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Manifest Destiny
by Linda Weintraub
Copyright Linda Weintraub
INTRODUCTION:
Alexis Rockman’s mural-sized painting "Manifest Destiny" (2004) was
created on the occasion of the Brooklyn Museum's recent re-opening.
Instead of selecting a triumphant scene typical for such celebratory
occasions, Rockman depicted Brooklyn in the year 5,000 following the
complete demise of Brooklyn’s infrastructure. The mural depicts the
release of the air, the waters, the land and the creatures from their
conscription by humanity because civilization was vanquished by a great
environmental debacle. The forty-one years old artist has been
honored as a visionary for conveying an urgent social warning, but he
has also been criticized for exploiting people’s insecurities. Why did
Rockman reject the opportunity to uplift people’s spirits? He explains,
“I noticed there was a niche available for paintings that concern
ecology. Especially a political image that needs a broad audience. This
is a populist project. I want people from different demographics to be
aware of global warming.”
Manifest Destiny
“London
Bridge is falling down.” This familiar nursery rhyme intones that this
‘fair lady’ must either be locked up or shored up. The ditty offers
several shoring strategies. “Needles and pins will bend and break.
Wood and clay will wash away. Stone so strong will last so long.” If
the designers of the Brooklyn Bridge were to contribute a fourth verse,
it might be: “Industry is so robust. Structural steel deserves our
trust.” Alexis Rockman has created an image that has inspired a fifth
verse. The 24 foot mural envisions the future of the Brooklyn Bridge
and all the structures that comprise this bustling borough of
Manhattan. The equivalent of this visual panorama in verse, is:
“Brooklyn Bridge has fallen down.
It lies in waters neon brown.
Though no fair lady’s left alive
Critters creep and microbes thrive.”
In
the mural, bridges provide an opportunity to interrogate the present
from the perspective of the distant future (3,000 years from now when
human indiscretions are glaring) and the recent past (one hundred and
fifty years ago when industrialization empowered humans to extend and
expand control over the environment). The painting offers two
interpretations. One interpretation bemoans the tragic demise of
civilization. This gloomy prognostication is conveyed by the massive
suspension cables which once epitomized technology’s role in assuring
progress. In the painting, they lie collapsed upon the ocean floor. The
theme of devastation is reinforced by the pitiful remains of the
Brooklyn Bridge’s ornamental arch and its monumental colonnade. These
ruins are potent symbols of the collapse of human aspirations. Bridges
‘keep our heads above water’ in a literal manner, but the phrase also
means that they keep us safe. Rockman explains, “When a bridge is under
water, it is a complete symbol of failure. There is nothing more
disturbing.”
The end of civilization, however, does not
signal the end of time. Rockman utilizes urban disintegration as an
opportunity to display the resilient adaptive powers of ecosystems.
After the artist worked with Chris Morris, an architect, to create a
futuristic rendering of a collapsed suspension bridge that might have
once connected Brooklyn and Manhattan, he gave it prominence within
the rendering of Brooklyn’s city blocks that was created by Diane
Lewis, another architect. This imagined bridge of the future, however,
does not share the misbegotten fate of the Brooklyn Bridge. Although
its intended function is defunct, it now services the globally-warmed
ecosystem of the future. In the painting, the bridge has become a
rooting platform for plants, a feeding ledge for birds, and a shelter
for sea life. Rockman explains how this image evolved, “I rejected the
first drawing because it looked too retro-futuristic and too boxy. I
suggested a suspension bridge with its platform under water which could
serve as a support for a mangrove swamp, the nursery for the new eco
system. The bridge was transmogrified. It was claimed by natural
succession. It provides a new opportunity for renewal. The collapse
is a disaster from the human perspective, but it is a boon for other
organisms.”
The painting’s historical time line leads the
viewer back to 1845 when a rallying cry was issued to all the citizens
of the United States. It supplied the painting’s title, “Manifest
Destiny”. The proclamation asserted "... the right of our manifest
destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which
Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of
liberty and federative development of self government entrusted to us.
It is right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth
suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth."
With these impassioned words, John L. O'Sullivan declared that the
citizens of the United States had a god-given mission to extend the
boundaries of freedom. When O’Sullivan issued this statement, he
envisioned the lateral expansion of U.S. boundaries across the western
plains. Alexis Rockman has applied the phrase to the changes that are
occurring in our vertical borders, those wrought below upon the soils
and waters, and those that extend to the ozone layer above. Then as
now, the principle of Manifest Destiny is controversial. It has been
interpreted by some as an inspiring vision of duty, ambition, and
progress. The mural presents the side of those who blame if for
justifying dominance, greed, and exploitation.
By
presenting the panorama of Brooklyn as it might appear in the future
and not in its current state with littered banks and scummy waters, the
mural makes ‘manifest’ the jeopardy of pursuing ‘destined’ aspirations,
goals believed to be blessed by providence and foretold by fate. In
the painting, once-littered banks are submerged under water. They have
sunk along with bridges, streets, stadiums, power plants, banks, and
other buildings that formerly comprised this densely populated borough.
Submerged dikes and sea walls testify to the futile efforts to stem the
raging tides. A beached oil tanker and stealth bomber lie useless in
the muck while outsized SARS, West Nile, Mad Cow, and AIDS viruses
flourish amid the wreckage. The principle of Manifest Destiny relates
fueling ambition to a warming globe.
In order to render
the sordid grandiloquence of this epic narrative, Rockman studied the
legacy of great history paintings, science fiction movies, and
photographs of tropical ruins. One example of this encyclopedic
cataloguing of different genres is the allegorical suite of paintings
titled “The Course of the Empire” which depicts the inevitable fall
that follows the rise of empires. Created by Thomas Cole, the renowned
19th century painter, the five part suite originates with a
depiction of the American wilderness prior to the encroachment of
European civilization and culminates with the return of wilderness
after civilization’s demise. As in Rockman’s mural, Cole’s scene is
devoid of humans but it is not devoid of life. Broken pillars and
ruined structures have been reclaimed by mosses and encircled by plants
while the surviving animals have settled into a new equilibrium.
Although nascent industrialization and advanced technologies comprise
their contrasting cultural contexts, both Cole and Rockman contemplate
the future beyond the collapse of civilization and discern signs of
emergence, renewal, and continuance.
The imagined
part of the scenario in Manifest Destiny is balanced with the rigorous
projections of ecologists, botanists, zoologists, hydrologists,
architects, engineers, pathologists, and other professionals. Rockman’s
own computer serves as the depot for the massive collection of images
generated by his far-ranging research. Each is filed methodically under
categories that reveal the breadth of study invested in the mural’s
production: urban ruins, neo-tropics, bird wings, Brooklyn buildings,
bio engineered crustaceans, film history, viruses and bacteria, weedy
species, and many more. For example, The Golden Guide: Fishes
serves as the source for the lamprey fish which is assigned a dominant
role in the mural’s composition. First published in 1955, the book has
been Rockman’s lifelong personal companion, nourishing his childhood
curiosity about the diversity of creatures that comprise the great
commonwealth of biological organisms. Today, the illustrations in the
field guide are models for Rockman’s meticulously detailed portrayals.
In addition, they provide information about aquatic species that might
survive the great ozone deluge. The sea lamprey is one such species.
Lifted from its neutral setting of a field guide, the fish contributes
its hideous appearance to a distressing narrative. A gaping surrogated
mouth flares open at the end of its eel-shaped body. It supports the
creature’s nasty habit of sucking the life fluids from victims, thereby
assuring their slow and agonizing deaths. As the Draculas of the fish
world, lampreys evoke the gruesome spectacle of civilization as an
aggressive, devouring parasite.
At the same time, the
contorted relationship between lampreys and humans gave Rockman an
opportunity to suggest society’s role in causing and preventing
environmental cataclysm. Human action was a boon for lampreys who took
advantage of the Welland Canal that connected the Atlantic Ocean and
Lake Erie. These uninvited users of the canal rapidly colonized all of
the upper Great Lakes, threatening recreation and the fishing
industries. In the 1950s, just thirty years after the opening of the
canal, humans responded with chemical poisons. Now, once again, humans
are determining lamprey fate. Eleven conservation groups have recently
petitioned to list these aggressive and unsightly creatures on the
Federal Endangered Species Act. These environmentalists assert that
lampreys now occupy an important niche in the food chain. They not only
transport ocean nutrients into freshwater ecosystems, they become
dinner for predators who would otherwise feast on salmon and other
desirable fish.
“Manifest Destiny” dramatizes the urgency
of addressing today’s environmental dilemmas. Can the relentless march
toward global warming be diverted by human restraint? Can our actions
prevent some populations from swelling beyond measure and others from
shrinking to extinction levels? Can humanity avert the death sentence
it has decreed upon itself? What is the fate of the earth? Rockman
summons his impressive skills as a draftsman, colorist, researcher,
commentator, and futurist to confront viewers with a likely answer: The
earth’s waters will rise and inundate the cities that once controlled
its harbors and enjoyed its ocean views. Humans will vanish from this
site, but is this scenario hopeful or hopeless? This expansive artwork
leaves the question unresolved. Viewers may conclude that the mural’s
orange glow derives from the sun rising in the east. The dawn of a new
day is a potent symbol of renewal. Alternatively, they might decide
that the lurid glow stems from the toxic fall-out of past human
indiscretions spewing into the atmosphere. The mural’s visual splendor
and its captivating narrative are powerful tools summoned to instigate
such crucial considerations.
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