As thoroughly as Darden's self-portrait has been examined (see my first post on Darden ever), it's inspiration and symbolism, I believe it is important to look at an earlier version of this self-portrait. The earliest indications I can find for Condemned Building being a book Darden intended to published was in July 1985 with an early outline. It was originally called Condemned Buildings (plural), and intended to be divided into six parts and would only include four architectural designs (likely Saloon for Jesse James, Museum of Imposters, Clinic for Sleep Disorders, and Night School, as these were the only designs Darden had completed at this time), plus a few essays and other drawings (likely the 100 Drawing Nights), &c. This is very early stuff, and obviously premature. But over the course of the next few years he would further refine and redefine this concept of a book. In fact, tracing and exploring the development of Condemned Building itself is quite fascinating, and maybe I'll make a post about this one day. But for now, seeing as the self-portrait is the very first image we see when we open Condemned Building, an examination of the earliest sketch for this self-portrait seems to be in order.
Firstly, I have no idea what Darden is holding. A mop? Above on the right is the study photo for this image, and he appears to be holding some sort of... rod? Hanging from it is a cloth. This is an homage to a self-portrait of Jean-Jacques LeQueu in which he is sitting in a window, pensively looking up from his drawings, and hanging from the window is a stylized cloth with his name, title, and info. Darden clearly is working from this image, which was found the in archival box with the yellow trace paper sketch above. This would morph into the draped cloth with bears the words: Douglas Darden Architext.
Self-portraits: Jean-Jacques LeQueu and Douglas Darden
Closer examination of the draped cloth in Condemned Building, there is a crease, a very distinct crease right through the letter C in Architect, making it appear almost like an X. When we look back at Darden's original sketch, it is very clear that this was his intention, as Darden does not even make a crease, he simply writes Architext. Architext is a fun portmanteau coined by Darden to express his love of literature, that literature informs his designs, that he makes literature and narratives, that he is producing a work of literature through images, &c. It was a term he used to describe writings that give a project substance and depth, like the letter from Abraham Burnden to Darden for Oxygen House. One could spend immeasurable time unpacking this word and all its nuanced complexities as contrived by Darden. The term was so central, that when I wrote the Wikipedia page for Darden, I deliberately used the term "Architext" in the image caption in the information bar — which it looks like someone named Infrogmation changed in October 2021, not understanding that Darden would have appreciated the use of the Architext. Whatever. Maybe one day I will change it back.
When we look at the original sketch, we will notice a number of notes, some of which are intelligible in their early stages, and others... not so much. For instance, I have no idea what Piranesi's Parrot is, or what Boullee's Shadow is. Darden's sketches are something like listening Hunter S. Thompson speak: his mind is faster than his instrument (Darden's hand and Thompson's mouth). Thompson frequently sounds confused and mumbled, even when very lucid, but it is like his mind is going at far greater speeds than his mouth can keep up, so it comes out confused and mumbled. Darden sometimes is like this. His hand cannot keep pace with his mind, so the notes come out confused and maybe even mumbled.
I think he intends Piranesi's Shadow for the background, which indeed becomes the background for the Title Image of Condemned Building. Whatever the parrot is, I am totally unsure. One finds these sorts of obscure, uncertain things in early sketches and outlines of Darden's work. For instance, the client for Oxygen House was not originally called Abraham Burnden, but rather Mark Veritan, who lives in Oxford according to a letter to "Yubie" (I presume Yubie was a clever rendering of U.B., short for Uncle Ben, a cute nickname Darden had Ben Ledbetter). Faulkner lived in Oxford, Mississippi, but I have haven't the faintest clue why the name Mark Veritan was initially used. Maybe I should ask Ben and see if he's still willing to talk to me.
Like the LeQueu self-portrait Il Est Libre, Darden makes use of disembodied heads, namely the head of a woman from one of Amedeo Modigliani (improperly spelled "Mondigliani" in the sketch). Modigliani was an Italian painter, who, like many painters, was ignored all his life and celebrated posthumously. Modigliani was heavily inspired by Nietzsche, Baudelaire, and Lautreamont... a man after Darden's own heart (and mine). One of these women's heads by Modigliani would be replicated for one of the women's heads in LeQueu's rendering. The other three "heads" are sketched as some sort of mechanical pieces, with the top one being a "male sex connector." This male sex connector would become the mechanical pieces that hold up a turtle shell in Condemned Building. Sex and machination are somewhat prominent in the original sketch, as there is a note for "Display Sex Machine Here (4)(?)." I am uncertain what this sex machine is, but Darden originally conceived of it and it would become something like a guillotine in the final product of Condemned Building.
Sex and death. Very Freudian. Very Sad(istic). Very much in the spirit of Bataille. Sometimes I wonder how much Bataille was an influence on Darden.
Next, a curious detail is the inversion of LeQueu's painting Il Est Libre, namely that Darden turns the phrase sideways and then inverts the statement into a question: Is he free? An earlier version of this is actually found on an sketch for the title image, which was a set of books with artists that have inspired him, not a guillotine as we see in Condemned Building. This early title image sketch has an arched element that is secured into the right side frame of the sketch, and the component that secures this arched element has a question on it: Why not sneeze?
Whatever that means.
This may be a gestural thing. Darden may not have known entirely what he wanted to say, so he wrote in whatever phrase came streaming to him from his subconscious. Maybe he sneezed at that moment. Unsure. On the other hand, he may have known he wanted to overturn LeQueu's phrase into a question, "Is he free?" but thought he could make a joke on his early sketches. Such things give us insight into Darden's thoughts, process, and personality.
I believe another curious element of the original sketch that is much more subtle is that this self-portrait is a freestanding object, like Duchamp's Glider. The original not only calls out "Duchamp's Glider," but the fact that there is a leg holding up the whole window frame indicates that this is a freestanding object. In the version published in Condemned Building, this was executed in a much more subtle manner with a simple steel angle or sill at the bottom. This sill gives this whole window frame containing Darden the "feel" of being freestanding without screaming at the viewer that this is a freestanding object.
This makes the whole thing feel flat, almost two-dimensional, like Duchamp's Glider, as opposed to LeQueu's archway in Il Est Libre. It is a bit unnerving. The whole thing is perceived as if it should have depth, that there is a room behind Darden, a room beyond the window, yet the leg or the sill make the whole thing feels flat, a drawing, an applique onto a flat object, like the Water Mill image onto the Glider, as Duchamp had done.
This is not exactly the most complete assessment of the this sketch for the self-portrait of Condemned Building, but it is a start. This and many other sketches are in the Avery Archive at Columbia University. I believe a more thorough and intense study on Darden could be made if everything in the archive was digitized and readily available to access. Sadly, it is not. I just have scans of a portion of the material from the files that are now at Columbia. It is likely I should not be making these public, but whatever, it's not like I have this blog monetized. I literally share all this for free. As I have previously expressed, in depth and authoritative research into Darden is limited and buried inside of expensive and/or inaccessible academic tomes or lost in the presentations of obscure scholastic conferences. I just hope that as I dig through the materials I have and keep exploring Darden and his work in greater depths that this proves informative to someone somewhere at sometime.
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