Horst Schmidt-Brümmer Venice, California: An Urban Fantasy, Grossman Publishers: NY, (English trans., Feelie Lee) 1973 (Original German Text Verlag Ernst Wasmuth: Tubingen, 1972), 108 pp.
Acknowledgement:
"The idea for this book was precipitated by a chance visit to Venice while I was teaching at U.C.L.A. From this initial encounter grew my interest in and fascination for the Venice community and, as a result, I spent the first half of 1971 taking pictures.
"But the real task of putting together this book did not lie with me alone. The valuable ideas and criticisms of my collaborator, Feelie Lee, served to clarify and sharpen the basic concepts of this work. I would like to thank Stephen O. Lesser and Christine M. Depaep for their much-welcomed support as well as Kent Brownridge and Masamori Kojima for their contributions.
"But it is to the people of Venice that I owe special thanks. For without their warm reception and open acceptance of me as a person and as a photographer the book would not have been possible. The openness, friendliness, and trust I received in Venice in contrast to the suspicion and hostility I met, for example, in the walled estates of Berverly Hills only confirm that special quality of the Venice community with which this book deals."--HSB p. 107
[p. 106 Photo of graffitti on a plywood bulletin board "Resist Exist"]
Preface:
"The people, rather than art treasures and historic sites, give Venice, California, its remarkable character. While the Old World Venice exists on its past glories, its New World counterpart celebrates an ongoing present.
"The original Venice fights to preserve its uniqueness as a living museum, while the inhabitants of the new Venice struggle to maintain their originality as a community. This vew Venice is not endangered by flood waters but rather by the threats of dehydration. . . . It is not the California sun but the interests of zealous land developers which are producing this drought.
"Venice, unlike its Italian predecessor, will die an American death, for Venice will be "renewed" out of existence at the costly sum of twenty-four-and-a-half million dollars. This amount-the highest assesssment in the history of California-reveals the real nature of the urban change. The alloted sum is not for renewal but for removal of the present Venice, a destruction of the identity as a community, and a reconstruction of Venice into a luxury resort of mini-marinas, expensive town houses, and boat docks. Correspondingly, with the replacement of small homeowners and tenants who can no longer afford to live there by an anonymous, well-heeled mass of apartment dwellers, Venice will face its final blow."
The Uniqueness of the Venice Community
"At first glance, Venice looks surprisingly out of place in the midst of the suburban sprawl of greater Los Angeles. On its streets one can see the conglomerate presence of widely disparate groups-blacks, browns, and whites; the very young and very old; the fantastically garbed and the decently suited; politicos and homeowners; professors and dropouts; religious cranks and straight citizens. These people live simply and unpretentiously alongside one another . . .
"Here, public life still exists . . . There exists the visible presence and density of people as well as the ever mobile and unexpected combinations of groups; in brief, one can visually detect a community of people. At the same time public life in Venice has not lost its intimate side.
"The heterogeneity of Venice crosses political, social, racial, and educational lines. What homogeneity exists lies in the renewal area-on the lower-income level that falls nearly three thousand dollars below that of Los Angeles. . . .
"This high degree of individuality characterizes the community and determines its openness . . .
"Venice's struggle as a community differs considerably from the causes of other communities undergoing the same process.
"The stuggle is not consciously political or enmeshed in political rhetoric, for Venice is not a politically and intellecturally sophisticated community. It does not assert the political self-consciousness or style of a community economically and educationally secure. . . .
" . . .
"Moreover, the struggle is not overtly economic. The economic facts of Venice run counter to the charges that the community fights to maintain certain privileges or tax advantages.
"Nor is the argument valid that the Venice community fights for its ethnic identity. The integration of Russian Jews, blacks, Mexican-Americans, and whites in the renewal area is a known fact. If any "ethnic" consideration is due, it is that the community fights the inundation of an upper-class white population.
"In short, Venice cannot be labeled a politically radical or counterculture community. Rather, it is a freewheeling, eclectic, and eccentric community of people.
"In a completely unprogrammed way, Venice has implemented in its daily practice certain basic cultural and political concepts which have been shared by the American subculture over the last ten years. Free legal and medical services, communal living and work collectives, community art and theater projects, and child care centers operate unpretentiously. The growing need in America for new human interrelations and new feelings of community and identification are quietly being practiced in Venice. Even though the ocean and the Mediterranean-like climate heighten the unconventional way of life in Venice, these aspects should not detract from the cultural-political significance of this community.
" . . . The California sun and its value to the leisure market have aroused capital interest, thereby precipitating the decline of community life in Venice. . . . What now undermines Venice is its very lack of self-consciousness-about itself as a community, about the implications of the forthcoming changes, and simply about what organizational strategy is necessary. . . the very attraction of the place has invited disreputable elements . . . Venice's open tolerance also has included tolerating indifference and even irresponsibility-both reveal how the community unwittingly participated in its own destruction."
Venice versus Los Angeles
"Los Angeles, the capital of dream production, has never had room, however, for unprofitable dreams. Thus, the outbreak of reconstruction marks the end of a series of disillusionments Venice has continuously faced in its relationship to Los Angeles. The demarcation line separating Los Angeles and its suburb Venice . . . resembles a battle zone where vision and business, dreams and profits clash.
"In 1904 Abbot Kinney began to implement his vision of an American Renaissance. With his wealth he attempted to recreate an Italian Venice in an American setting. . . . Kinney's dream to establish the new Venice as a cultural center failed. Venice deteriorated into an amusement park, an early Disneyland frequented by hordes of weekend pleasure-seekers.
"In 1925 Venice was incorporated into the City of Los Angeles. Thomas H. Thurlow, the last mayor of Venice, commented . . . in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 1966: "We committed suicide. That's what we called it, and that's what it was."
"The city put its stamp on Venice. The major part of the canal system was filled in and turned into roads. When the land itself became more profitable than the gambling halls and miniature trains, the city opened the land to the oil companies. The oil derricks scattered throughout now transfomed the entertainment area into an industrial park. Because of oil sewage, the Venice beach became quarantined for years.
"It was only in the early fifties when the oil sources stopped-and Venice for the first time was going dry-tht the first indications of a new life, of a growing neighborhood, appeared and developed into a community that offered an alternative way of life to that of Los Angeles.
" . . .
" . . . Venice lives on a fluid interchange of human contact. . . . a more integrated urban community . . .
" . . . Health information, legal services, free clinics, and community centers are concerned with the problems of individuals regardless of income level.
"The same participatory directness characterizes the festivals, free concerts, film performances, and street theater. In contrast to the leisure-time activities in Los Angeles, where events are designed more often for the special taste and consumption of particular classes, artistic events in Venice are more democratic as well as non-ritualistic. More often they are happenings, spontaneous group events, or do-it-yourself efforts. In contrast to the commercial, art-market phenomenon in Los Angeles, Venice is the studio home of many inspiring and well-known artists. It is not unusual to see their works scattered throughout the community, especially to see murals and portraits-examples of public or community art-covering the walls of buildings and homes.
" . . .
"Whoever visits Venice today encounters the phenomenon of vanquished dreams. . . . Venice is an unprofitable dream.
"This has become an official fact. On June 15, 1971, the City Council voted in favor of the costly renewal. It is only a question of time as to when the city's second eyesore (the first is the Watts ghetto) will be removed, when the life of a community will be replaced by the life-style of a luxury resort.
"To a large degree Venice belongs in the hands of absentee landowners. By the time of the final City Hall hearings, many small homeowners had already sold their property because of the exorbitant assessments. Those who finally opposed the Master Plan were overwhelmingly renters, who represent approximately 70% of the Venice inhabitants. They came not to defend property rights but to claim their rights to remain a people, a community.
" . . .
" . . . the Venice community . . . was (un)able to communicate its interests in a language comprehensible to a world dominated by technocratic terminology. Words like "participatory democracy" and "communty control" fell on ears attuned more to such phrases as "efficiency," "cost index," and "capital investment."
"Time . . . gave free reign to real estate speculators. . . . a city official stated: "They thought they were getting an assessment district and instead they bought Pandora's box." . . .
" . . . the Council too profited from the passage of time. Powerless to solve community problems because of lack of public funds, . . . The influx of private capital now supplies the City Council's urgent need for revenue with the sale of land and the increased assessment.
" . . . The progressive, "planned" deterioration of Venice becomes the final excuse for the auction of the community."
Beyond the Community
" . . . In light of the foreseeable change in property ownership, the withdrawal of the land itself from public access becomes a crucial issue.
" . . . Venice occupies the last, still-undeveloped coastline along the Pacific in southern California. . . . clear sky, the water, and clean air- . . . the most basic assumptions of living . . . luxury items . . .
" . . . The quarantined beach of earlier times and now the removal of sidewalks along the canals indicate the public accesss to the land and the use of its natural resources become restricted and determined by the privileged hand of capital investment. . . . Who owns America? Certainly, it is not the people.
Venice as Visual Text
" . . . The visible fact that the people respond to their environment by their particular, personalized, and original additions and changes creates an environment which, in turn, stimulates further responses; this fact illustrates the dynamic interaction that exists between the environment and its people. This sense of participation, of the possiblitity of writing on the evironmental text, becomes more visually evident by contrast to the determined, noninvitational, and restrictive character of the new Venice.
" . . . "
[Norm's Shoe Repairing Sign at Main between Bay and Pico, p. 33, 1971]
[Arthur Mortimer* Portrait at Hart & Neilson, p. 36, 1971]
[Ocean Park Blvd. & Barnard Way, p. 40]
[Bob Dylan? p. 41]
[Portrait p. 44]
[photo of Cottages on Marine between Second and Third, p. 58]
[photo the Shearon Hotel Daily Week Month Challenge Fresh Milk Val's Rexall Drugs 1600 Pacific Ave., Ex.2-3937 Property Bay Area Joey Baker Real Estate Rentals-Property Management 1100? Washington Blv. Ex 9-7781]
[Santa Monica Tower, p. 104]
[Venice Fine Arts Squad, (Terry Schoonhaven ) Venice Beach Under Snow, Ocean Front Market, p. 37, p. 67]
[Brooks Av., Wash Fluff Dry, Brooks and Pacific, Cover, p. 61, 99]