Paterson Patter
Nirvana signed to Geffen; Banksy's work now fetches record prices at Sotheby's. Who are we to begrudge the underdogs and iconoclasts their success?
A similar breakthrough to the big time may await Paterson, NJ. Birthplace of Alan Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams and stomping grounds of Robert Smithson, the US' first planned industrial city unmistakably influenced all these artists. Its desolate abandoned quarries and industrial infrastructure was celebrated in writing by Smithson and clearly influenced his thinking on the sublime and the sites and materials used in his artworks, especially his various pours such as Asphalt Rundown.
New Jersey officials recently unveiled a plan to turn Paterson's Great Falls area into a 60 acre park. Field Operations, which worked on the masterplan for the park, will undoubtedly do as good a job as any firm could preserving -- and highlighting -- the gritty industrial edge of Paterson as celebrated by Smithson.
But it is worth asking whether the Paterson that so enchanted Smithson -- forboding, risky, and raw -- can retain these qualities in the institutionalized form of a state or national park.