In recent months a rustic cabin has appeared on Bush Street, three stories aloft on the side of the Hotel des Arts and balanced on nothing — or so it seems. An equally rustic-looking sign at sidewalk level explains that this is Manifest Destiny! 2011, a public artwork by artists Jenny Chapman and Mark A. Reigelman II commissioned by Southern Exposure. But for many who stroll or drive down Bush Street, it is a fleeting, anonymous apparition evoking the Western frontier in the midst of urban life. Only after a moment of pure wonder at its discovery do possible meanings reveal themselves, sometimes long after the work has disappeared from view.
At first sight the work is jarring and unexpected, appearing to float weightlessly between other buildings and cantilevered over Le Central restaurant. It is life-scaled, though it appears diminutive from the street, and is constructed from 100-year-old reclaimed barn wood. It certainly looks real, even if its placement is improbable. Solar panels on the far side of the roof power the gentle light that glows in the evenings, illuminating the interior through gauzy curtains; this is an innovation that surely would have been appreciated on the frontier.
C. Mark Reigelman, 2012.
The “space” the work occupies is, in fact, among the few remaining unclaimed spaces in the city — this exemplifies the notion of Manifest Destiny itself, the 19th century American expansionist view that charted the contours of the United States. As a result, the work invokes a complicated history, simultaneously progressive and oppressive for most anyone who wasn’t an Anglo-Saxon male. The vicinity of Chinatown heightens, so to speak, an awareness of this legacy. The absence of a door signals the impossibility of entry, but so too does the absence of stairs — indicating the largely unyielding limitations for many in a time of limitless possibility for the select few beneficiaries of American prosperity.
At the same time that it draws on the past, the work provides uncanny metaphors about the present. Parallel insinuations about the recent economic collapse and bottomed-out real estate market come to mind. Rustic cabins don’t look all that different from blighted homes, do they? As the work continues to weather the elements over the next few seasons, this comparison may be increasingly valid. Whereas viewers might have once quipped about a comparable studio selling for millions, one might now wince and wonder if it’s a foreclosure.
