Model Airplanes

Katsushige Nakahashi’s Zero Project (2000 – ) involves a curator leading a group of volunteers in the construction of a full-scale World War II Japanese Zero fighter plane. The construction materials are 25,000 photographs taken from a scale model of the plane. These are held together by a lot of cellophane. Upon completion of the three-dimensional plane, volunteers carry the plane to a lawn or someplace and burn it.¹ One might say then, that the work is about war, memory, collective action, healing, fathers, fatherlands, or impermanence. It seems, in no obvious sense, to be about the law—even if, like so much of what we’re pleased to call culture now, it is fully subject to intellectual property law. Unlike Jeff Koons’s work, it has provoked no lawsuits. Unlike Yves Klein’s or Robert Morris’s or Sherrie Levine’s or even Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s work, it incorporates into its self-conscious aesthetic work no legal technology of ownership. These at least make a show of fighting back, of challenging the spread of the property form.

Katsushige Nakahashi, “ZERO PROJECT,” in progress. Material/DIM TK. Courtesy of Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College 2016. Photo: TK

The Zero Project even seems somewhat superseded by the recent history of Intellectual Property (IP) law. Once we might have said that Zero resists, even somewhat self-consciously, the material and conceptual features that allow a cultural object to be expropriated from the commons: it is collaboratively authored, comprised of many thousands of photographs taken of

Article source: http://www.brooklynrail.org/2016/03/criticspage/just-more-than-zero

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Strong US job growth in Feb. helps dispel recession fears

WASHINGTON (AP) — A robust February jobs report showcased a resilient U.S. economy just as fears of a new recession had begun to surface.

Economic reports in recent weeks had fueled anxieties about a looming downturn: Manufacturers were slumping. Stocks had plummeted. China was slowing sharply along with other emerging markets. The rising dollar had crushed exports.

But last month, U.S. employers sent a clear message of confidence. They added a healthy 242,000 jobs, while the unemployment rate held at a low 4.9 percent, the government said Friday. The gains showed that the economy is surmounting its challenges without suffering much damage.

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US investigates 420,000 Ford F-150s for brake failure

DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government is investigating complaints that the brakes can fail on Ford’s F-150 pickup truck, one of the most popular vehicles in the nation.

Ford’s F-Series pickup is the top-selling vehicle in the U.S., and the F-150 accounts for two-thirds of those sales.

The probe covers about 420,000 pickups with 3.5-Liter, six-cylinder engines from the 2013 and 2014 model years, according to documents posted Friday on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website.

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Federal probe of bid-rigging goes beyond Chesapeake ex-CEO

DALLAS (AP) — As advanced drilling technology opened untapped sources of oil and natural gas, it triggered fierce competition among energy companies to scoop up rights to drill on vast swaths of land across the country.

The rush caused lease prices to skyrocket in the most promising fields. In a few cases, gas companies responded

Article source: http://www.heraldonline.com/news/business/article64122677.html