Milan Kohout, 1992, Shared House. Boston, USA; video of street performance.

7 months ago
35

In this performance, Kohout investigated the physical effect of the strictly-defined ownership of private property in the USA and its manifestation in the visual appearance of the city’s buildings.
He chose one of numerous examples of artificially-imposed discontinuity in a building’s appearance, which had resulted from the actions of two different owners of each half of a single architecturally coherent house.
The left side of the house was clearly painted differently from the right side. He stood in front of the house, interviewing passers-by on the street, asking if they could observe the house for a while and tell him what was wrong with it. Most adults who were born in the USA did not notice the illogical appearance of the whole house, but instead described the appealing beauty of it. But most children who were asked did notice (instinctively, one assumes) the discontinuity, and answered: “It is painted half-black and half-white.”

Loading comments...