Daniel Roth
Daniel Roth
Donald Young Gallery, Chicago
May, 2004
In Daniel Roth’s current project on view at Donald Young Gallery, the story of the Cabrini Green Forest comes into being through multiple forms of documentation. According to Roth, the mythical forest exists in a tunnel which connects the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in downtown Chicago to the Cabrini Green Housing projects. In the exhibition, the dark undercurrents of societal relations become caught up in a literal architectural schema, a literary technique made famous by Franz Kafka. Roth presents his fantastic story in a rather straightforward manner. As the modern precision of the correctional facility is reduced to crumbling bricks by the toils of age, an opening in the basement reveals a well kept secret, a system of criminal exchange planned long ago and carried into the present, a tunnel.
Nothing creates fascination than the eerie spaces of underground tunnels. Take the debate over whether or not Mole People make their home in the abandoned subway tunnels of New York. However, speculation must eventually give way to proof, and Roth, in the case of Cabrini Green Forest, is there to provide such proof, at least in the ways proof is typically presented.
Roth’s documents the tunnel and the forest. He has an architectural blueprint of the tunnel. He has a photograph of a mining car which could possible serve as a vehicle in the tunnel. He offers elaborate drawings of the forest. Finally, Roth provides two concrete documentation elements: an opening to the tunnel, and an electrical box, which has, over time been invaded by the roots of a tree growing in its proximity. These last two items were presumably taken directly from the depths underneath Chicago.
In the context of a gallery, Roth’s evidence does not add up; seemingly, the gallery walls themselves prohibit the possibility that this tunnel could indeed exist; Art, of course, is just the mirror of life. However, if one would imagine the same items tagged and bagged in a court room, a jury perhaps would be convinced. Which leads the viewer to consider how myths are constructed, and whether or not any of these myths, could possibility have a ground in the real world.
The exhibition presents a variety of myths focused on the controversies surrounding urban life: the implied connection between abject poverty and criminal behavior, an implicit cynicism over the effectiveness of rehabilitation, and the questioning of the dynamic between law and crime. Rather boldly, Roth actually takes a stand on these urban questions and the installation seems to give a series of answers to these questions.
His initial move in the exhibition is a dark opening, a door into the tunnel, set on the floor as it does in the blueprint of the Metropolitan’s basement. The square portal recalls the washing pool of a Roman atrium, a place for purification before entering the domestic house, the place where proper society interacts. However, Roth’s cleansing pool is green and the water inside is brackish and turbid, indicating that the purification of society is just another myth constructed for our benefit. The tunnel is surprisingly ambiguous. Whether the passage was used for escape or internment is unknown, and but one certainty is presented by Roth, the sinuous existence of trees roots, which take over and fortify the tunnel against any further use. This suggests that the relation between the Cabrini Green Projects and the Metropolitan Correction facility is a strained relationship, even the trees rise in revolt of such a connection.
Donald Young Gallery, Chicago
May, 2004
In Daniel Roth’s current project on view at Donald Young Gallery, the story of the Cabrini Green Forest comes into being through multiple forms of documentation. According to Roth, the mythical forest exists in a tunnel which connects the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in downtown Chicago to the Cabrini Green Housing projects. In the exhibition, the dark undercurrents of societal relations become caught up in a literal architectural schema, a literary technique made famous by Franz Kafka. Roth presents his fantastic story in a rather straightforward manner. As the modern precision of the correctional facility is reduced to crumbling bricks by the toils of age, an opening in the basement reveals a well kept secret, a system of criminal exchange planned long ago and carried into the present, a tunnel.
Nothing creates fascination than the eerie spaces of underground tunnels. Take the debate over whether or not Mole People make their home in the abandoned subway tunnels of New York. However, speculation must eventually give way to proof, and Roth, in the case of Cabrini Green Forest, is there to provide such proof, at least in the ways proof is typically presented.
Roth’s documents the tunnel and the forest. He has an architectural blueprint of the tunnel. He has a photograph of a mining car which could possible serve as a vehicle in the tunnel. He offers elaborate drawings of the forest. Finally, Roth provides two concrete documentation elements: an opening to the tunnel, and an electrical box, which has, over time been invaded by the roots of a tree growing in its proximity. These last two items were presumably taken directly from the depths underneath Chicago.
In the context of a gallery, Roth’s evidence does not add up; seemingly, the gallery walls themselves prohibit the possibility that this tunnel could indeed exist; Art, of course, is just the mirror of life. However, if one would imagine the same items tagged and bagged in a court room, a jury perhaps would be convinced. Which leads the viewer to consider how myths are constructed, and whether or not any of these myths, could possibility have a ground in the real world.
The exhibition presents a variety of myths focused on the controversies surrounding urban life: the implied connection between abject poverty and criminal behavior, an implicit cynicism over the effectiveness of rehabilitation, and the questioning of the dynamic between law and crime. Rather boldly, Roth actually takes a stand on these urban questions and the installation seems to give a series of answers to these questions.
His initial move in the exhibition is a dark opening, a door into the tunnel, set on the floor as it does in the blueprint of the Metropolitan’s basement. The square portal recalls the washing pool of a Roman atrium, a place for purification before entering the domestic house, the place where proper society interacts. However, Roth’s cleansing pool is green and the water inside is brackish and turbid, indicating that the purification of society is just another myth constructed for our benefit. The tunnel is surprisingly ambiguous. Whether the passage was used for escape or internment is unknown, and but one certainty is presented by Roth, the sinuous existence of trees roots, which take over and fortify the tunnel against any further use. This suggests that the relation between the Cabrini Green Projects and the Metropolitan Correction facility is a strained relationship, even the trees rise in revolt of such a connection.
posted by Ed | 1:33 PM
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