Collected Collections Cosmos. Comment on Alison and Peter Smithson’s “But Today We Collect Ads” from 1956 and Reyner Banham’s “The Great Gizmo” from 1965.
There is a lot that seems fresher in sixties Banham than in fifties Smithsons: the bold language versus the light, the gizmo gadget gimmick versus the objet trouvé, Midwest versus Central European, pop people versus pop art, and, above all, mass consumption versus artistic production. Banham’s Old-World-New-World fad obviously approves itself in these two texts, both, however, written from Britain’s splendid isolation. Whereas the Smithsons think on cultural renewal in times of promotional reproduction, Banham believes in the North American civilization (no roads, just Coke dispensers). Whereas the Smithsons refer to Le Corbusier, Banham relates to Ole Evinrude (the one with the outboard motor).
Yet, there is the word that turns everything upside down, namely the collect of the Simthsonian text. Where is this collection of ads? Why wouldn’t they give one concrete description of, at least, the extraordinariest piece of their founds? After all, it is they who ask for modern artists to face popular culture by learning from it. Why does Banham, instead, keeps on giving pastoral descriptions of founds one by one? Why does he organize his text as if it was a collection catalogue of gizmos – even including most important attributes of collectables: unique, discrete, factual, difficult to generalize?
Because, Banham is the artist, the Smithsons call for: the one who recognizes, what is fine and desired by all society, the one who identifies folk art objects, historical styles, or industrial artifacts and methods that become important at one particular moment. The one who gets the measure of the powerful and exciting impulses of popular culture. Banham is actually the artist, he tries to oppose in his text. He is an Old-World-Neo-Dadaist, who revalues profane objects to declare them quasi art objects. It could have been a urinal, but as well a waste disposer unit… Banham recognizes those things that do not even have a proper name as most powerful objects to change the face of America. His agri-utopian gesture is European old school avant-gardism: It argues in means of technological innovation, it negates any origins or roots (roads), it is radically anti-academic and anti-establishment, and it knows that it will only be recognized after having been a hundred years in the field. Of course, this gesture stands for its author, and not for the objects, hinted at. Therefore, it is no problem that there is no other name than gizmo for them; the main thing is the name of the author Banham.
And the Smithsons? They turn out to be quite up-to-date in their conception of modern culture – we might only radicalize in one point: Today, it is not so much about fine arts versus popular arts. It is rather about a culture in which everyone (in the Old World = Europe, the U.S. and other first world countries) can become an author, no matter if as collector, curator, blogger, …
Banham’s cosmos of weird gizmos reminded us of the first modern collections, the Wunderkammern; we wanted to collect a few of these micro architectural collections…
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