Peter Greenaway: Architecture and Allegory

Rating:
Summary: literate hyperbole about a hyperbolic(enigmatic)literateur
Review: If architecture is, as THEY say the new vehicle (read: concrete expression as opposed to ephemeral longings) for comprehension in a generation that has (somehow...miraculously) evolved beyond the banal excesses of the pepsi (mtv,kfc) generation, then p. greenaway can be seen as the last bastion of that segment of the mono(poly)cultural elite that presumes proprietorship of the means and realms of cultural production. The king of obsession is dead, long live etc. The days are over (or ending, it is to be hoped) when monomphallic polymaths expressing their own particularities are replaced by truly cross cultural and multi media artists, not those pretending to be either open-minded (shocking) or erudite (cryptic). This book both gains and suffers from bearing the true attributes of PG's work; at times beautiful, at times enlightening, and at times pretentious and didactic. Sadly, and similarly, not often enough all of the above.