A Short Meditation on Obsolescence and Art

Most of what we do and say is rendered obsolete sooner or later.  But great art has a timeless quality; it defies obsolescence.  Over hundreds and even thousands of years it continues to convey simple human truths.  That’s the beauty of the Mona Lisa’s smile – it may be just as intelligible to a caveman as to an astronaut.

The Apology Line most definitely has a timeless quality to it, which is really one of the best indications of Allan’s consummate artistry.  He began recording voices on magnetic tape almost forty years ago but the distinctive human qualities of the callers still come through as clearly today as they did back then.  There is nothing dated in these taped confessions, even though so much else in our world has been completely transformed over the course of the intervening years.   And I suspect Allan's voice recordings will retain their power and lucidity far into the future; maybe for as long as English is spoken and understood, these apologies will continue to command our attention.

If nothing else, the power of the Apology tapes is a reflection of the audacity of Allan's artistic ambition and vision.  Very few artists ever have a chance to work so directly and effectively at the task of capturing and preserving the human soul -- whether by carving marble, applying oil paint to canvas or any other more conventional artistic means.  But for the fifteen years Allan operated the Apology Line he immersed himself in that very task as Mr. Apology -- the curator and caretaker of the callers' souls.  To that end, he rigged up his answering machines in order to record their ramblings and capture their most vulnerable selves on his audio cassette tapes.  In the privacy of the anonymous telephone confessional, the Apology Line began to function as a camera obscura -- through the pinhole of the twisted copper pair wire, Allan magically captured a faithful representation of the callers most unadorned essential nature.

Here's a brief selection of some calls recorded in the early years of the Line in which you can begin to hear Allan's artistry at work.

Humble Beginnings

In October of 1980, a thirty-five year old artist named Allan Bridge plastered hundreds of handbills in the streets of New York City. "Attention amateurs, professionals, CRIMINALS, blue collar, white collar: You have wronged people. It is to people that you must apologize, not the church, not the state. Get your misdeeds off your chest. Call Apology. When you call you will be alone with a tape recorder."

From the outset Bridge thought of this as a grand experiment.  He wasn’t at all sure what to expect.  But he rigged up an answering machine in his downtown loft apartment so he could record all the incoming calls.  And as his posters clearly stated, callers were warned to remain anonymous because he intended to play the calls back to the public at a place and time to be subsequently determined.

The experiment succeeded beyond Bridge’s wildest imaginings. Almost immediately the phone started ringing and it kept on ringing for the next fifteen years.   Over the course of those years, Allan recorded thousands of hours of apologies from serial killers, battered wives, rapists, thieves, men with a new disease called AIDS, shop lifters, drug addicts, soldiers grappling with their actions in Viet Nam, racists, homophobes, Katherine Hepburn impersonators, animal lovers, queers, messengers of God, hate criminals, war criminals, and countless others, all of whom poured their confessions, perversions and heartfelt declarations into Allan’s telephone confessional.

Allan himself assumed the identity of Mr. Apology - the eponymous creator and caretaker of the Apology Line -- it was a role to which he dedicated the remainder of his life and artistic career.   Like a modern day Pygmalion  he ended up becoming entrapped by his own creation, an artist compelled to pay the highest price by sacrificing himself to the maintenance of his brilliantly crafted mise-en-scène. 

The story of the Apology Line then is all of these stories rolled up into one.  It is the story of the callers and the story of Mr. Apology, and it is our collective story, because each of us has our own apologies to share.  While the Apology Line may have started out as an art experiment, it soon outstripped its downtown origins and became an expression of something much vaster, as it addressed itself to fundamental human needs and universal themes.   

In that sense, we are all heirs of Mr. Apology and this blog is where I intend to explore and explain the gift of our common inheritance from Allan.

Allan Bridge, aka Mr. Apology (1945-1995)