Norman Klein & Patrick Vogel
The Secret Rise of Skunk Works
2022, mixed-media installation, based on a new chapter by Norman Klein, stages threads of espionage connected to the Lockheed Corporation just before World War II
A simulation of a carefully-appointed movie set depicting the 1930’s Burbank garage-office of “Barney”, a faceless fixer laboring in the shadow of the ascendent military-industrial complex during the lead-up to World War II. Barney works for another man—Harry Brown (protagonist of Klein’s and Margo Bistis’s The Imaginary 20th Century)—monitoring communications “across the pond”. Vintage electronic equipment and low-level spy paraphenalia (a shortwave radio, a phono-scribe (used by spies for their audio reports), a clutch of maps) litter the small office, as does evidence of Barney’s chief hobbies–bird hunting and amateur taxidermy. The furnishings and objects are period artifacts selected by Klein and Vogel from the Warner Bros. Property Department (Upon completion of the installation, Klein remarked with satisfaction that the piece could be the set of a low-budget 1930’s film.)
From Klein’s accompanying text:
Inside this tiny office, Barney was hired to listen, to never send a message. On the day he was hired, his employer, Harry Brown showered him with faint praise. At their one and only meeting, Harry stared him down, and said: “I prefer agents who have a proven history of criminality. Nothing lethal but showing disrespect for the law. I want flexible morality, the ability to lie when needed. But to me, and let me repeat—to me-- they can never lie. To me, they are as loyal as a smart hunting dog.”
“I don’t want you to think you know the big picture. You cannot. You send no messages on your own. No typewriter in the room. Your job is to be the ears of a mission larger than history.”
(Exerpt from the text by Scott Benzel Notes on Parallel Worlds )
