Lonely and down on her luck, the unemployed Mina at the heart of the story, accepts a job as a fortune teller in a café in Istanbul, reading coffee cup futures for paying customers. Mina ignores multiple eviction notices and bides her time squatting in her apartment that is scheduled to begin construction any day, while plotting her escape to a more promising future in the United States. There is a pervasive feeling of powerlessness in the lives of the three central characters in Present Tense, all of whom are struggling to shape their destinies in the rapidly changing city, where little apparent heed is paid to their existence. Söylemez has managed to capture the unrest that has been fomenting in her homeland, at the critical moment just before its eruption. How prescient.

Söylemez describes her intention to create a visual landscape that is a projection of Mina’s inner world. “The empty building where she lives, the lonely garden by her window, the neighborhood near the sea, the dream-like background at the cafe and other locations all reflect the changes in her psychology,” she observes. “These are details and textures of Istanbul which are doomed to disappear soon.”

This interview with Söylemez was conducted on Thursday, May 30, by Skype. Two days later, on Saturday, June 1, Söylemez forwarded me a petition authored by a friend who was living in Taksim Square, to save Gezi Park — one of the last-remaining, public, green-spaces in the city — from destruction. By government decree from Prime Minister Erdogan, Gezi Park is set to be remade into a shopping mall within Ottoman-era replica army barracks. Erdogan has been criticized for overstepping his powers, imposing his “Napoleonic” will through sweeping urban redevelopment in Istanbul. In 2012, he readily won re-election with over fifty percent of the vote, but he has been perceived of late, as a leader dismissive of the opinions of those who did not vote him in, and he has been criticized for the use of excessive use of force by riot police in responding to protesters with tear gas grenades and water cannons, which has left 4,300 injured and 3 dead in the two weeks of conflict to date.

When I inquired at that time if Söylemez was safe, she responded:

“We are safe at the moment. Although almost everyone here has had their taste of teargas. Taksim Square and Gezi park now are full of people day and night, coming from all neighborhoods, different towns. The park has become a symbol of freedom of speech and the right to protest, a symbol of the right to free assembly.”

Present Tense has yet to be picked up for distribution outside of Turkey; however, as curiosity about the conditions leading up to this conflict reach an all-time pitch, foreign distributors may come knocking for an opportunity to share Present Tense with the global community. As goes the ancient Chinese proverb: “May you live in significant times,” a blessing and curse for artists and filmmakers who dare to be relevant.

Here is the interview from May 30, 2013, just prior to the start of the conflict.

Sophia Stein: When you arrived in San Francisco, your very first night, you were awarded the New Director’s Prize ($15,000) at the San Francisco International Film Festival. In your acceptance speech, you commented that in your first impressions, San Francisco struck you as very similar to Istanbul. In what ways?

Belmin Söylemez: Well, the bridges — we have two bridges connecting the continents, with the sea in between. And the hills — Istanbul is a city built on hills. I like hills because they give the city perspective. Istanbul is also a very cosmopolitan city, and I could tell that San Francisco is cosmopolitan and multicultural, as well.

S2: How have things changed during the course of your lifetime in Istanbul?

BS: The city is changing very quickly. They are calling it urban development, but its gentrification. You can witness it happening in the film. Historical cinemas and buildings are being demolished. A part in the city-center is being destroyed. Many characteristic buildings and neighborhoods are being remade. It is a huge change, and it is making me and a lot of other people very uncomfortable, because the inhabitants are being pushed out. I really wanted to reflect that ongoing change in my film.

S2: Who do you feel is responsible for pushing out the inhabitants?

BS: We can call it the system, but I think it’s a universal thing. It’s global capitalism. Historical, characteristic places are being turned into shopping malls. Of course. I’m not against change, but the inhabitants and the [essential] characteristics should be preserved, without which tourism couldn’t even exist.

S2: Were you born and raised in Istanbul? Have you lived there your whole life?

BS: I was born in Istanbul and raised there for a little bit. Then, because my father was a diplomat, we traveled a lot. I lived in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey; we were in New York and London for a while. My [extended] family, my grandparents and the rest, basically lived in Istanbul. So we came to there for holidays every year, and we spent every summer there. When I was coming and going, I could witness the changes that were taking place in Istanbul more clearly, the stark differences. My parents and my brother settled in Ankara, but I chose to live in Istanbul.

S2: How would you characterize the difference between the Ankara and Istanbul?

BS: Ankara was formed during the Turkish Republic, so it’s a kind of new city. And Ankara has no sea. I like Istanbul because it’s very beautiful – the sea, the two continents … It’s Europe and Asia, east and west at the same time — it’s a cliché, but it’s true. You can live in Asia and work in Europe or vice-versa; you can just catch a boat and cross to the other side. Istanbul has all these magical aspects. It has a kind of dreamlike quality, for me.

S2: It is ironic that apparently more people will see your film Present Tense abroad, than in Turkey?

BS: Yes, unfortunately there is a big problem with distribution of independent films in Turkey. The characteristic film theatres are closing down one by one, and it is very difficult for art-house films like ours to get distribution in the country now. We are hoping to get it into the cinemas here in September.

S2: How do you feel about digital distribution?

BS: I see it as a positive thing. It’s liberating. You can get to see a lot of world cinema, which you won’t be able to see in theaters. But at the same time, you know — the magic of watching a film in a theater, when it’s all dark, and you’re by yourself, and you going to that world, that’s something else! So, I miss that.

S2: Tell me more about the inspiration for your story.

BS: I went through a similar period to the main character, Mina, where I was unemployed and lonely and wanted to move abroad. Friends of mine (mostly young women) went through similar periods. So while going through this unclear and ambiguous time, we were telling each other these coffee cup stories and trying to give one another hope. I was always thinking that I should start writing about this, and I did. I started taking notes about seven years ago. As the story evolved, I started writing together with Haşmet Topaloğlu, who is also the producer of the film. We outlined together, wrote our scenes separately, and then would look at it together. But the most fun was when we were writing the coffee cups scenes, because we were really drinking a lot of coffee and trying to read each other’s fortunes from the coffee cups, and writing it down at the same time. That was a lot of fun!

S2: In the U.S., people read tarot cards, but not coffee cups so much. Can you tell me a bit about the tradition of reading peoples fortunes in coffee cups in Istanbul?

BS: My grandmother did it and my mother did it, so I grew up actually hearing the coffee cup stories. It’s a thing in the Balkans region and the Middle East. It used to be done more at home, as a means of gossip — communication between women behind closed doors, basically, but now it has gone out more into the street. There are lots of those cafés that you see in the film, where young people go to find some hope. A lot of university graduates who are unemployed are working in them or frequenting them as customers.

S2: Did you ever work as a coffee-cup fortune reader?

BS: That was purely from my imagination. While we were looking for funding, I had friends who would suggest, “Why don’t you start working in one of those cafés, that’s how you can get the money for your film!” It’s a very low budget film, made mostly with our own means and the support from family and friends. Near the end, we got some post-production funding from the Ministry of Culture.

S2: What does the title of your film, Present Tense, mean to you?

BS: It has a double meaning. Mina is trying to escape from the present into the future. All the characters in the film are trying to escape into a new life in the future, but they’re stuck in the present. At the same time, Mina is trying to learn English. So Present Tense also refers to her struggle to learn English. In the beginning of the film, Mina is a lonely woman looking for hope; at the end, there is Fazi, so there is friendship and solidarity.

S2: I am curious about your relationship as an artist to your homeland and to your native language. Are you committed to staying in Turkey, or do you still identify with the desires of your protagonist, to escape?

BS: There are times that I do want to escape. And I do escape for a while, but then I always feel that I’m drawn back here. I think it’s a kind of instinct that is difficult to describe. Istanbul, Turkey – it’s my city and my country, but at the same time, life here is what gives me inspiration for my work. It is such a dynamic culture and city… even though it’s changing a lot, it’s also inspiring me a lot. So I cannot think of myself living elsewhere. Obviously, to visit other cultures is very important. But we always return to our own homeland, I think, where we get our inspiration. I cannot say that I completely belong here, but I feel at home here.

S2: What are some of your upcoming projects?

BS: I have two narrative projects in mind, both inspired by life stories. One of them is set once again in Istanbul today; it is about actresses and the art circles, with a realistic feel. The other story is set in the south of Turkey, on the Mediterranean coast; it is a more surreal story of a young woman. I have strong feelings for both projects. I will have to decide soon which one I’m going to concentrate on making next.

S2: There are more films being made in Turkey at present than any place else in Europe, except for France. To what do you attribute this Turkish filmmaking renaissance?

BS: The awards that some Turkish filmmakers have won — for example, Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon A Time in Anatolia, Three Monkeys) — I think, have encouraged new filmmakers to make stories about themselves and their own worlds. There were lots of social issues that needed to be addressed and many stories that needed to be told. We have a group, which we call The New Cinema Movement, where directors and the producers come together and talk about distribution and other problems. Cinema in Turkey is booming, with many up-and-coming women directors.

S2: Did you have an opportunity to see some of the other films at the San Francisco International Film Festival while you were visiting?

BS: When we arrived, our driver, David G., picked us up from the airport wearing this wonderful 1930s gangster outfit, and whisked us off to see the silent movie, Waxworks, in the Castro Theatre, which was a wonderful experience with live music! We used to have this film theater in the center of the Istanbul, The Emek Film Theatre, which was recently destroyed, unfortunately, despite the many protests. So, it was affirming to see such a wonderful, historic theater being so well-maintained, and watching a movie there.

________________________
 

Out of concern about the escalating tensions in Istanbul, I emailed Söylemez just last night for an update. The following is her response from Wednesday, June 12, 2013:

Sophia Stein: If you had to predict the future, to read the coffee cup for this conflict, what do you see?

Belmin Söylemez: I see a long, difficult winding path with trees and many people. The people all seem different, but they also seem to be united with the same energy. It looks like they are speaking or reaching out, but the path seems blocked at the moment. In other words, this path also looks like a milestone, a turning point in which many different people are saying ‘no’. This is a simple human ‘no,’ not a politically ambitious one.

S2: What is the best possible outcome, in your perspective?

BS: The government realizes that they are making a mistake. They pull back the police force and listen to the voice of the protesters (their own citizens). The park area stays a park. Officials responsible for violence and misuse of their power are questioned in court. The government re-evaluates their so-called ‘urban development policy’ in favor of the environment and low-income-people. All citizens of the country have a say in issues that concern their lives: like public spaces, education, health …

S2: And the worst case scenario?

BS: I don’t even want to think about it. — The most obvious would be: The government destroys the Gezi park which symbolizes the protests and the voice of the public. They build a replica of the Ottoman Barracks. The barracks contain a shopping mall with all the same chains that you can find within 200 meters. Taksim Square becomes a rectangle of concrete buildings with no open space and no green at all.

S2: Do you continue to feel safe in your home in Istanbul? Or will you temporarily evacuate the city?

BS: I feel safe but also worried. Still, the neighborhoods away from the demonstration areas have no risk. I don’t have any plans for leaving the city for that reason.

S2: Are you participating in the protests? As either a protester? Or documentarian?

BS: Like many filmmakers and artists, I have been going to the park to support the people there. We, as filmmakers, have established a network for the Gezi Park protest. We have a tent in the park where filmmakers, actors, artists and film technicians show their support to the protesters and also talk about what could be done in that process. Moreover, I have participated in a collaboration of filmmakers, in filming a documentary about the park and the resistance there.

Posted 6/12/13

Sophia Stein writes about film and is a regular contributor to Cultural Weekly. Stein hails from USC School of Cinema-TV. She worked as a Hollywood development executive, editing assistant and post-production supervisor. Currently, she resides in the San Francisco Bay area. She appreciates most those films that make her think, as well as laugh or cry.

Images, from top: Director Belmin Söylemez; CNN news footage of protests; two scenes from ‘Present Tense’

Müller’s text, thickly braided with allusions to German intellectual history, gives us a Nietzschean Hamlet, a Dionysian Hamlet. In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche writes:

In this sense the Dionysian man resembles Hamlet: both have once looked truly into
the essence of things, they have gained knowledge, and nausea inhibits action; for their
action could not change anything in the eternal nature of things; they feel it to be
ridiculous or humiliating that they should be asked to set right a world that is out of
joint. Knowledge kills action; action requires the veils of illusion: that is the doctrine
of Hamlet.

The rest of the play Müller devotes to ripping away those “veils of illusion” which have made radical political action possible in the twentieth century. Evincing now-ubiquitous postmodern nostalgia for the the so-called “grand narratives” of history promising, say, religious redemption or proletarian emancipation, the play depicts a world descending into chaos as technologism and terrorism begin to fill the void. In the final image of Hamletmachine Ophelia, allying herself with the victims of history, the subaltern of the “third world,” the feminine, any and all “others,” identifies herself as Electra, and leaves us with a baleful warning:

“I expel all the semen which I have received. I transform the milk of my breasts into
deadly poison. I suffocate the world which I gave birth to, between my thighs. I bury
it in my crotch. Down with the joy of submission. Long live hate, loathing, rebellion,
death. When she walks through your bedroom with butcher’s knives, you’ll know the
truth.”

Ophelia’s explosive rage is the photonegative of Hamlet’s paralyzing nausea, his apathy and ennui. Her vision for the future of human existence is simple: cosmic annihilation. This is how she responds to centuries of oppression. For her, there is nothing left of this man-made, male dominated, and now man-despoiled world worth saving.

Thirty-four years and several waves of feminism later, Magda Romanska’s Ophelia offers a rather more complex response to the marginalization of “the feminine” in history and the specular positioning of female characters vis-a-vis the male protagonists of literary history. This Ophelia is herself a writer. She casts a thoroughly jaundiced eye on heterosexual relationships, but paradoxically tries to present herself as a woman capable of desiring and being desired. She oscillates between cool distance, total inthrallment, and yes, rage. She has exceptional perspective on her situation and is often exquisitely poised, quoting Plato on pleasure and pain while Hamlet vegetates in front of the television. Elsewhere, she joins Hamlet in couples therapy, or appears as a vulnerable young woman followed by a foully purposed Hamlet through Port Authority at two o’clock in the morning. Elsewhere we see her in a wheelchair, a repurposing of Müller’s that gestures towards the nascent contemporary awareness that “disability,” is, like class, race, and gender, a category much in need of deconstructing. Sometimes she and Hamlet become difficult to distinguish from one another, as in one of the play’s many “impossible” stage directions where Hamlet’s face “slowly morphs into Ophelia’s face. She is wearing an army helmet, which she covers in a black headscarf.”

Romanska gives us an unsettling and internally conflicted picture of global gender relations taking into account, as Müller did not, the diverse and occasionally mutually exclusive needs that feminism (or any revolution) must attempt to satisfy. Müller brings us to the brink, then charges the victims with the responsibility for remaking an inhabitable world in their own image. Romanska’s play interrogates the premise of this assumed responsibility, even as it takes absolutely seriously the imperative to imagine a way to get beyond the aridity of exhausted white, bourgeois, male, heterosexual narratives.

“Hamlet, my darling,” Romanska’s Ophelia begins, “I do not wish to identify with you or with her.” As traditional masculinity and femininity are both models constructed by men (if also policed by women complicit in their own oppression), Ophelia finds she must write herself into history if she wants to be truly represented. Her revolution is first a revolution in language, and in this sense Romanska owes more to that tradition of astringently feminist, linguistically challenging playwriting which includes Sarah Kane and Elfriede Jelinek than she owes to Müller. In the UK and Austria, respectively, Kane and Jelinek have each explored the ways in which, as women embedded in the calcified permaculture of our fatalistically post and pre-modern moment, the only meaningful act of creation may be one of negation.

A worthy heir to this legacy, Romanska carves out a space of critical resistance in Opheliamachine, a space where the ugliest and the most beautiful of our desires can exist, as they do in life, side by side, where the death-dealing and life-giving vie for dominance. At long last Ophelia speaks, but she has many voices. If we can begin coming to terms with this kind of complexity, with this cognizance of human finitude, with the presence of death in life, Romanska seems to suggest, we may find it possible to begin remaking our broken world even though we do so this time without any “image” to be our guide.
 

‘Opheliamachine’ will have its world premiere at the City Garage Theatre in Los Angeles on June 14, 2013. Information here: http://www.citygarage.org/opheliamachine.html

Jessica Rizzo is an M.F.A. candidate in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at the Yale School of Drama, where she also serves as the Managing Editor of Theater Magazine. Her essays and criticism have appeared in Theater and have been translated for publication in foreign periodicals such as Romania’s Scena.ro. She has worked as a dramaturg and assistant director at the Yale Repertory Theatre, where her collaborators have included Tina Landau and Robert Woodruff.

Image: ‘Opheliamachine’ photo by Paul Rubenstein.

I remember a door, white door. Handprints on it.

                      This is not good news, she said.

Not the taxi ride, the conversation. Just the door.

                      I don’t see anything there, she said.

A waiting room, everyone young,
everyone almost a child and me
almost dead. Well, something
inside me dead. That much I knew.

                      We don’t do this in our office, she said
                      and handed me a shiny pink brochure,
                      one corner gone like a bite.

A paper gown, paper slippers.
I thought, How will I walk
without tearing them?

                      Sorry, she said. Sorry
                      she said. And smiled.

In the room a girl,
fourteen perhaps, looked at me.
Don’t worry, she said. It’s not bad.
They’re nice. I looked at her,
she looked at me, her pupils
lit by the filthy fluorescent
hanging like a casket from the dropped ceiling
covered in dull white fire-retardant
sound-reduction tiles.

                      At least we know it can happen, she said,
                      It’s conceivable. No pun intended.

Next, they said and she went,
sucking a lollipop.

                      See you in another six weeks, she said
                      as she closed the door.

Next, they said. Next, they said.

_________________________

________

Rabbit

There is something
                                            not quite right
about this, the container
                                            where he eats, sleeps, defecates, lies
with ruinous abandon
                                            or in a dull stupor,
unable to tell us
                                            which, if either;
amid wisps of hay, the now
                                            flowerless broccoli, stems
untouched, all we had
                                            today in the fridge;
nibbling the pellets
                                            of who knows what
we give him, chewing
                                            the plastic bars
in periodic frustration
                                            or lusty enjoyment,
long ungainly feet
                                            stretched out behind him
not unlike the keychain
                                            I had as a child,
good luck charm, piece
                                            of some unlucky being
I carried like a wounded
                                            directionless compass,
exploring the sensation
                                            of owning bone and fur
as we do now, owning
                                            up to it at least, buying
his food, his cage, toys
                                            (mostly unused), treats, him—
and where do we go
                                            from here, where does it
lead us, such captivity,
                                            if not to the outer reaches
of ourselves
                                            where distance
or ambiguity
                                            whisper that he is
much better off,
                                            he is safe, as we watch
the moist protruding eyes
                                            watch us: strange creatures
doing everything
                                            and nothing at all.
 
 

Cultural Weekly is proud to premiere these poems.

Jennifer O’Grady’s first book of poetry, White, won the Mid-List Press First Series Award for Poetry. Her poems have appeared in Harper’s, Poetry, The Yale Review, The Kenyon Review, Southwest Review, Poetry Daily, and “The Writer’s Almanac” with Garrison Keillor, among many other places. She is also a playwright and the author of several plays, including Charlotte’s Letters (about Charlotte Brontë in Brussels) and Juggling with Mr. Fields (about W. C. Fields at the end of his life). A 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee, she lives with her husband, son, and daughter just outside New York City.

It is beautiful here beyond explanation. I even got to see buffaloes, which has been a dream of mine since I first learned the words bison and buffalo in 5th grade, my first year in the US.

But part of me, of course, hasn’t been able to let go of the stress. In the last two years as we were planning two huge events, one personal and one business related, I didn’t foresee that the two events would collide in one crazy month, possibly the craziest month of my life:

Our family trip to Teton/Yellowstone and the release of Antidote, our eagerly awaited collaboration with José Luís Peixoto.

We return home on June 15th, the author arrives in LA from Portugal on the 17th, a cocktail dinner party for him on the 18th, then the book release on the 20th.

Thank god our partner Peter is back in LA holding it all down and doing alley heavy PR work on his own while we’re gone. I can’t imagine pulling this off without him. We’d have had to cancel at least one of these things for sure.

In fact, originally, this trip we scheduled and José’s travel schedule fell on the exact same week! Fortunately, he was gracious enough to change his dates.

Anyway, there’s really not much more to say about José at this point, other than to remind you that he truly is one of the more celebrated writers in the world and that his writing takes me to another world each time I read it.

So we all hope that you’ll join us at the book release. We hope that it will be a packed house.

I am finishing this piece at a spot overlooking the waterfall and the canyon. There is even an osprey nest at one of the peaks. We can see the baby osprey in it moving its head around.

Both loving and hating this crazy impossible month. But this is the life we’ve chosen all piling up in a whirlwind few days.

Breathe.

Posted 6/12/13

Chiwan Choi is the author of two poetry collections, The Flood and Abductions. He is also Co-Founder and Editor of Writ Large Press, a downtown Los Angeles based literary small press.

Copyright © 2013 by Carol Green. All rights reserved.

Carol Green, the creator of Cultural Weekly’s original comic series, Life After Birth, is a coach, writer, illustrator, veteran film publicist and wry observer living in Los Angeles.

Please contact us for information about syndication rights.

Maybe Dvořák is the answer to air travel nightmares.

When a group from The Philadelphia Orchestra found itself delayed on the tarmac for three hours waiting for their flight from Beijing to Macao as part of the 2013 Residency & Fortieth Anniversary Tour of China, a quartet of musicians decided to provide a “pop up” performance for the passengers.

Juliette Kang, violin
Daniel Han, violin
Che-Hung Chen, viola
Yumi Kendall, cello

Stephen Wilkinson, better known as Bibio, hails from central England and has long been regarded as one of the most creative producers and electronic artists in the industry. His music has always been considered somewhat experimental, but he takes a new turn on his recent release from Warp Records, Silver Wilkinson. Enjoy the video for the song A tout à l’heure, which Bibio directed and for which he also shot most of the 8mm film. It’s been a favorite track of NPR’s New Music feature and was recently one of the most viral singles on Spotify.

Is it vaudeville for the soul? Communal ceremony? ArtChurch?

I founded The Secret City, and even I have a hard time describing it!

That’s because people have such expansively different experiences. Here’s what they say: If we could bottle the positive energy in that room today, it could change the world. A truly wonderful experience. Amazed by the continuing creativity. A revelation, a celebration, and an inspiration. Funny, touching, and wonderfully, unorthodoxically spiritual. The Secret City is like everything good in life in one package: song, dance, spectacle, storytelling, humor, irreverence, connecting people, and getting somewhere deeper.

To fill in the picture, here’s a little history.

Begun in NYC in 2007, The Secret City is the Obie Award-winning arts organization that worships art. With monthly gatherings in New York City, and quarterly gatherings in LA, each event has a unique theme, with art and performance curated around that theme. Each event follows a template that is structured like a religious service, but filled with art and performance – our house band, the work of a visual artist, a food offering from a local chef, cultural calendar, live performance, an interactive component, a story, silent meditation, a featured musical guest, and songs by our choir, The Secret City Singers. Afterward, we have a coffee hour where people bring food to share, and folks hang out and reconnect with friends or make new ones.

Sounds kinda like church, huh? And that’s one of the reasons it’s hard to describe what we do, because our mission is to do the work that religious communities do but for non-religious people, those who find connections and purpose in art. We believe that art-making is spiritual, involving mindfulness, intention and discipline, and that art itself connects people in ways that are joyful, inspiring and deep.

Since 2007, we’ve presented an amazing array of artists and performers including Grammy winner Rosanne Cash, Tony Winners Stew and Michael Cerveris, downtown stars like Justin Vivian Bond, Taylor Mac, John Fleck, Jennifer Miller, Jomama Jones, as well as tap dancers, jugglers, aerialists, harpists, singers, painters, collagists, sculptors, hula dancers, fiddle players, Balkan singers, Butoh dancers, contortionists, sound artists, a beatboxer, playwrights, actors, DJs, burlesque performers, spoken word artists, African drummers and many, many more.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of The Secret City as a tent revival. But tent revival might make you think of fire and brimstone and people speaking in tongues. So, maybe I should say Artistic Tent Revival, but don’t let the artistic part of that phrase make you think it’s exclusive: The Secret City is for anyone in need of reconnecting to their source.

Thousands of people have taken part in our services. Last year, after 5 years of holding our events in New York City, we started making quarterly pilgrimages to LA.

So here’s an invitation. If you’re in the LA area, please join us for our next LA gathering, Sunday, June 16, 2013, at noon at Bootleg Theater in Silverlake, 2220 Beverly Boulevard. The theme will be OBSESSION, and we have a great line-up of artists and performers taking part. Bring a food offering for the coffee hour, if you like. If you want to get involved, email us to volunteer. And, bring your friends. There’s a suggested donation of $15. If you have kids, you can bring them, too; we provide free childcare.

I really hope to see you at The Secret City; I’m excited to hear how you’ll describe it.

Posted 6/12/13

For more info, visit The Secret City at www.thesecretcity.org. Bootleg Theater directions and information: www.bootlegtheater.org. To volunteer for Sunday’s event, please email info@thesecretcity.org.

Cultural Weekly is a proud media sponsor of The Secret City.

Chris Wells, an Obie Award-winning writer and performer, is also the founder and host of The Secret City, an art-worshipping collective with gatherings in NYC, LA and soon, the world. His newest show is a collection of stories and songs inspired by his upcoming book, I’m About To Touch You, a Memoir in 29 Stories.

Last week, Virginia Postrel, a columnist for Bloomberg.com wrote, “Great artworks shouldn’t be held hostage by a relatively unpopular museum in a declining region. The cause of art would be better served if they were sold to institutions in growing cities where museum attendance is more substantial and the visual arts are more appreciated than they’ve ever been in Detroit.”

Postrel went on to cite declining levels of support for art in the Detroit area, and further suggest that if the Detroit Institute of the Arts’ masterpieces were sold to the Getty in LA, more people would appreciate them.

That’s a position only a non-art-lover could love. Taken to its logical extension, Postrel’s plan would concentrate art in a few wealthy, highly-populated enclaves, and leave the rest of the country art-less, jobless and homeless. It would ratify the view that art should only be purview of the elite, and give a whole new spin to the concept of Haves and Have-Nots—as in, “We have the art, and they don’t!”

While art can be a commodity, which is why some works of art sell at auction for astronomical sums, the purpose of a museum is to stand as a bulwark against the commodification of art. Most museums are non-profits and all take seriously their charge to act in the public trust. Museums acquire art not for its financial value—museums are not speculators—but for its aesthetic and cultural importance.

Nor is art a popularity contest, with its consequence measured at the box office. It would be ridiculous to get rid of art just because there aren’t lines of fans waiting to get in, just as it would be unthinkable for a library to throw away a rare volume just because no one has checked it out in the past year. Museums, like libraries, hold our collective culture. Their presence alone represents value and meaning.

What would be the economic consequence of a massive sell-off of Detroit’s art? The further decline of a city on the edge. Which leads to my modest proposal, quite the opposite of Postrel’s.

Most museums exhibit only a fraction of their collections. The rest, as much as 90%, is stored in archives and warehouses, far away from the public eye. What if America’s most successful museums sent the best of their non-exhibited collections to struggling museums in distressed cities—like Detroit? Previously unseen works would be seen, and struggling museums would see an uptick in attendance.

Even more importantly, the presence of more art would help revitalize the community. Art—in museums and galleries, on public walls and private studios—makes neighborhoods more welcoming and cities more vital. Art brings foot traffic and businesses; restaurants open and café tables spring up on the sidewalks. Soon people begin to regard these urban areas as more attractive; industrial buildings get converted to living spaces and new families move in. The cycle of civic renewal begins again and, with it, a stronger economy.

Virginia, you’d be better off acting like Santa Claus instead of the Grinch. We should pour more culture into cities that need revival, and watch the creative process work its magic.

Adam Leipzig, Cultural Weekly’s publisher, former president of National Geographic Films and senior Disney executive, is CEO of Entertainment Media Partners and a keynote speaker. He is the author of ‘Inside Track for Independent Filmmakers: Get Your Movie Made, Get Your Movie Seen and Turn the Tables on Hollywood,’ available here and at iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kindle, and Nook.

Image: Cotopaxi by Fredric Edwin Church (1862) in the collection of the Detroit Institute for the Arts. Photo © 2013, Detroit Institute of Arts

A few months ago the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners unanimously approved an “Exclusive Negotiating Agreement” with a group of developers for the redevelopment of a 30-acre waterfront which includes Ports O’Call. Hopefully, its replacement will be able to combine a not-nostalgic / not “pseudo-something” sustainable design, and at the same time create an adequate “space for people,” without triggering gentrification. Not easy, but possible.

“As is,” Ports O’Call is not architecture of any design value. Built in 1963 as a pseudo New England village, it is narrowly sandwiched between the waterfront and an ocean of asphalt. Yet, although it is linked to Los Angeles’ core by a narrow umbilical cord, it attracts a significant segment of the city’s Latino population. Families and friends come in large groups, ranging in age from a few months to the late 80’s. Round tables for eight or long ones for many people invite socialization.

The place touches all senses: sound, smell, taste…The views are dynamic. With a background defined by the suspended Vincent Thomas Bridge, thousands of piled containers and protruding cranes, ships pass by, seagulls overfly and the water waves splash against the docks

It is a place to enjoy and learn from. Architects, designers, planners and decision-makers in politics and investment financing can absorb a few things from Ports O’Call on how a right combination of setting and affordable commerce can touch people’s emotional needs. Good design could make the difference between “nice” and “great!”

 
Rick Meghiddo is an architect and urban designer, who is dedicated to informing and educating people about the meaning and value of architecture.