The Curious Case of Less is More

"Mr. Guy!" says Gus, shaking our hero from a deep Ovidian dream involving Gothic decorative elements.

It is 11:00 A.M. and we find Art Guy and Gus lodging in a dingy hotel in central London. Art Guy puts on his glasses and sits up, feeling especially excited for his latest archaeological contract.

"Have you heard about the new exhibition at Tate Modern? We have to go, it's the last day. Can we can do that before excavating Purbeck marble shards from the crypt of St. Etheldreda's?"

"Not sure we have time Gus, those shards won't wait for us if someone beats us to them."

But the look on Gus's face instills our hero with regret.

"Okay, I'll just catch it next year," says Gus.

"Gus, in the Tate Modern the exhibitions change by the year," says Art Guy. "You'll never be able to see it again if we don't go today. We're in London; let's have a little fun."

When the fearsome duo step out of the rain and shake out their umbrellas - Art Guy with a black standard model and Gus sporting one decorated with inverted details of Van Gogh's Sunflowers - they pause for a breath before moving to the Turbine hall of the Tate Modern. Once there they survey the exhibition space.

"How interesting," says Gus.

"Gus, are you sure the exhibition hasn't already moved out?" says Art Guy.

The Turbine Hall is utterly empty. They walk aimlessly through the space, Gus with raised eyebrows watching Art Guy, Art Guy surveying the architecture. A security guard walks up behind the team and says, "Less is more," with an inflection on the word 'more' that denotes irony.

"How many times have you said that to someone today?" says Art Guy to the security guard.

"About a hundred or so. This is the 'less is more,' exhibition, so I'm supposed to say it to everyone."

Art Guy says, "What exhibition? All I see is an empty turbine. And if there's an exhibition there would be a wall text explaining it rather than a hired guard, don't you know anything?"

"There's no culturing some people. Good day sir," says the guard. He walks off.

"What's with that guy?" says Art Guy.

"It's an exhibition of nothing, don't you see?" says Gus.

Art Guy looks around, sighs, and rubs his eyes.

"No wall text needed. Materials: nothing. Artist: nobody. Acquisition date: never. Why? Because less is more. It's the ultimate in less."

Art Guy says, "Great. Are we done here?"

Gus, looks around, "Let me take it in for a little while longer..."

---

The next day, Art Guy waits by the phone for what can only be a momentous phone-call. Finally, the archaeological supervisor of Ely Cathedral rings.

"I found the shards," says our hero heroically.

"Which one?" says the curator.

"All ten. We should be able to put Etheldreda's ankle back together and at least be able to diagram out the engraving of the later casket."

"That's fine," says the archaeologist. "Are any of the shards in a particularly interesting shape?"

"What do you mean? They're all kind of pointy. If that was my cue to say a crude joke I missed it because I'm an art history scholar and don't have those skills."

"We're looking for something Matisse-esque. There's a big new wave of exhibitions coming out with the 'less is more' tagline. We want to compete with the sensational new Tate Modern exhibition."

"But you're a Gothic cathedral, what are you going to do with a Matisse-shaped shard?"

"Probably present it in a glass box in the Lady Chapel, where we're planning to hold our new exhibition - 'Empty Ely: less is more.' We're thinking of moving out all the sculpture, it's a little overwhelming don't you think?"

"Wait, don't you think this is a rare opportunity to show a 'gesamtkunstwerk?'"

"If that's a type of polygon, not so much. Do you have anything curvy and squiggly? If you don't, we're probably best off putting up nothing at all during the exhibition - that really would be 'more,' if you know what I mean."

"I'm afraid I don't..."

"Say no 'less,' Mr. Guy. Say no 'less.' Thanks for your help!"

And with that the Ely archaelogical curator hangs up.

"Hey Gus," says Art Guy.

"Yeah?"

"Let's go to a pub."

---

"Is less really more, Gus?" says our hero five drinks later.

"I suppose not: why would they call it more if it was less, and why would they call less more if it was more? Shouldn't they just call it what it is? What a conspiracy. Hey Mr. Guy, what did you think of that Tate exhibition?"

"Vasari used to praise paintings for multitudes of figures and scenes, and whenever in a Renaissance contract you saw the words, 'multiple figures,' it was always followed by, 'in the most beautiful fashion.' Yet those paintings have been broken down into their individual scenes and bought up by people who hunger to look at less. We've made a fetish out of it."

"Whoa, keep your fetishes to yourself buddy," says Gus. He turns across the bar and says, "Another round!"

"The worst part of it though is that I can't say I disagree. Have I been socialized into preferring still-lives with three pots rather than seven?" says Art Guy.

"Less is more needs to be qualified," says Gus. "Less is more, except with booze." The round arrives.

"Giotto knew that less was more," says Art Guy off into space while sipping. "He only showed you the figures you needed to see."

Gus says, "But what about Giotto's Last Judgment. Isn't that a testament to Vasari's favored aesthetic? The monumentality of the moment augmented by multitudes of figures undergoing various punishments, donations, acts of contrition. All wrapping up the tour de force of the entire program, the 'gesamtkunstwerk' if you will, of the Arena Chapel?"

Art Guy perks up. "Yes okay, fair enough, you have a good point Gus. But what about the way that Giotto divides those multitudes into easily identifiable frames? Isn't he successful in pulling the viewer into the individual scenes and out of the gesamtkunstwerk."

The bartender says, "If I hear you lot say that word one more time, I'll get the bouncers over here. I don't want any trouble."

"Frames," says Gus.

"Frames," our hero agrees.

---

"Hey is this the Ely archaeological staff?"

"Indeed, it is. Is this Mr. Guy? I recognize your voice."

"Less is more at the Tate Modern, right? They understood what less could do for an exhibition given its frame. It made me pay attention to the architecture of the space, guiding my interest successfully to the frame of the work. You have a framing that is compatible with a similar exhibition."

"You mean, 'Empty Ely?'"

"Draw attention to the sculptures of the Lady Chapel, so that people can see them in their full splendor. Diagrams aren't going to help them. No one from the middle ages or our age would come to see a diagram of the casket of Etheldreda."

"What should we do with your shards?"

"I don't know. But for the sake of us all, don't remove sculptures from the Lady Chapel. Frame them with this 'less is more' thing or whatever you want to call it. Or better yet, draw attention to them as the frame."

"Have you been drinking, Mr. Guy?"

"With a brilliant scholar named Gus."

And the archaeological institute hangs up the phone.

Art Guy looks over at Gus.

"How's your wife these days, Gus?"

"Doing well. I got her to watch those great Sister Wendy episodes explaining the Arena Chapel."

Our hero stares blankly across the suite.

"Want to watch an artist biopic?" says Gus.

"Yeah, just a moment though." Our hero shuffles through his Etheldreda shards and picks up the phone.

"Hey, Ely Cathedral? It's me again. I've got a real squiggly one for you."

The Old Library (part two) - the brutal truth

We last left our hero and his good friend Gus in Bumsville, NC on the sad case of the 1960's library, a relic of Brutalist Architecture, and its pending demolition. A terrible man with slick-backed hair is running the demolition and cares little for modern architecture. Does anyone else? Art Guy in Jeans seeks the answer...

"Gus, my friend, I fear that in this day and age, most people wouldn't see this library the same way you see it," our hero says.

"What do you mean?" says Gus.

"Great architecture to them is either something very old or very new. As for the mid-modern stuff - Frank Lloyd Wright is safe, sure, and Corbusier, but other than that..."

"I don't understand. Are you saying the people of this noble town will let those schmucks tear down our old library?"

"Let them? Gus, they'd love for them to destroy that library. You could sell tickets to the demolition. The architectural style is dead and gone, and nobody likes it."

"I like it. Don't you like it, Art Guy?"

Art Guy is silent. He doesn't like his opinions set loose at the wrong moment.

"Gus, you asked me to help you save this building. And I think a building that wants saving deserves saving. I'm behind you every step of the way."

"Thanks, Mr. Guy!"

"Get me on the phone with the mayor," our hero says.

In the main office of the town hall, a Neo-Classical building of brick and wood, the mayor of Bumsville answers the phone.

"Who is this?... Old library? We don't have a library in this town, trying to waste my time?... What was that?... What, that old cemented up rat hole?... Uh, huh... Well I'll tell you what, Mr...what did you say your name was?... Well, okay, Mr. Guy, I'll tell you what...try getting 100 signatures of people who don't want to see that modernist disaster blown to smithereens, and I'll bring it to the floor... Yeah, you bet, good luck Mr. Guy... I'll be surprised if I hear from you again."

The mayor rolls his chair around playfully and then asks his secretary about the old library.

"I've been there a couple times," says the secretary. "But why do we need a nuclear space station to store books?"

Gus and Art Guy spend the whole day on the phone, hearing similar responses:

"That place gives me the willies. The roof looks like it could fall right off and crush my car."

"Why are the windows tinted? It's like the Shakespeare section is a headquarters for top-secret Government conspiracies."

"When I return books to the drop-off slot, I feel like I'm going to be gunned down by Imperial Troops."

By the end of the day, they only have interest from 15 people, and Art Guy is starting to long for the Medici's Lorenzian Library, part of the San Lorenzo church in Florence, designed by none other than Michelangelo Buonarroti. Now there's a library worth saving.

"Gus, let's have a beer," says our hero. "We've made our dent today."

Weeks go by on the project, and somehow they muster up 100 signatures. Most people interested in saving the building are batty old hermits from the distant suburbs. They remember the days of old, when cement spaceships were in their prime. The architect, a fellow by the name of H. L. Jones, is living in San Diego at the age of 74, and has donated 2,000 dollars to the cause, vaguely aware of having built the thing. Art Guy and Gus show the dumbfounded mayor the list of signatures, and at this point the hearing is scheduled for next Monday. Over a celebratory beer, Art Guy comes to a dark realization.

"Gus, they're going to bring it to the floor in less than a week," says our hero.

"Isn't it great! I knew we could do it. Where there's a will, there's a way," says Gus.

"No. We haven't won yet. They're going to bring it to the floor in a week, and everyone will vote for the side of demolition. We haven't rallied any public support from the town. The only people who signed were old bats from the suburbs."

"With a little help from your art historical database of a cranium we'll win with flying colors. What are you so worried about, Mr. Guy?"

"If only I had some inside piece of information, something really historical about that building to talk about, we'd seal a win."

Beers abandoned, our hero and Gus hop into the pickup truck and drive down to the old library on Old Oak Lane.

There's almost no moon, but the Bumsville sky is alive with stars. The library stands before the preservation-minded partners as Art Guy takes down some key dimensions in his moleskine.

"You know Gus, even if the demolition guys win in court, they'll need a lot more than dynamite to make a dent in that cement."

Art Guy, armed with climbing gear, takes half an hour to pick his way to the bottom lip of the cumbersome roof slab that signs the building as Brutalist. It's the tallest library he has ever ascended, and our hero needs his special fresco-viewing binoculars to see Gus's worried expression below. Our hero knows he is safe because of all the horizontal slabs that jut mysteriously from the building's fabric. Within twenty minutes, Art Guy has scaled the overhang of the roof, entered the air vents, and broken into the storage floor of the old library. Our hero never said it was going to be easy.

Art Guy switches on a flashlight and browses piles and piles of hardcovers that are long out of print. He even finds an art history section. He cannot believe what he's seeing: extensive studies on landscape architecture, a log of confessions to artistic atrocities written by Pietro Perugino. Art Guy reaches for an especially large volume of "unabridged" Vasari and reads a few pages - to find that it pays due respect to the Sienese. Our hero suddenly feels cold and vulnerable. There, what's that? He's gotten thoroughly distracted by the art literature in the top floor of the Brutalist library, but maybe this one will help his case. It's an overview of modernist architecture. He flips 60 percent of the way through and finds an entry on the very building he has broken into:

According to legend, The Jones Library in Bumsville, North Carolina, is home to a sacred spring of lost literature not on public display. The owners of the library have long ago lost the key, and only a planned demolition of this disposable example of eccentric '60's monumentality can reveal the lost treasures.

"Lost the key!" our hero says aloud, forgetting he's in a library.

How could they just lose the key? What is this, Florence? Our hero reflects on a hotel in central Florence that has access to an underground Roman road, but upon our hero's investigation of the location, the hotel owners confessed the key had gone to the city government, and nobody was allowed to see the road. Just as nobody was allowed to see the lost books of Bumsville, NC.

Apparently nobody tried sneaking in the vents. In this case, our hero has found the stash of lost books and has a burning desire to steal the objective version of Vasari. But what of the demolition? If this architecture book was true, maybe the demolition was all a plot to recover the treasure by pillaging the rubble. That would crush the slick hair guy in court and might be enough to save the building. Art Guy packs up only the architecture encyclopedia, remembering the scariest moment of Alladin, when the monkey wants to take more than just the lamp and the tiger cave gets angry and swallows up all the good guys. As our hero breaks for the ventilation infrastructure, a strange voice calls out from the bowels of the book dungeon.

"Who disturbs the fiery night of the library at Old Oak Lane!"

And the age old mystery of the tinted windows suddenly becomes clear...

(to be continued...)