B E B E R E

Frank Gehry also comes to mind - generally I find his designs to hit that agreeable place inside me. The Guggenheim philosophy (commissioning museums to be put up in areas that they think need more world focus - Bilbao, for example, though I'm not so sure as to what MA MoCA is to have accomplished, short of creating a sort of Las Vegas like strip of gentrification in North Adams.) strikes me as well-intentioned, too. What just stopped me cold, though, was something Gehry was quoted as saying to a reporter for an appreciation of his new auditorium at Bard in the French paper La Libération (think the Guardian in French). Please pardon my fading memory, but the essence of the statement was "I supported you and was against the invasion of Iraq...why aren't you commissioning more buildings from me?"

Isn't that a hoot?