering protection against accusations of this being reactionary art. We should not be surprised if some works seem dated – because they are. Today it’s not like that. I’m sure that, today, we work in a different climate, both mental and cultural. Today we finally work in an empty space, far removed from the contaminating concept of continuity. I say ‘finally’ because arriving at this point was no quick or easy process. Today work is something unforeseen, unique, exceptional and unexpected, not programmed – like a winning goal in extra-time. Work today feels like something that could never happen, could never come into being – but which did indeed, against all expectations, come into being. Work today is anomalous, a prodigy, an event of ‘not being.’ I realize how hard it is to comprehend and appreciate something so vaguely conceived. Since I don’t like discourses that are too abstract, I’d like to tell a true story about a work. It may help explain what I’m trying to say. I had been working for a long time on a big canvas portraying two female figures – two standing nudes –and it was time for a break, and to assess what I’d done so far. Through half-closed eyes I looked at what the brush, cloth, hand, colours and chance had produced on the canvas. The head of one of the

two figures – the one on the left – was leaning to the side in a calm, pensive mood. I tried to assume the same po-sition, and felt a certain reflective calm. This figure, with her round feminine hips, was leaning on a large tree, with one of her feet in a resting position. The head of the other figure, on the right of the painting, was leaning backwards with a proud, contemptuous expression. I assumed the same position and, for a moment, felt proud and contemptuous as well. The figure had her arm outstretched, with her hand touching the dark, damp bark of the tree. The weight of the beautiful, curvy body lay on a beautiful, muscley leg, balancing on a green rock covered in musk. The pale pink of the bodies stood out nicely against the green wood, the pale blue sky and the black tree-trunk. I was pleased enough with what I saw. The paint-ing had tension and a vibrant feeing of expectation. The painting looked finished. It was finished. I had again reached the fatal threshold, beyond which begins what I call “painting on painting” or “hyperpainting.” What do I mean by “painting on painting” or “hyper-painting”? Hyper-painting reminds me of the term arcipittura and the comics I used to read as a boy.

In comics, “arcipittura” was done with “arcivernice” and had the magical effect of making people and things invisible. Arcipittura covers painting, painting on painting, colors on colors, matter on matter, subject on subject… the paint-ing is erased, disappears, but is not destroyed. On the contrary, it grows of

The weight of the beautiful, curvy body lay on a beautiful, muscley leg, balancing on a green rock covered in musk. The pale pink of the bodies stood out nicely against the green wood, the pale blue sky and the black tree-trunk. I was pleased enough about what I saw. ”

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The weight of the beautiful, curvy body lay on a beautiful, muscley leg, balancing on a green rock covered in musk. The pale pink of the bodies stood out nicely against the green wood, the pale blue sky and the black tree-trunk. I was pleased enough about what I saw. ”

itself, which happens only because of the appearance of adifferent spirit, and during a different mental state. It has to be in another time – a reawakening when each thought and gesture is special and decisive, like an epiphany. In certain respects the monochrome technique is a naïve version of arcipittura. In other words, if you think an old work is no longer topical, send it back to the painter because he’ll know how to make it topical again. An artist’s prayer to Filippo Tommaso Marinetti: from here in the future, I say “Hi!” to F.T. Marinetti. Hi! from a world that is both real and apparent, where every shape changes quickly and every technological or political project soon burns itself out. Hi! from a world that to us is the present but which, to you, F.T. Marinetti, was the future which became real in an irreparably different way. It’s true that the abolition of the distinction between culture and nature, utopia and reality, in a process of constant acceleration, turned us all into meteors. But we are faster than me-teors – faster than the speed you advocated. Our speed is not only space-temporal, it depends on and affects our senses. As ‘contemporary meteors’ we always have a new relationship with our senses. We have a wide choice of sophisticated prostheses at our disposal – thousands of different types of media, objects, images and information. We’re always playing with our percep-tion, senses and bodies, altering them as we think fit. Our speed is like a spin-drier or a spiral; it’s not like your straight, elementary race toward death.

Soon we won’t die anymore, and the good news is that visual activity will take over all the other senses. In theory this is good news for painting but, unfortu-nately, for now it’s just a theory. You look at us, Mari-netti, with incredulous eyes from the depths of your whirlpool, or from high above in your poets’ heaven. I rely on you, and your hopes, to contribute to the suc-cess of our cause.

(ABOVE) A COLORFUL SWIRL OF BLUE SKY AND OCEAN GREEN BRING HEAVEN AND EARTH

TOGETHER IN SANDRO CHIA’S JOYOUS MURAL OF YOUNG ANDREW AND ERNA

VITERBI ON THE CEILING OF THE VITERBI MUSEUM’S FAMILY ROOM.

20S C U L P T U R E G A R D E NS C U L P T U R E G A R D E NS C U L P T U R E G A R D E NS C U L P T U R E G A R D E NS C U L P T U R E G A R D E N

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S C U L P T U R E G A R D E NS C U L P T U R E G A R D E NS C U L P T U R E G A R D E NS C U L P T U R E G A R D E NS C U L P T U R E G A R D E N

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UNTITLED 4, 1999. By MARK LERE (1950–)Located in the SCULPTURE Lawn South of Watt Hall. Originally commissioned for the STAPLES Center in Dow town Los Angeles.

Tucked away in the north side of campus between harris hall & watt hall,

the sculpture garden houses some of USC’s most eclectic sculptures

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The sculpture consists of four pieces, each

attempting to encourage the use of a different sense, sight, sound, touch and

smell. The piece includes a cone-shaped fountain with

a bronze cast on top to resemble a pool of water; a large stainless steel sphere, six feet in diameter, that is balanced on a small pin; a 12-foot high sculpture of a human figure; and a bench

cut and polished from granite. The bench had

previously housed a sound element designed to sur-

prise whoever sat on it with thunder clashes, a truck horn or people talking.

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CROUCHING BATHER 1983 (probably recast from a 1910 original)SCULPTED BY ANTOINE BOURDELLE (1861–1929)

Gift of the Class of 1959. Placed in the Harris Hall fountain, Crouching Bather is the work of French sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, who worked as an assistant to Auguste Rodin and influenced the art of sculpture considerably, not only through his own work but also as a teacher. Many of his students— Giacometti among them—went on to become prominent sculptors in their own right.

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Harris Hall Sculpture Park Commissioned by the USC First Amendment /Blacklist Project.

When a USC cinema student learned that

Hollywood filmmakers were black-listed in the 1940s and 1950s for

“subversive activities,” he was shocked. To promote awareness

of this repressive time in U.S. history, faculty and others formed

the First Amendment/Blacklist Project and commissioned ac-claimed conceptual artist Jenny

Holzer to create a work about the McCarthy era for the campus’s

permanent collection.

FIRST AMENDMENT (BLACKLIST PROJECT) 1999. INTALLASION PIECE BY JENNY HOLZER (1950–)

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he First Amendment/Blacklist Project committee was formed by faculty members of the Filmic Writing Program in the School of Cinema-Television at the USC in Los Angeles at the suggestion of an undergraduate student, Drew Weinbrenner, and in response to a recognition that many future filmmakers knew little or nothing of this governmental infringement on professional creativity and personal civil liberties.Composed of 10 stone benches with engraved quotes from the famous "Hollywood Ten" and other stone markers with additional quotes from this dark time, Blacklist is set in a landscaped garden nestled among old olive trees in front of the USC Fisher Museum of Art on Exposition Boulevard.

In October of 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed ten filmmakers to testify about their alleged subversive political beliefs. After these "Hollywood Ten" refused to testify, exercising their First Amendment privileges, they were cited for contempt of Congress, for which they were ultimately imprisoned and blacklisted - pre-vented from gainful employment - by the Hollywood studios and broadcast networks. By 1951, as the result of ongoing Congressional hearings, hundreds more were blacklisted, harassed, driven from their jobs, and in some cases from their homes. Today, those Congressional witch hunts and episodes of "Red-baiting" are universally discredited as an official abuse of official power. Indeed, the history of the blacklist era has come to stand for demagoguery, censorship, and political despotism; and the blacklisting, persecution, and jailing of American citizens for their political beliefs - or their perceived political beliefs - is regarded as a shameful chapter in modern American history.

Jenny Holzer was born in Gallipolis, Ohio and has lived and worked in New York for the past 25 years.Her art is represented in museums and private collections throughout the world, and she has created permanent public works in Germany, Japan, The Nether-lands, Austria and the USA. Holzer addresses herself to the public forum and envisions her audience as the public at large - the body politic of our society. Because her art is based on words, language, and free speech, she is especially appropriate for the First Amendment/Blacklist Project. Part poet and part sculptor, Holzer has combined text and form to create a sculptural environment in a garden setting that resonates with unsettling meaning. Research into the period generated hundreds of quotes from which Holzer chose the dozens that have been inscribed in stone to remind us of that past, and to inspire vig-ilance and personal responsibility in exercising, upholding, and defending the civil liberties granted to individuals under the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

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"This garden would have you think how hate and fear can poison

daily life. It is a memorial to the creative artists who became

victims.Blacklisting ended ca-reers and ruined lives. It silenced

public debate, undermined due process and freedom of thought,

and weakened the elaborate protections of the minority.”

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30 Art History For The

Win

ISSUE NO. 01VOLUME NO. 01WEDNESDAY, MAY 08, 2013