Robert Smithson at the Hotel Tarlabaşı
It’s really got no center, it’s really quite dedifferentiated. It might look
like a Bellotto, all those square lines and angles and daubs of squalor,
but actually the whole logic of the place is impossible to fathom.
Take, for example, the stairways, the way they don’t lead to anywhere,
how they simply disappear into the sky, the same way the penthouse
windows do, the way the floors aren’t worth standing on, lead nowhere.
The ground-floor windows I really like, too. They’re portals of darkness,
black passages and you can’t imagine what’s lurking inside them.
You can see how they’ve used fire to collapse boards into piles or heaps,
interlacing upon interlacing, and they’ve left here and there a pillar
or two, holding up nothing at all. There’s no explanation for them,
a kind of meaninglessness defying logic. The egg-shell blue paint
is supersaturated and chipped, it’s got this super-gritty feel, it’s very
satisfying. I love how they haven’t just torn it down, how they’ve
left it in this sort of intermediate state, it’s all the things you love
but also all in ruins, it’s very smart actually, the way they just leave
it there. There are all these little touches they’ve added, the chickens
in cages by the door and the graffiti saying something about whores
and not throwing trash, even though it’s scattered all around here
in a rather pleasing way, not to mention the docent on the threshold
yelling threats and obscenities at photographers and passers-by.
I mean, it just feels very authentic, like something unobtainable,
impenetrable, it’s very gratifying how it’s in conversation with
the ancient churches and mosques and the markets and festivals,
it’s just so philosophical. That chair leaning in one of the middle windows
is just so evocative of the passage of time and the transitoriness
of the beautiful and it’s just been left there, so remarkable and poignant.
You could write a whole thesis on that technique, on just that trick.
Just add the slopes that seem to go somewhere and don’t and fold
in the pointless scaffolding and say something about the urban milieu.
The window bay just sort of droops there, drooping, it’s got this drooping
effect, and you get this feeling from it, this hanging drooping feeling,
and you look at it for a while and the whole time you wonder what it means
and then you lose interest and then you just move on to other things.
| Derick Mattern |
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levelheaded: Robert Smithson at the Hotel Tarlabaşı
As editors of a journal that offers commentary alongside the poems we publish each week, Derick Mattern’s “Robert Smithson at the Hotel Tarlabaşı” speaks to us. We try our best week in and week out to offer some genuine insight into the work we choose, but frankly, sometimes we feel like we’re full of shit.
In the style of Robert Smithson’s slide lecture, “Hotel Palenque,” Mattern’s poem can be taken as a critique of art and art criticism. The poem begins, “It’s really got no center, it’s really quite dedifferentiated.” Dedifferentiated? Seriously? What is that supposed to mean?
Well, maybe it means that the Hotel Tarlabaşı–in part or in its entirety–is intentionally designed to be similar to other buildings. Though many might find that unremarkable, the language used makes the point sound profound. A line later, the reference to “a Bellotto” also seems to elevate the discussion. For some, the longer the rhetoric goes on, the more convincing it might appear.
Part of the challenge and intrigue with the original lecture on “Hotel Palenque” is trying to decipher whether or not Smithson was being genuine in his analysis of his photographs of a rundown hotel amidst renovations, or if he was mocking the art world for offering pretentious critiques. Given our awareness of this controversy, Mattern’s poem seems more clear cut in its humor. For one thing, the Hotel Tarlabaşı is known as the Cartoon Hotel. More importantly, lines like “The window bay just sort of droops there, drooping, it’s got this drooping / effect, and you get this feeling from it, this hanging drooping feeling” are down right funny.
For all its humor, however, Mattern’s poem still offers moments bearing significant emotional heft. When he writes “they haven’t just torn it down, how they’ve / left it in this sort of intermediate state,” we can’t help but take these lines seriously. They remind of us of the things we’ve left unfinished. When he writes, “it just feels very authentic, like something unobtainable,” sure, the statement is silly, but it also rings true. Things out of reach can feel authentic, but once we obtain them they can seem to lose the authenticity we admired.
Yes, that last sentence we wrote is ridiculous. Mattern’s poem helps us realize the absurd nature of literary analysis. It also helps us realize the power of personal perception and the power of language to color the things around us. It reminds us that when we look at art long enough, we can learn more about ourselves, the world, and our place in it.
– The Editors
