A Prelude
(p. 7-8)
Some years ago,
Ingo Niermann offered ten muchquoted
visions, or “solutions,” for the Federal Republic
of Germany in his book
Umbauland. In stern solemnity
laced with a friendly sarcasm that is unmistakably his,
Niermann argued how to make things better, on many a
different level. Now I, among others, have been invited
to pick a nation of my choice. In view of
Solution's willfully
imperial, supercilious bent — “sorry to interrupt,
but here's how to improve this country of yours” —
I opted for the USA, still the most proficiently colonial
place I know. And from this perspective, I think the
double colonial negative has served the book well.
The choice of nations aside, I'm a little less
confident regarding the nature of my suggestions in
and of themselves. The most engaging aspect of this
writing exercise, from the writer's perspective, is that
you begin to reassess whom your criticism — and the
tips, compliments, complaints, and wisecracks of this
text in particular — would benefit if it were to be read
on even the smallest scale. This question is revisited
in my essay, albeit without offering the slightest hint
of an intelligent answer. (OK, maybe the slightest hint.)
For answers of the kind we have other books, more
discriminating but possibly less entertaining than
mine, since the objective here is not to educate America
so much as to produce a pleasurable text purporting
to do just that.
Much of this essay was developed in late 2007,
while I was teaching at two art colleges in Los Angeles:
the Art Center in Pasadena and Otis College in Santa
Monica. I am deeply grateful to Meg Cranston for
making that stopover possible, but also to Bruce
Hainley and Jane McFadden for their support. Some
passages are partially borrowed from essays published
in
frieze and
Bidoun magazines, to which I am equally
indebted.
