Frank Gehry has spent much time dealing with his astrological symbol, the fish. The cladding of his buildings resembles the scales of a fish and many of his sculptures have dealt explicitly with its form. It is claimed Frank's fascination with this form comes from early childhood memories of watching carp swim around in his Toronto bathtub before being turned into gefilte fish by his grandmother. However it is too easy to understand Frank's relationship to the cosmic orders as the narcissism of a man fascinated by the reflection of his own totemic image. Rather the Pisces symbol represents Aphrodite and her son Eros disguised as two fish, tied together by a string in order to escape the wrath of Typhon. Transformed into the body of another, the Pisces is a mythical creature in exile, a celestial wanderer.
Piscean sensibility is highly cinematic. Some of the greatest actors and actresses are Pisces with their capacity to disguise and re-configure themselves. Here Frank becomes the perfect architect for Los Angeles. Some of his best early work engages in a direct dialogue and interplay within the context of the city. His later work moves more into the Hollywood world of spectacle and special effects where, through a series of shifting forms, the work begins to function as an icon, becoming a sign or a trademark for the city they inhabit.
The perverse sense of humor, particular to the Pisces is seen in Gehry's early use of chain link fence. A crude yet vernacular material to Los Angeles, the chain link fence has associations with surveillance and also assumes the role of the suburban hedge dividing public and private spaces.
Pisces is a water symbol; it is mutable and restless and likes movement. This makes the Pisces a natural dancer. Within much of Gehry's work, spatial and formal moves lead spectators into a choreographed relationship with the architecture, such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall which one walks around as if it were a mountain. This also plays out literally and formally in his Dancing House in Prague, Bilbao and the new 8 Spruce Street tower in New York.
Pisces are not straightforward. The two fish swimming in different directions represent Piscean ambivalence. With the capacity to adapt itself to the forces of external currents, the Pisces defers to others, shifting and re-forming oneself according to the tides that pull. Frank's work represents a collage of many different ideas and many different people. He relates empathetically to the artists he most admires, namely Richard Serra and Frank Stella. Gehry's Disney Concert Hall relates directly to Stella's architecture proposal of a Neo-Baroque Kunsthalle and Garden for the City of Dresden, along with Richard Serra's Tilted Arc. The Hall is in fact very much like Disneyland itself as you can walk around the roof area in a guided tourist style situation.
In his over evaluation of and deference to artists, there is an aspect of humility and self-deprecation. (Perhaps as Eros defers to his mother Aphrodite to whom he is bound.) Gehry's early Ron Davis Studio is based on Davis' paintings. His Santa Monica House comes out of Michael Graves' Benacerraf House, where he takes an old wooden house and cuts away to reveal its original structure. Frank's adaptation of this idea takes on more of the Piscean interest in perversion, in the multiplicity of shifting variations. Different embodiments and incarnations reflect the Piscean awareness of the fluctuation and precariousness of the corporeal experience.
However, within the seeming self-deprecation of paying homage to the work of another, Frank looks at the fish not only to assume its form but with true Piscean emotional empathy he sees what lays beneath its corporeal disguise—a God.
In the waters of his childhood, Frank recognized not only his Jewish heritage but also his cosmic totem. The child savant sees beyond the form of Carp and realizes that swimming in a suburban tub, is Aphrodite and Eros. How could this be anything other than a formative moment for the young creative and impressionable Piscean mind? Dan Graham, Jessica Russell
Jessica Russell studied and practiced art in Melbourne Australia, where she also worked in film and television before relocating to New York City in order to explore the possibilities of the grid and enjoy finer weather. She currently studies architecture at The Cooper Union. Of late she has been listening to a lot of Elvis.