Gabor’s Voice

To hear Gabor speak is to know how special he was. Here are some recordings that Chris Taylor (of LandArts.org) saved - to give those who knew him a remembrance of the special way he communicated. A transcription of his message to Chris about leadership is especially insightful.

“Yes Chris - it was good to talk to you - last time while you were building your new house. It looks like it’s pretty much out in the country and it looks like it’s pretty far from everybody else.
I tell you uh, therapy - therapy is very, very good uh, as far as the building is concerned, but to have a way to inspire and invite not only students but ordinary, meaning excellent leadership to the architecture of the best of the West. Which is its outreach toward the sky, is a very very inspiring gift, presented by nature and God that you can present to those who in fact are able to care for the human family. You know - I think I think we human beings need some leadership and what we are involved with can have relevance to keeping the aim, the goal of Leadership alive to benefit the human family to the tune of seven billion people.
You know, Government is failing us, medicine is failing us, and it’s up to us to find that which is healing that is good for us otherwise we just go to hell together. You know, we don’t have any leadership today - we have a bunch of opportunists who take advantage of the trust that we place for them and they don’t deserve it.
So we need new kinds of people who can give aim to lead people to benefit and avoid harm. You have a bunch of harmers, sadistic no good sons of bitches.
So, let’s start right at the beginning.
Good to talk to you, hope to talk to you soon.
Give me a call please?
Bye.

Here is Chris’s remembrance of meeting and knowing Gabor:
PS: on the last night of July we lost a visionary voice, mind, and energy when he stepped out of his bio-pajama to enter another dimension. Gabor Szalontay had deep appreciation and ambition for Land Arts and the work we are doing from here in West Texas.

I met him in a very crowded opening at the Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia in 2013, perhaps because we could see each other over the crowd. In short order we discovered a common involvement in architecture and he talked me out of a business card. The next day he called and we spoke for a few hours where I learned he worked for Louis Kahn (referenced in Conversation with Students which continues to be relevant) and he was curious to learn about Land Arts. There were pages of notes. The next day I sent him a copy of Incubo Atacama Lab, which I later wondered if it had been a mistake because he started calling nightly. For the first few years we spoke very often. They were perhaps less conversations than Gabor talking about aspirations and sensibilities that got my mind turning in all sorts of directions. Sky, sun, salt, rock, energy, architecture, culture, balance. They were always provocative.

Eventually I weened the conversation rhythm down to once every few months as it became difficult to keep up the time commitment. Yet, he persisted to leave messages. The last one on July 9 providing phone numbers for Ted Turner and Jane Fonda in Atlanta and encouraging me to call them with news of the work we are doing. (Have yet to act on that recommendation.) The follow up message below came from July 5. Including it here to give you a sense of his voice and energy.

I first learned of his 2017 near fatal bicycle accident, being struck by a car, when he brought it up in a conversation last May. I sensed an increased gravity in his words and I had been worried about him being vulnerable to COVID, yet I had no knowledge of the state of his health — he generally seemed a vapor to me. So, I was sadly surprised, and understanding, to get the call on August 1st from Matthew Piner with the news.

Gabor’s vision, voice, and ambition will be missed. Yet, it is now clearly our responsibility to carry the energy forward.

Even if this sounds like crazy talk, know that your role in the work of Land Arts is connected to this brilliant diamond who sought to forge spaces of aspiration from the ’sea of the sky.’


Steady onwards,


__ chris




~~~
chris taylor ~ landarts.org
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