“When the present has given up on the future, we must listen for the relics of the future in the un-activated potentials of the past.” –British theorist and music writer Mark Fisher (1968-2017)
The third issue of Ursula magazine, though not officially a theme issue, is full of portentous anniversaries and considerations about their meaning for us now: the 50th of the first landing on the moon; the 100th of the founding of the Bauhaus; the 50th of the publishing of Danny Lyon’s seminal photobook and historical exegesis The Destruction of Lower Manhattan; the 40th of the end of the daring collective art experiment known as 84 West Broadway, launched by artist friends in TriBeCa in the late 1970s, an ethos and a time now so removed as to feel extraterrestrial. As the avant-garde composer and guitarist Rhys Chatham, a participant in the space, said: “This was before the age of the internet, so we all had to live very close if we wanted to see each other regularly. And people would come down to see us. It’s where normal people went to dream, I guess.”
Scenes from the issue:
For the cover conversation, Don Eyles, the pioneering software engineer who wrote the code that landed the lunar module safely on the powdery surface on that momentous July day in 1969, sits down with the artist Matthew Day Jackson, an old friend, to ponder the more transcendent aspects of an achievement the world has not duplicated since the Nixon administration (though at least a couple of billionaires are trying hard).
A portfolio marking the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus, another revolution in thought and aesthetics, that takes you back to Dessau, the school’s second and best-known home, to follow Swiss design pioneer Max Bill and his little-known early days as an expressionist painter.
An oral history of the forgotten art space known as 84 West Broadway, gathering the voices of many who were involved: Peter Nadin, Louise Lawler, Daniel Buren, Sean Scully, Rhys Chatham, Jane Reynolds, Lawrence Weiner and Julie Barnsley.
A visit to Chillida Leku, sculptor Eduardo Chillida’s sculptural oasis in the Basque country, recently reopened to the public, framed through the memories of one of the artist’s most cherished assistants, Fernando Mikelarena.
The Keepers is our column about collecting as a mutant species of art making. In this issue, Bob Nickas visits the storied record collection of fellow curator and post-punk partisan Matthew Higgs.
Cabinet of Curiosities: A special foldout section showcasing the unlikely collaboration between painter Anj Smith and adventurous Italian design atelier Fornasetti.
A portfolio that ranges surreally through the Chinese landscape by Polish painter Jakub Julian Ziolkowski.
Unknown Pleasures, a personal essay by curator Alison Gingeras on childhood, Catholicism, visual catharsis and getting high with John Richardson.
Epitaph: The unwavering crusade of Lyn Kienholz, “sherpa” of Los Angeles art, remembered by a friend, Carol Kino.
Anxiety of Influence: Jazz critic Ben Ratliff follows the obscure trail of bebop pianist Lennie Tristano’s influence on postwar art.
Letters from the archives: Arshile Gorky’s painterly notes to his daughters, Maro and Natasha, in the summer of 1947.
Profile: Morgan Jerkins on emerging filmmaker Garrett Bradley’s visceral verité, now on view at the Whitney Biennial.
Psychogeography: Our new column about place and history. In this issue, Swiss essayist Stefan Zweifel expands on the rich and fraught history of Bellevue Square, Zurich.
Recipe: Martha Rosler, semiotician of the kitchen, whips up a “Patriotic Jell-O Salad” for our times.
Non Finito: Our farewell until next time. A glimpse back at Danny Lyon’s The Destruction of Lower Manhattan, published in 1969, and his final view of the original home of the pioneering artists known as the Park Place Group.
