By Courtesy of the
New York Times

New York Times Obituaries
June 21, 2003Doug Michels
Radical Artist and Architect, Dies at 59

By KEN JOHNSON

Doug Michels, an architect and artist and a founding member of Ant Farm, a radical art and design collective of the late 1960's and 70's, died on June 12 at Eden Bay near Sydney, Australia. He was 59 and lived in Houston.

Mr. Michels fell to his death while climbing alone to a whale observation point, said his father, Robert Michels.

Part visionary futurist in the Buckminster Fuller tradition, part Abbie Hoffman-esque social prankster, Mr. Michels taught at universities and, from time to time, worked for conventional architectural firms. But his most memorable efforts were devoted to what some might call the lunatic fringe of art and architecture.

Ant Farm became a reality in San Francisco in 1968, when Mr. Michels met Chip Lord, another young architect. Under the heady countercultural influences of the era, they imagined an architectural practice that would operate more like a rock band than a corporate business and discussed doing "underground architecture."

"You mean like an ant farm?" a friend asked, and thus the enterprise got its evocative name.

Two other principal partners who joined later were Hudson Marquez and Curtis Schreier.

Ant Farm's two most famous productions were not exactly architectural. The first, created in 1974, was "Cadillac Ranch," a monumental outdoor sculpture in Amarillo, Tex., consisting of 10 used Cadillacs planted nose-first in the ground. Dating from 1948 to 1963, the cars represented the rise and fall of the great American tail fin, regarded by some as an emblem of national optimism and prosperity and by others as a symbol of conspicuous consumption.

Whatever its meaning, "Cadillac Ranch" became one of those unusual cross-over hits, like Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial, an avant-garde artwork that attracted countless tourists for whom modern art was at best irrelevant.

Ant Farm's other cross-over success was a 1975 performance work, "Media Burn," in which Mr. Michels drove a white Cadillac through a pyramid of burning television sets. Video recordings of "Media Burn" became staples of video art history classes, as did "The Eternal Frame," also made in 1975, a meticulous re-enactment of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, with Mr. Michels, in a pink suit and pillbox hat, playing Jacqueline Kennedy.

Both videos reflected Mr. Michels's suspicion of the electronic media as well as his interest in Marshall McLuhan's theories about modern forms of communication. The photographic image of the Cadillac crashing through the flaming TV's became so popular that, at one time, according to Mr. Lord, it became the top-selling art postcard in America.

Ant Farm officially disbanded in 1978 after a fire destroyed its San Francisco headquarters, but Mr. Michels continued to pursue his quixotic ventures. One that reflected his more optimistic side was "Teleport," a futuristic room created in 1979 for the home of a Houston banker. Outfitted with the newest forms of communications equipment and resembling a lounge on "Star Trek," it anticipated forms of telecommuting that Americans take for granted today.

In a similar vein but with a comic populist twist was a 1996 proposal for "The National Sofa," conceived with the architect James Allegro. The project was to consist of a wide marble bench near the White House, from which visitors could watch televised events like presidential addresses or Congressional activities on a giant, pop-up video screen.

More romantically speculative was "Bluestar," a plan for a space station occupied by humans and dolphins, on which Mr. Michels worked seriously for the last 25 years of his life.

Inspired by the theory that human brains would function more efficiently in the absence of gravity and by a belief in the higher intelligence of dolphins, Mr. Michels envisioned "Bluestar" as a huge glass sphere with water for dolphins and rings, like those of Saturn, for humans.

When he died, Mr. Michels was working as a consultant for a movie production about whales.

Douglas Donald Michels was born on June 29, 1943, in Seattle. He studied at Catholic University in Washington and Oxford University in England before graduating from the Yale School of Architecture in 1967. Over the years he taught at the University of Houston, Rice University, Texas A&M University and the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1999 he returned to Texas to teach at the University of Houston.

An exhibition devoted to Ant Farm, organized by Mr. Michels, Mr. Lord and Mr. Schreier, will open at the Berkeley Art Museum in Berkeley, Calif., in January 2004.

In addition to his father, Mr. Michels is survived by his mother, Caroline Michels; both parents are of Alexandria, Va. He is also survived by his sisters, Carolynn Moritz of Big Fork, Mont., and Ann Clark of Alexandria.