Cathy Opie's Landscapes

 

I was surprised to see landscape represented in Cathy Opie’s recent work. I often find myself frustrated by artists who’ve taken on landscape later in their career, but if I am honest, this feeling is sometimes nothing more than professional jealousy. Given that, how easy it would be to couch that jeolousy in a negative critique of the work. It seems I can forget that landscape doesn’t belong to me, or anyone, but for a few hundred years, has been a symbolic entity that artists can tap, turn over, reproduce or renounce.

The swamp landscape of Opie's Rhetorical Landscapes

Although Opie says shots are unplanned, or there is little preparation, or it’s all in her head, what materializes is always passed through her razor sharp filter. In her exhibit, Rhetorical Landscapes (2020), she presented photographs of the Okefenokee Swamp adjacent to floor-standing screens displaying animated magazine clippings. Opie frames these swamp photographs in terms of the Trump administration’s undermining of climate goals, rising seas, and its effect on these southeastern U.S. swamps, but there is more to it than that.

Trump’s rhetoric makes great use of the swamp image, commonly understood as a murky waste, dark, mysterious, where dangerous creatures lurk just beneath the surface. In doing so, he leverages the symbolic power of landscape to transport and amplify fear across heterogenious social, geographic and cultural terrain. Taking a cue from the juvenile “Who ever smelt it, dealt it,” in pointing to the swamp, Trump reveals he is the very swamp he’s invoked. That Opie pictures the Okefenokee, as opposed to other, if not equally vast, swamps appears logical given the American electorate’s association, however faulty, of the nation’s malignant inclinations with historically rebellious southern states. In these two ways, Opie’s swamp landscapes function as other landscape images have before —representative, or in service, of a nation’s identity.

This meaning is turned on its head when the swamp continues to be seen as mysterious, misunderstood, and threatening but is also threatened. A landscape that holds this (threatening/threatened) and other dualities (land/sea) suggests the swamp’s metaphorical potential to be representative of queer identity. This interpretation is supported by Rhetorical Landscape’s exhibition design in which the swamp photos are hung on the outer wall, apart from central, free-standing kiosks of animated collage that are representative, and a critique, of American culture at large. I prefer this take over the more academic approach. It’s more intriguing and a refreshing break from the critique of landscape as long-ago exhausted and forever beholden to the capitalist-imperialist enterprise.

One of Opie's blurred landscapes -only a portion of a larger work.

Opie considers her out of focus sunrise/sunset photographs abstract and uses them (and others) to bookend focused photographs of Civil War monuments in southern states. She indicated that the book ending and “splits” shown in her other landscape images refers to division and duality. The blurring in those images may be a way to question the American promise purportedly evoked by 19th century landscape paintings of awe-inducing places like Niagara Falls (Opie also photographed Niagara, blurred). 

 

The full work: blurred landscapes bookend a monument to the rebel cause.

One of Opie's Norway mountain landscapes. Image reproduces color and tonality poorly.

 

More recently, Opie has been photographing mountains in Norway. She intimated this flirt with beauty was tinged with guilt. Beauty, like landscape, is overloaded. Rather than beauty, could this work be about the pleasure inherent to the experience of calming, blue tonalities. Isn’t there room for calm —especially after 4 (just 4?) years of Trump? Whenever we speak of guilty pleasures, there is always a sense that judgement is entirely unfair.

Although described as a critique of the Catholic Church, I found Opie's most recent work “Walls, Windows and Blood” her most abstract and engagingly ambiguous. Most impactful are the "Blood Grids." Not only do they compellingly capture the textures, colors, and light inherent to painting, but by fracturing the original whole, the photographs create incredibly intimate moments with the physical work unlikely to be had in a crowded museum. I can only imagine the pleasure she had in arranging these pieces. Her process reclaims the artistry of, and becomes a spiritual union with, those original artists who had little choice but to serve the power of the Church.

Simultaneously, the modernist grid Opie uses to structure the assemblage of photographs ties the violence of the Catholic Church exacted across the globe to the universalist, global enterprise of aesthetic Modernism.  In a manner homologous to the power of the Church, Modernism has had an unassailable authority over artists and, although not bloody, for some generations, has been an oppressively misanthropic and homogenizing force. Although the grid speaks to the rigidity of Church doctrine, the Church's fetish for flesh and blood undermines the excess of Modernist rationality. Opie's subversive gesture is the simultaneous binding and contrasting of these forces, not quite canceling each out, but rather holding them in a revealing, dynamic tension.

Took Flight

We always say, and I shall repeat, "how fast time goes," or "where does the time go," and all other sentiments on time that age seems to stir within us. This winter, virtually snow-less and, by far, the warmest on record, helped make time ahead seem abundant. With the early onset of spring, the significantly early nursery opener date of April 8th (usually the second week of May), and so much to do and prepare for, time took flight.

The first week of March, warm and sunny, I was fixing and building, restoring and painting. I re-sided all that I could safely reach and the same went for painting, so we emptied our savings to hire out siding replacement and painting on the upper floors. My first project was to detach, dismantle, and dispose of three steps descending from the screened, back porch. New treads, new risers, re-engineered the original, 30 year old stringer attachment and raised a sunken landing made for a more solid exit. Although I re-used the old stringers, paint and new cedar treads made it look almost new. The beginning to a very busy spring to come.

Siding crew finishes what I could not -although I completed the lower part, at right.

With every project there were tangential projects -things we chose to live with that, once something adjacent is restored, look awful if left in a poor state. For our house, this was most often the granite rock and plastic edging. Rocks sank into the soil, ants and plants brought or created soil above the rock, edging warped, sunk or was cut by mowers. It's work anyone would avoid -physical labor of the most tedious kind. Move rocks, wash rocks, remove plants, add soil, replace fabric, dig in new edging, replace rocks, shake off crazed ants, swat mosquitoes.

2020 was a good year to address time-consuming projects -prior steps had no footings.

By late April, I was able to power-wash, repair, paint and install all remaining, under-porch latticework in the front and rear of the house. By mid-May, after years of living without, I constructed, painted, and attached two railings to the new, in 2020, south-side staircase I built to replace the dangerously rotted, completely unsupported old steps. The landing, a mishmash of limestone and concrete paver, was completed last fall and adjacent rock edging was renovated this spring.

 

An old project is finally complete with railings, mishmash landing and edging rehab.

Two major projects remained for June: grading and seeding of a drought-killed lawn (and its edging, of course) that became bare soil and weeds, and building new steps that descend from the north-side deck, rebuilt in 2016, to the vegetable garden. I chose to renovate the front lawn, first, in order to take advantage of coming rain, but it was also the bigger of the two projects. Rain it did, leading me to repeatedly seed, and stalling other outdoor projects. While it rained, I packed boxes, growing ever more frustrated with rain that, not long before, was welcome.

 

The earliest, newly seeded lawn grew in well. The latest, last seeding failed (not seen).

 

A brief dry spell let me repaint trim and paint post and rail of the front porch staircase.

When our realtor, John, stopped in to check on my progress, I watched him uneasily navigate the rickety "temporary" steps we'd been using to descend from the utility room deck to the garden. This convinced me I needed to forget the possibility of letting them go. Still, between rain and other demands, I continued to push off building a replacement.  There simply wasn't enough time.

We used these steps, built decades ago, for 8 years.

My priority had to be, at realtor request, to empty the house of all objects by June 21st. Monday through Thursday, beginning in June, I emptied furniture, packed books, removed art from walls for wrapping, all the while continuing to operate the nursery on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I spent several days accumulating and organizing objects for a yard sale to be held concurrently with nursery open hours. I hired a helping hand for this, yet, in the end, found it was an entirely fruitless enterprise given the fraction of objects eventually sold. I raked in about five hundred dollars, but I also paid the helper nearly four hundred. Not a good use of time or resources. With the looming deadline for delivering an empty house, I also tried, unsuccessfully, to get an estate sale company to sell off a hundred years of objects. They didn't find our things financially appealing or didn't have the time.

So I made the decision to hire a moving company to carry boxed items and furniture from the attic, second and first floors, as well as the basement into either the studio outbuilding (at the time filled with yard sale items and studio equipment) or a twenty-six foot truck. Anything remaining would be hidden in a closet or cabinet to render the house virtually empty. The items stored in the studio building would potentially be for sale while the truck-bound items would be shipped to a storage unit about one half hour to the west for safe keeping until a move date. Lucky, and quick with a deposit, I was able to secure six guys and a truck for the following Wednesday. The task then became tagging each item "truck" or "shed," and clearing the driveway of any remaining outdoor yard sale items to accept a large truck and organizing the studio to accept the majority of house's contents. That Wednesday, six guys worked eight hours to empty the house of large or heavy objects.

The following day, however briefly, I felt a sense of relief, even freedom. The attic was now empty of large objects, as was the second floor, but there were still many unpacked small items scattered about each floor. Each room generated its own contractor bag or two of trash, so I ordered a second dumpster. The dining room floor became the packing table and I hired a helper to wrap and box. Still, the empty house deadline of June 21 came and went, the listing of the house for sale continued to be kicked down the road and those steps were not built. 

With three thousand plants still in the nursery pen, I opened the nursery on July 4 and following days while continuing to package, hide or empty house contents. The attic was finally empty, as was the second floor -closets excepted. The dining room floor held an abundance of ceramic, art and otherwise fragile objects requiring packing and this occupied most of the remaining days. Although the basement continued to harbor items, I moved to clean it as if it was empty.

In that last week, before the open house showing scheduled for July 13th, at 11am, I was able to purchase materials and begin construction on the long overdue steps. The challenge was building a staircase of equal riser height between two fixed positions while using stock standard stringers -a convenience purchase that ultimately led to inconvenience. Off-the-shelf stringers have a rise of seven inches between steps, so I had to modify the stringers to fit evenly within a total rise of 26.5 inches. 

How is this done? First, divide 26.5 (the height of the deck) by the number of steps (4). The numerical result tells you the measurement (6 & 5/8th inches) of each riser. The problem comes with using off the shelf stringers, as they are always cut to 7 inches, the bottom rise excepted -this is cut to 6 & 3/4 inches. When treads are placed, this adds the thickness of the tread material to the bottom-most riser, so that it resolves to 6 & 3/4 inches plus 1 & 3/4 inches, or 8.5 inches -significantly higher than the 7 inch height of each center riser. 

For the upper-most riser, we measure from the deck surface down to the top of the next tread, below, revealing a riser height of only 5 inches! Wildly different heights between risers is against city code which allows only for a 3/8ths inch difference between steps. This is because differences above this number are potentially unsafe as our body intuits where to place our foot based on the last step taken. 

Three stringers and attached legs create "floating" steps unattached to the deck or sidewalk.

Time being short, I decided to cut the stringers' bottom edges down to about 5 & 1/4 inches to bring the bottom-most riser plus its tread thickness closer to seven inches. In doing this, I automatically extended the upper riser by the amount removed, so that the upper riser height is now closer to 5 & 3/4 inches -still way off from the needed 6 & 5/8ths needed to meet code. Now what? The only option left, aside from starting again with 2x12 boards to create new, custom stringers, is to plane off the necessary thickness from the top tread in order to increase top riser height. Doing so will reduce the 7 inch height of the riser below, so that each would need a bit of planing to stay within the 3/8ths inch code rule.

Time nor weather, however, was on my side. The torrential downpours began on Friday, but picked up on Saturday, lasting past 5pm. I had to hide my things, vacuum, clean, mow the now very wet grass and, still, my steps were not complete. Although treads were cut, they were not all attached, and riser boards (concealing the open space) needed cutting, painting and fastening. The realtor then added an additional appointment for 10am that Sunday, so I lost an hour, and gave up. 

An evening call with a friend help set priorities. Instead of fretting, I spent three hours on Saturday evening, until twilight, moving hundreds of pounds of scrap metal (what, I didn't mention the scrap metal?) scattered outside the studio, in like piles, into my van. With little light left, I decided to do something despised by mower and grass alike -cut the wet grass. There was no way to complete the steps -I would attach the loose treads in the morning and offer a warning for safety.

On Sunday I woke early, as always in a Minnesota summer, to begin hiding my things, remove the two van seats that became my temporary in-house furniture, vacuum, and clean. It was 9:45am and I was preparing to leave, as is required for these showings, when the text came from realtor John that the 10 o'clock had canceled. I answered "Great!" which I do not think he was expecting. "Now I can finish the steps." There was some sun, finally, so I cut the riser planks, painted and leaned them toward the rising sun to hasten drying. At 10:50am, a few minutes shy of the open house, I attached the nearly dry riser planks to the stringers and greeted the realtor. I never did get to plane the treads to come closer to meeting code, but I reasoned to myself that these were only temporary, anyway, and way better than the steps they replaced. 

Completed, although uneven, last set of steps.

I went to the neighbors to spend the next three hours sitting on their porch, had an iced coffee, then a beer, in succession. Waiting out the open house slumped in an Adirondack chair was all I could muster. As 2pm rolled around, I headed back to the homestead. The realtor was on his way out -his job done. No offers, no bites, they like the land, not the house -absolutely what I had anticipated and a hell ton of work ended up feeling anti-climactic.

It is fitting that this staircase, the last of five I've rebuilt, should be the project made a decade, nearly to the day, after the first set of steps I had built for my father in law, Rex, just three months before he died. Rebuilding his home's primary staircase was as much about showing him that things would be in good hands after he was gone as it was about necessity, that it was okay for him to let go. Ten years on, however, it's not only okay, but necessary for us to let go of this house and maybe his wishes, so that Betsy and I can put our lives back into our good hands.

 

 

The Ballad of 박은빈: The Age of Youth

 

The tenor of The Age of Youth is heralded in its opening theme, Dick and Jane, by Sydney York. The bubbly, even frenetic tune takes you on a journey that, at its end, pulses with dissonance. Most dramas I've watched over the last nine months have dark themes running parallel to romance, yet none have managed to weave together five distinct character threads, each with its its own trauma, as well as The Age of Youth, directed by Lee Tae Gon and written by Park Yeon Sun. Although each character, aged 20 to 28, is on their own path with work, school, friends, family, and love, they come together at their shared apartment called, ironically or not, Belle Epoque. Over the course of a season they learn how little they know about each other's past and present. As one character slowly unfolds in the presence of their housemates, so do the others, with varying levels of conflict and resolution.

Yoo Eun-jae

The show begins with Yoo Eun-jae, played by Park Hye-su, and her first day in Seoul, on campus, and at Belle Epoche. She is insecure and terribly yielding, and as anyone who has found themselves inserted into the lives of others knows, no less in the personal space of home, the experience can be intimidating. But Eun-jae is also troubled by her past and suppresses it, and with that, her emotions. Her subdued lead character is contrasted, at the end of the first episode, with the appearance of effervescent Song Ji-won, played by Park Eun Bin, whose only concern appears to be an inability to land a boyfriend. As it happens, these two opposite personalities are drawn to each other as the younger Eun-jae looks up to Ji-won and finds, maybe, a mother or sister-figure who is willing to stand up for her. 

Song Ji-won

Ji-won is outgoing and vivacious, but she does not know what troubles her, and her buoyant character can feel superficial, at times, in comparison to her housemates whose issues are revealed more quickly than hers. Ji-won's metered reveal comes in the form of her fictions, shared at home and at school, across several episodes deep into second season. Despite this, you like Ji-won -she's smart, outspoken, witty, brings people together and in so many ways seems to have it together, if only it weren't for that unknown nagging at her. 

Good question, Jung Ye-eun

The stories of Eun-jae, Jung Ye-eun, Yoon Jin-myung, and Kang Yi-na drive the first season. As their secrets unfold, bonds are built, and believably so. Voice-over is used to convey the thoughts of all the housemates, although I was particularly drawn to Yoon Jin-myung's internal dialogue. I imagine, at this age, that I would have found these portraits insightful throughout the psychological tumult of my twenties. Although the program had low AC Nielsen ratings in its broadcast season in Korea, its excellent script and word of mouth have kept it alive on Netflix.

 

Yoon Jin-myung

When people ask which Korean drama they should watch, The Age of Youth always lands among my top five. I think this is because it bests most shows in the young friends genre in Korea and even globally, but also because it disposed of so many common Kdrama vignettes filled with umbrellas, wrist-grabbing, and the lot. It is a show that takes the time to develop each Belle Epoche character so that each has her own specific gravity; all are relatable, even if you do not share their story.

 

Kang Yi-na

While much is resolved by the end of the first season's 12 episodes, what ails Ji-won only began to rise to the surface by then. So The Age of Youth returned with a second season to further explore the lives of Belle Epoche's young women. However, I found that the majority of the second season's 14 episodes to be, at best, sufferable. The replacement of actor Park Hye-su with Ji Woo as Eun-jae was jarring, but that combined with the narrative focus on her emotional, internal struggle with feelings for her ex-boyfriend was exhausting. What was previously relatable in Eun-jae became just shy of pathological, and although her troubles somewhat understandable, I think the writers simply gave us too much of it. At least they made space for character Jung Ye-eun to deal with her post trauma stress and Yoon Jin-myung to discover how to reach outside her tightly-defined boundaries, as well as the entry of a new member of the household, Jo Eun.

Yi Na is a novice driver...

The second season begins memorably with the first episode's comedic car ride and then, leaping over much of the middle episodes, finishes well with Ji-won's growth into a mature, investigative journalist in the final episodes. If it weren't for her story, I would have found it difficult to complete season two. When first season success leads to demand for a second season, the excitement doesn't always translate into production. Beyond the demands business can place on creativity, the original project can also exhaust the creative energy needed to breathe life into a second season.

This may be the case for Extraordinary Attorney Woo, too, although I have yet to hear much recently about that possible second season. As much as the character Attorney Woo placed Park Eun Bin on a global stage, Ji-won was her break-through role -one in which you will see hints of the future Attorney Woo. But don't get me wrong -the entire cast of The Age of Youth makes the show worth watching, and watch you should.

Ballad of 박은빈: Judge vs Judge

By the time I watched the 2017 series Judge vs Judge (aka Nothing to Lose), starring Park Eun Bin, I was a bit weary of her pure-hearted characters -strong-willed, tough when necessary, sensitive to others, things happen to her, she doesn't hurt others, she is the noble poor, hard-working, has something to overcome, and so on. For a young audience, maybe her characters can be an impactful role model, but for mature audiences, those of us who've lived long enough to have hurt others and feel regret at least once, her characters become an impossible person. These characters embody the self we wish we could be and with that, I wonder, what do we do? Aren't these actors capable of greater complexity? I think so, but they are hamstrung by an industry that insists on modeling mores.

But let's entertain the possibility that the lead character, the working class Judge Lee Jung-joo, wasn't prescribed the task of exonerating her brother for the heinous crimes for which he was framed? If only Lee Jung-joo, instead of displaying moral character by immediately disowning her brother and later fighting against power to prove his innocence, had to find a way to accept that her brother committed heinous acts. Could she not show courage by navigating her colleagues at court while shouldering the burden? Is there moral character in coming to terms with loving a family member that made such a grave mistake? Can a show ask how we live with those we love who've made terrible choices? The challenge to the screenwriter is modeling forgiveness in a way that doesn't diminish the severity of the crime, but also offers a path forward that isn't as black and white as imprisoning the criminal and forgetting they exist.

Toward the end of the series, as the real perpetrators are exposed, we are confronted with the possibility that those who are close to us are also capable of the greatest harm. The most difficult scene of the series was the confrontation of Park Eun Bin's Judge Lee Jung-joo with her mentor Judge Yoo Myung Hee, who (spoiler) was responsible for several crimes including pinning them on Judge Lee Jung-joo's brother. Korean dramas are good at rendering tearful emotion, but the contempt and disgust Park Eun Bin had to muster to deliver this scene must've been extraordinary and I found it the most memorable event of the series. 

Despite my criticism of writing that only models pure good and evil, it is difficult to imagine confronting such betrayal and finding within oneself any grace or forgiveness. Although it is easy to think the string of criminal acts presented is absurd, or that Judge Yoo Myung Hee's motives were not convincing, one can also imagine one self-serving misstep catapulting towards another, and yet another, until one has gone too far to see a path toward extricating the good person from the crimes they've committed. As Judge Yoo Myung Hee reveals in that scene -she was not herself and yet she was -the cognitive dissonance of being a good human being and criminal simply too great. I applaud the writers for attempting to relay this internal conflict. I also continue to ponder Judge Lee Jung-joo's struggle with her inability to think her brother was anything but guilty of the crimes he was framed for. We never get an answer to that -it's a question possibly intended to hang in the air.

In several scenes we see a blurred Christmas tree at the end of a courthouse hallway, a reminder that Christianity has a significant presence in South Korean culture. Not to make too much of the display, but notable that Christianity made space for contrition and grace, two ideas that are virtually meaningless in contemporary criminal statutes. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve (forgiveness, release) and not getting what you do deserve (incarceration or worse) and contrition is honest remorse and the deepest sorrow (with god as their witness) for hurting others. Neither of these come into play in Judge vs Judge, although I could argue that it shows in the acts of the son, Do Han Joon, of convicted Judge Yoo Myung Hee. Feeling shame, we find him dutifully helping the family of one of the people wronged by his mother.

Do Han Joon, played by the actor Dong Ha, is probably the most compelling character in the series. You are not sure what to make of him, at first. He is cocky and aggressive toward Park Eun Bin's Judge Lee Jung-joo, but eventually you feel pity for him as you learn he had little to nothing to do with the crimes of his parents. Korean dramas typically translate the shame of parents to the children, and the reverse is also true, and it is no different in Judge vs Judge. 

Judge Lee Jung-joo and Judge Sa Eui Hyun

Of course, he is also one leg of a love triangle, but never really had a chance, certainly not after it is revealed what his mother did to his love interest Judge Lee Jung-joo. The other leg is provided by the rather dull, but cocky Judge Sa Eui Hyun, played by actor Yeon Woo Jin. Fortunately, the love story takes a back seat to the behind the bench court proceedings and crimes. There is little fire between the two and Judge Sa Eui Hyun is awfully paternalistic. I can only imagine his ego has been constructed by his legal pedigree -his father, a lawyer and grandfather, a judge. Yet, he does deliver one romantic line in one of the final episodes while walking, at night, with Judge Lee Jung-joo. I won't share it -you'll have to watch.

Should you choose to watch -note that this series really begins like a slapstick comedy, even as it aims to deal with serious issues. Most of this is to model the change in the Park Eun Bin's Judge Lee Jung-joo from vulgar working class youth to mature and distinguished in her role as a judge. Issues of class play a role in almost every Kdrama, so it would be no different, if not heightened, in a court drama. 

 

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