Curated by Yoko Ott & Jessica Powers
FEATURING:
Eli Hansen with Herman Beans (Tacoma)
August 6 - September 12, 2009
Opening Reception - Thursday August 6, 6-9pm
The physicists tell us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Push against an object and the object pushes back, at least until the force of your action becomes greater than the ability of the object to resist. There is apparently an element of the human character that parallels that law of physics. It is evident when an attempt is made to have a little boy take a bath, or to have a teenager clean up her room. Sometimes, the push-back becomes so counter-productive and even self-defeating that it appears to be generated merely by spite, rather than by rational thought.
This human element of spitefulness appears to come to its fullest flower when adjoining property owners disagree. Spite fences [houses] had a long tradition in urban America, at least until legal statutes and judicial decisions evolved as ammunition against them. Their builders have ranged across the social and economic spectrum, with the most spectacular barriers erected by people who possessed large amounts of both spite and money.
--Andrew Alpern, Esq. [1]
The Richardson Spite House is arguably one of the most notorious spite houses known. In 1882 the clothier Hyman Sarner set out to build an apartment building on his property, a few feet from Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. The small parcel of land—a five-foot wide strip running the length of Sarner’s property—between his property line and the avenue was owned by one Joseph Richardson. Figuring the land to be of little value, Sarner offered to purchase it for the sum of $1,000. Richardson, objecting to such a low price, asked for $5,000. Disagreeing with the plot of land’s worth, Saner recanted his original offer and proceeded to build the apartment building—with primely located windows overlooking the urban city street. Upon completion, Richardson, said to be an obdurate man, then embarked on an act of revenge of such scope and scale, it would become his legacy.
"I shall build me," he said to his daughter, "a couple of tall houses on the little strip which will bar the light from Sarner's windows overlooking my land, and he'll find he would have profited had he paid me the $5,000. … Not only will I build the houses," he insisted, "but I will live in one of them and I shall rent to other tenants as well. Everybody is not fat and there will be room enough for people who are not circus or museum folk." Mr. Richardson lived in his spite house for fifteen years, until his death. [2]
Fair division is a persistent and complex challenge, inciting spite in those who feel wronged by its outcomes. In economics it is known as the “cake cutting resource.” Group exhibitions are, by their very nature, land grabs and property disputes. When two art objects hang side by side there is an unspoken territory of spite between them. Spite also exists between the artist, the artwork and the audience, especially when an action of obstruction is implied—whether physical or conceptual—and often with self-defeating results.
SPITE HOUSE is an exhibition that will reveal invisible territories of spite. By articulating the threshold between spite-r and spite-e, the work in the show emphasizes that the vacillating polarity between these two extremes depends on how you scrutinize the property line.
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[1] Andrew Alpern, Esq. “Just for Spite”. Excerpt from an article adapted from his 1984 book, “New York's Architectural Holdouts”. http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON005.htm
[2] A.G. Van der Weyde. “The Queerest House In This Country”, (Originally published in 1921). http://www.oldandsold.com/articles14/new-york-49.shtml
