WORLD CITY (HENDRIK ANDERSEN, ARDOR)

Henry James ardently to the friend (lover?) Hendrik Christian Andersen, coaxing his companion toward specific lived experiences and places, expressing doubt regarding “any use on all the made earth … for a ready-made city, made-while-one-waits, as they say, & which is the more preposterous & the more delirious, the more elaborate & the more ‘complete’ & the more magnificent you have made it. Cities are living organisms, that grow from within & by experience & piece by piece; they are not bought all hanging together, in any inspired studio.” The colossi punctuating a tender megalomaniac's dream expectant with grimace-glories in gesso behind the pink facade of the Villa Helene, magnificently, muscularly forlorn.

Yinka Shonibare's double headless portrait in batik of James & Andersen the only conscious joke, their pointing index fingers a wouldabeen God plus Adam too remote from one another to make the magic happen.