Fortress Atlanta Rites of Assembly and Rights of Passage

Series Title: Fortress Atlanta (full title: Fortress Atlanta: Rites of Assembly and Rights of Passage)
Timeframe: 1982 to 1985
Exhibitions:

In 1982, historian, critic, and curator Clark Poling called from Emory University in Atlanta. He said they were doing an exhibition and symposium called Rethinking Human Rights, and asked whether we would be willing to invent a piece with this as subject matter. He said our companion in this would be Hans Haacke (a close friend of ours) who would also do such a piece; we were each to get 3,500 dollars for this work. We didn't think we could do justice to the idea for that amount of money. Neither did Hans, who dropped out. Clark said we could have Haacke's money, for a total of 7,000 dollars. We went to Atlanta and began to walk the streets on our standard premise—to go there, research, explore, think, and respond. 

We thought the architecture of the city was clearly in violation of the First Amendment which guaranteed the right of assembly. (To be precise: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.) How could you assemble in a town with no parks and with barbed-wire parking lots, single-entry buildings, and bars on the windows of the university and the libraries? It was as if the design parameters for the center of the city had embedded in them an implicit instruction to create a place where riots couldn't happen or, if they did, they would be easy to control. To prove the point, we commissioned a flight photographing the city from above. The bifurcation caused by the freeway seemed to enhance the fortress-like properties, and up close you could see the barbed wire. So we outlined the freeways in gold on one image and the single-purpose buildings in gold on another. The pattern was unfriendly. The perimeter of the city also appeared to be under assault from a strange ivy-like exotic growth called kudzu; we saw it wherever we went. No matter how well people removed it, it regenerated. A certain lassitude ensued, and people gave up. Nonetheless, like everywhere else, the wealthy neighborhoods and even the middle class neighborhoods were attractive. There was an odd disjunction between the pleasant aura of the neighborhoods and the fortress-like properties downtown.

1

A city of towers

Defendable entry by entry

building by building

street by street

We are assured that some people live there

2

A city of barbed wire and fields of fire

Parking lots with controlled entry

Defendable space by space

street by street

tower by tower

We are told it is a pleasant and friendly city

3

A city of streets interrupted by overpasses and underpasses

railroads constructions and walls

with clearly defined lines of supply

A city defendable at its core

A city where freeways and walled railways

command the perimeter like a moat

We are assured the metaphors are unintentional

1983 Visual Arts Building and Gallery at Emory University, Atlanta, GA

1985 Ronald Feldman Fine Arts,