Hollow City: The Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American Urbanism

Book Description

Reporting from the frontlines of gentrification in San Francisco's Mission District, Rebecca Solnit and Susan Schwartzenberg deplore the skyrocketing rents and corporate buyouts that may be coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

In a letter to the San Francisco Bay Guardian's sex column 'Ask Isadora' a masochist wrote in to ask whether he really had to obey his dominatrix by sexually servicing their ancient landlord. Though the letter was on the surface about the extent to which a bottom's erotic obedience must go, it was really about what so much of here is about nowadays—rent." Reporting from the front line of gentrification in San Francisco, Rebecca Solnit examines the consequences when artists' love for space and authenticity in working-class areas, and rich peoples' love for the fashionable bohemia of artists' neighborhoods, are combined. The Mission, for instance, with its easier access to Silicon Valley, has become a standoff between hi tech's nouveaux riches and existing residents under threat from spiraling rents, including supporters of the Yuppie Eradication Project who advocate vandalizing expensive cars and restaurants in retaliation. Solnit is rueful about the decision by cities like San Francisco to increase their admission charges so that poor people, artists, and writers like herself can no longer afford to live in the inner city. Drawing on architectural history, contemporary urban studies, and vivid first-hand description, and enriched by the telling images of Susan Schwartzenberg, a photographer who weaves together her own work with older pictures to create complex portraits of place. Hollow City projects the end of city life for bohemians and its baleful consequences for American culture. 50 b/w photographs.

Customer Reviews:

outraged.......2006-03-22

I was outraged when I read this book... but not in the way you would think.

Published in 2002, this book is already quite dated. Now that it is 2006 and the dotcom boom has become the dotcom bust, this author's hysteria over gentrification and urban renewal in San Francisco-- all blamed on the dotcom phenomenon, mind you-- has been proven to be unfounded. In fact, in relative terms rents are more affordable now than they were back in 2002.

Where to start? This book is simply a long list of gripes and sour grapes about how San Francisco has gotten too expensive for spoiled "bohemians" to live in because they don't want to work. Perhaps most galling is how Solnit puts urban "artists" at the top of her self-righteous hierarchy of those who "deserve" to live in the City. Urban professionals are likened to "dirty old men" who follow around the innocent "schoolgirls" who supposedly are the artists.

The crux of the problem is that in her myopic, NIMBY-istic viewpoint, Solnit fails to acknowledge the fact that space in San Francisco has ALWAYS been severely limited. The city itself is only about 49 square miles and it has ALWAYS been expensive... it has always gone through change, sometimes rapid. Manhattan is the center of a worldclass, GREAT city. How does she think all of those tall skyscrapers got there? When Solnit mourns the loss of an unused, empty lot to development, I have to laugh.

You will find that the author considers herself a "radical" and associates with the originator of "Critical Mass", a regular, planned, and deliberate snarling of local traffic by disgruntled people on bikes. She also is in league with a local carmudgeon in the Mission who, over perceived "gentrification" in the neighborhood, put up fliers encouraging others to vandalize expensive cars on the street.

With an attitude like this, it's not hard to dislike such people as these who arrogantly call themselves "radicals" and "bohemians". All the while they are complaining about the high cost of living in SF (join the club!), they petulantly claim that to get a REAL job would compromise their ideals.

Give me a break.

The author also makes the extremely simplistic assumption that all "true" artists are by nature poor or "downwardly mobile".

I have news for the author-- San Francisco is-- and always has been-- made up mainly of hardworking people. This city was built upon that industriousness, ingenuity, and enterprise. Art has its place, but none of it would be possible without those taxpayers who HAVE JOBS. As a property tax paying citizen of the city I love, I resent her and her ilk assuming that it is their right to inexpensive or free rent in one of the most desirable places to live IN THE WORLD.

The thing that amazes me is the fact she can't see that it has ALWAYS been that way... for decades and decades. I had to laugh at the idea that this book actually mentioned a parody of how, in the height of anti-gentrification hysteria, the last Mexican would soon move out of the Mission.

Guess that was a wrong guess, eh?

Finally, as if it were a suprise, the author in her closing acknowledgments thanks, among a number of other parties, both Critical Mass and "the bar at Place Pigalle" where some of the work for the book apparently took place. I wonder if it ever felt vaguely hypocritical to the author to be condemning urban development and trumpeting the plight of the poor over $8 glasses of Belgian ale?

Extremists on either side are self-absorbed, self-righteous, and unrealistic in the extreme. I strongly disagree with everything George Bush stands for, but at least he doesn't have the gall and arrogance to assume such an air of superiority over the rest of us, especially those of us who actually work for a living. I only agree with the author over one point: idiots who drive big SUVs in the narrow streets of San Francisco are idiots. Other than that, I plan to continue enjoying San Francisco as a San Franciscan who does their fair share to keep this city vibrant, alive, and relevant. Let others stew in their own sour grapes.

this book has its points, but..........2004-09-15

This book has an interesting subject and lovely photography. I am sympathetic to the plight of gentrification. However, the tone of this feels as though she were a professional complainer. Neighborhoods change, that is a fact of life. The residents who were displaced in this book were undoubtedly not the same residents from the time it was built. You get the sense that the author feels like everything about every neighborhood is worth saving. It isn't. I'm not going to cry about a neighborhood with less crime. And what solutions are offered? Should one never try to improve a distressed neighborhood, so that no one ever has to move? What sort of building *should* be allowed in a city? Ms. Solnit has some very valid points in this book, but she comes off as anti-change and not really offering anything close to a solution, other than fossilizing San Francisco in the "good old days", whenever that was for her.

Shallow City: History of Its Flux from Origins to Eternity.......2003-03-28

The historical journey Solnit takes through the reoccurring demise of San Francisco's bohemian culture only leads to sob stories in the end and does little for her cause. Remember, these now run-down neighborhoods and homes were expensive and new when first built 100 years ago. Yes, it's horrible that in our time the materially rich are pushing the spiritually rich out of the city, but the book only shows that artists will one day come back again. It may not be the same as when we first came, but that's life - nothing stays the same.

A mild success.......2002-05-31

Although Rebecca Solnit writes with a deliberate and sometimes myopic agenda, her style is extraordinarily effective in evoking sympathy. It is elegaic in nature and the entire book reads as a eulogy, a fact reinforced by the shuttered structures and funeral processions presented in Schwatzenberg's photo essays. The digressions into such realms as the origins of Bohemia don't seem irrelevant or excessive but merely an extension of the beauty of the writing and presentation.

Although the issue has become less pressing with the collapse of the fervor of the internet economy, it should be noted the type of mass evictions in favour of live/work lofts is still a common occurrence in San Francisco, and that housing is still beyond the means of many ordinary San Franciscans. Despite the less fervent pace of gentrification, those in the funeral procession presented in the opening pages will not be returning to their homes; the character of their neighbourhood will not be restored.

The work is a mild success. Although somewhat obsolescent, it is still relevant, whether because of its still necessary impressions on the hearts of those who read it, or as a presentation of a historical phenomenon. But furthermore, as a literary work, and as a visual work, it is beautiful both in its prose and photography.

DOA.......2001-03-18

Well now that the dot com bubble has burst volume II can be the eviction of gentrification.

Hollow City: The Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American Urbanism

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Hollow City: The Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American Urbanism
Rebecca; Schwartzenberg, Susan Solnit
Manufacturer: Verso Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KZ62G6

The city: half full or half empty? (Planners Library). (book review): An article from: Planning

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The city: half full or half empty? (Planners Library). (book review): An article from: Planning
Harold Henderson
Manufacturer: American Planning Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Planning, published by American Planning Association on December 1, 2001. The length of the article is 1487 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The city: half full or half empty? (Planners Library). (book review)
Author: Harold Henderson
Publication: Planning (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2001
Publisher: American Planning Association
Volume: 67 Issue: 12 Page: 38(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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Book Description

Born in Berlin in 1958 and now based in Los Angeles, Uta Barth is among the most influential artists working with photography to have emerged in the last decade. Her photographs take the complete opposite approach to the famous Dusseldorf school of photographers which include Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky. While they record their subjects in sharply objective archival detail, Barth's images of interiors, buildings, suburban roads or natural environments are often out of focus, perversely cropped and apparently empty of any foreground subject. Yet what emerges from this reduction and abstraction of subject matter is a body of photographs of extraordinary, haunting beauty, evocative of great moments in the history of painting, from Vermeer to Whistler, or of a cinematic ambience such as the fume-laden neon haze of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

Customer Reviews:

A Revision of Vision: "Uta Barth" by Matthew Higgs (et al).......2004-11-21

This splendid monograph on the work of Uta Barth lays out in lavish detail how she deconstructs vision into a series of sensations and effects. She began making pictures of the backgrounds of snapshots, and then photos of the backgrounds of action film stills. Her aim was the periphery of conscious sight, and the results have been dazzlingly effective. She has progressed in this investigation of vision by adding the effects of the passage of time, and investigating the visual collapse that occurs from an extended stare. Her pictures are always rigorously composed and stunningly beautiful, and they are accurately illustrated in this superb book. The essays are smart and insightful, and the interviews are enlightening. Well worth the cost.

At the Edge of the Decipherable: Recent Photographs by Uta Barth

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At the Edge of the Decipherable: Recent Photographs by Uta Barth

Manufacturer: Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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Uta Barth: MOCA Catalogue
Elizabeth A.T. Smith , and Uta Barth
Manufacturer: St. Ann's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0971368104
Release Date: 2002-06-02

Book Description

Since 1994, Uta Barth has been creating series of photographs which consist of blurred images generated by focusing the camera on an unoccupied foreground. These unframed, empty, but lushly seductive images present only background information, implying the absence of subjects, and referring to the function of images as containers of information and the role of the viewer in reading that information. This book is a faithful reproduction of the long out-of-print catalog which was published on the occasion of Barth's first major museum exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in 1996.

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A nice collection of images...
A good sample

Uta Barth, ...and of time
Uta Barth
Manufacturer: Uta Barth
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Uta Barth: MOCA Catalogue

ASIN: 0967540410

Book Description

With indistinct, painterly compositions of light and pale color, Uta Barth once again takes the viewer along on her interior journey. …and of time is part of an installation commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Museum and curated by Lisa Lyons. Dimension: 81/2 x 91/4 inches, 34 color reproductions, Exhibition Catalog.

Customer Reviews:

A nice collection of images..........2004-02-21

I have several of Uta Barth's monographs. This one is the most conceptually interesting, consistent with her minimalist approach to subjects. This item is hard to come by because it's now out of print but you can easily find a copy through one of her galleries such as the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York.

A good sample.......2001-07-27

The compilation of photographs in this book represent a small taste of the unique style and eye of Uta Barth. With exercises in the blurred and beautiful, Barth makes random shadows and falling light on minimalist spaces shine in beauty. The ways she frames her images may seem odd and unintentional, but she comes up with some simple, spectacular shots. It is inspirational to an aspiring amatuer photographer. When I first saw one of her works at the Museum of Contemporary Art - Chicago, I began dreaming up blurred situations like some of those that she shows in this book.

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Imperfect Innocence
James Rondeau , Gary Sangster , Tacita Dean , Miriam Backsrom , Gordon Matta Clark , Lynne Cohen , Naomi Fisher , Dara Friedman , Paul Pfieffer , Bettina Von Zwehl , Doug Aitken , Janine Antoni , Uta Barth , Thomas Demand , Stan Douglas , Olafur Eliasson , Robert Gober , and Douglas Gordon
Manufacturer: Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art/Contemporary Art Museum, Baltimore
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Museums & Collections | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0967648033
Release Date: 2003-02-02

Book Description

Janine Antoni photographs a pair of hands joined in a M bius strip of long, polished fingernails; John Baldessari commingles images of politics and handguns and primary-colored spheres; John Coplans offers his feet as self-portrait; Gregory Crewdson tells the cinematic, mysterious tale of a random street in some suburbia somewhere; Thomas Demand constructs the illusion of a soundproof room; Rineke Dijkstra portrays herself as a bather at an indoor pool in Amsterdam; Anna Gaskell shows a drowning Alice (or is she treading water?); Dan Graham sites New Houses behind Chain Link Fence, Jersey City, Ny; and Andreas Gursky reveals the frenzy of the Chicago Board of Trade. These photographs and many, many more form the Miami-based collection Debra and Dennis Scholl have amassed over the last two decades. Representing an important selection of the major figures in contemporary American and European photography, they are here accompanied by essays from Nancy Spector, James Rondeau, and Michael Rush, three of the most important curators of contemporary art.

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Beautiful, disciplined, challenging
Beautiful Book, Super cool artist
Uta Barth: In Between Places

Uta Barth In Between Places
Uta Barth , Sheryl Conkelton , Russell Ferguson , and Timothy Martin
Manufacturer: Henry Art Gallery
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0935558373

Book Description

Rising star Uta Barth is one of the most exciting and innovative artist/photographers in the world today-her enigmatic and beguiling images have again and again transfixed art audiences from London to Los Angeles. Barth's work draws its strength from its blurring of the familiar and strange, bringing the viewer to a liminal space between the two. It is in this space that Barth begins her investigation into the very nature of perception, where the epistemological importance of such formal qualities as lighting and composition becomes astoundingly evident. Uta Barth: In Between Spaces is the first comprehensive book on Barth's oeuvre, presenting a carefully selected survey of her works, and as such is a must-have for viewers, collectors and students attracted to contemporary art and photography. The poetic resonance, radical intelligence and sheer beauty of Barth's pictures are given perfect illustration in this book, designed with the artist herself. Uta Barth's work is represented in numerous public and private collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Tate Gallery, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. She has had solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, London, San Francisco, and Stockholm.

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful, disciplined, challenging.......2001-01-20

At the risk of repeating what has already been said: this is a deeply intellectual and beautiful work by a significant artist. Ms. Barth presents a disciplined and challenging oeuvre. The prints are in color and the aesthetic rush is immediate. One should view Barth's work in a gallery, if only for the totality of the experience. The sheer size of her work; the impact of her triptychs and so forth, cannot be contained within the pages of a book. This book, however, successfully displays the painterly sensitivity that Barth brings to her camera work.

Beautiful Book, Super cool artist.......2000-12-04

The deeply evocative photography of Uta Barth finds its match in this most excellent publication. Barth's imagery, purposefully blurred though it may be, is beautifully presented in this book, which is perfect in its scale and balance between word and image (kudos to the designer.) Three texts round out the mix: Russell Ferguson's take is, as always, critically incisive and highly engaging and Timothy Martin's reading is downright poetic (he writes about her work in terms of perception and phenomenology -- very convincing.) I also appreciated the interview with this very mysterious artist -- it really helped me gain insight into her practice. As for the price: art books with good production values, good work and good essays are hard to find. This one is well worth it.

Uta Barth: In Between Places.......2000-11-19

An absolutely astonishing book, "In Bewteen Places" is the record of the exhibition of Barth's work on display in Seattle's Henry Art Gallery, as well as a very thorough record of her development over the last ten years. Her elegant, unsettling, serene, engaging images are shown here in full plates as well as details, many of which are interspersed throughout the book's excellent critical commentary. The criticism is well-reasoned and intelligent, but the images themselves are ravishing. I own two of her photographs, and the reproductions here are superb. At a time when art books in general, and photography books in particular, are expensive exercises in self-indulgence that are often ludicrous puff-piece advertisements for the galleries that sell the work, this book is a shining exception. It's truly worth the cost, and I highly recommend it.

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Uta Barth's Genius of the Unconscious

Uta Barth: nowhere near

Manufacturer: Barth Studios
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0967540402

Book Description

Containing selections from a project in three parts-shown concurrently in Los Angeles, New York, and Stockholm-Nowhere Near exists as a sort of cinema in flux, a photographic investigation into perception and time that resists any will-to-narrate. Presented in mainly in diptychs and triptychs of precisely uniform dimension, every picture here features essentially the same subject-a large window in the artist's home with a view overlooking her yard. Some images focus on the view through the window: into the yard, at a tree, or off into the distance. Others are focused on the window itself or some component thereof: rain streaks, fingerprints, dust. Still others reflect the interior of the space. The sum effect is one of displacement-of the artist/viewer relationship, of the senses, and of subjectivity itself.

Customer Reviews:

Uta Barth's Genius of the Unconscious.......2000-03-26

This book is the first of three in a series (the second, 'and of time...' recently published with the J. Paul Getty Museuem in Los Angeles). Barth's subject is the obviousness of the unconscious. By creating photographs of objects that are - for her, at least, banal - she creates a context in which one might find a more meaningful level of discourse about the subject. In these photographs of windows in her home (and their views) she produces a series that presses the viewer to reconsider the very nature of a 'portal'. That the photographs are very beautiful in themselves only furthers the impression of a dream-state. Within them one reconsiders one's own conscious reaction in light of hers, thus bridging - emotionally - a path to unconscious perception. Jan Tumlir's essay provides the context for the work in a clear, concise prose, reminding the reader of Barth's philosophical importance, as well as her artistic value. A highly recommended book by one of the most innovative artists working today.

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Uta Barth, outstanding contemporary photographer

Uta Barth: White Blind (Bright Red)
Jan Tumlir , and Uta Barth
Manufacturer: Site Santa Fe
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0970077475
Release Date: 2004-06-02

Book Description

Uta Barth aims her camera at the everyday places that are ignored or overlooked, taking note of the incidental and the passage of time, while being deeply engaged with looking at nothing. Included here are photographs from the series nowhere near, ...end of time, and white blind (bright red).

Customer Reviews:

Uta Barth, outstanding contemporary photographer .......2005-03-01

In Tumlir's essay titled "Uta Barth: Figures of Stasis and Flux," he writes, "By purging her pictures of their ostensible subjects, [Barth] has sought to redirect our attention to a kind of perceptual noise, that which intrudes all around: in the setting, the outlying objects, the air." In this "purging" of the subject, Barth's art photographs are quintessentially postmodern. To some, they might seem nihilistic in their austerity and spareness. The photographs are a series of leafless tree branches against a winter sky. But as Barth explains about her art work, she is not making a statement about nihilism; rather she is trying to evoke awareness of perception. The tree branches can be seen as neural networks. Perception can in some ways be compared with the process by which a camera makes a picture. The depth and relevance of the intended artistic interplay with Barth's photographs depend on sophisticated understandings of psychology and physiology along with keen abilities in introspection, conception, and articulation. They also depend to some degree on inventive understandings of psychology and physiology--which inventions this artist tries to bring to birth.

Uta Barth (exhibition).: An article from: Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine

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Uta Barth (exhibition).: An article from: Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine
Tom Folland
Manufacturer: Parachute Contemporary Art
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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ASIN: B00097V8OG
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine, published by Parachute Contemporary Art on April 1, 1997. The length of the article is 1009 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Uta Barth (exhibition).
Author: Tom Folland
Publication: Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 1997
Publisher: Parachute Contemporary Art
Issue: 86 Page: 44-5

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What pictures look like.(Book Review) : An article from: Afterimage

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What pictures look like.(Book Review) : An article from: Afterimage
Bruno Chalifour
Manufacturer: Visual Studies Workshop
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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ASIN: B0009Y9BFM
Release Date: 2005-07-25

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Afterimage, published by Visual Studies Workshop on May 1, 2005. The length of the article is 643 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: What pictures look like.(Book Review)
Author: Bruno Chalifour
Publication: Afterimage (Refereed)
Date: May 1, 2005
Publisher: Visual Studies Workshop
Volume: 32 Issue: 6 Page: 42(1)

Article Type: Book Review

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