one last hoorah

FROM OUR FRIENDS up at Yale:

Thursday, February 16 - Saturday, February 18
Philip Johnson and the Constancy of Change
Symposium, organized with the collaboration of the Museum of Modern Art

Rumor has it that there's a panel discussion on the politics of Philip Johnson that will include Joan Ockman, Reinhold Martin, and Michael Sorkin. I'm pleased that Yale -- an epicenter of Johnson-philia -- at least has the guts to include participants who may refrain from the brainless praise and deification that often characterize commemorative events like this. Although there is a glaring omission of Franz Schulze, whose 1994 biography provided in-depth insight into Johnson's infatuation with Nazism (for even more, see this article by Kazys Varnelis), I'm especially surprised that Michael Sorkin was invited. Sorkin has been relentless in his critical stance towards Johnson, from his seminal 1988 essay "Where Was Philip?" to his more recent reflections on PJ's careeer.

Needless to say, I'll be there.

link: Philip Johnson: An Essay by Michael Sorkin, from Architectural Record
link: We Cannot Know History: Philip Johnson's Politics and Cynical Survival by Kazys Varnelis