flogging the past -- John Hunt Morgan’s last stand

Remembering the bad old days of cold war propaganda when some bad old things were said about the soviets. On weekends the paper would feature pictures of stout russian women in heavy overcoats laboring in rail yards, such as that. On a more intellectual level the communist party was accused of disappearing people when they fell out of favor, scratching their names out of books and cutting them out of old group photos. Year by year the little oval portraits from the first party congress continued to disappear leaving pale little oval blanks behind the glass. What bastards. 

Then I began to notice the tracings of people on this side officially forgotten. I was an adult before I ever heard the name Paul Robeson, a huge talent and personality shunned by american media presumably for challenging racial customs, and Rockwell Kent, once famous painter and pubic intellectual, who embraced the notion of communism and the Soviet Union, and was subsequently forgotten by general proclamation -- Rockwell who? His wide ranging illustrations, including incredible woodcuts, can still be found in books of certain vintage, a Random House edition of Moby Dick, for example.

Suddenly in my hometown, in your hometown, all over the wind has shifted, deciding to blow back the other way for a while. Overnight we want new statues of new heroes, and we’ll want to get rid of the old ones. Nocturnal graffiti artists have expressed group disapproval on their pediments, and many want them carted away, out of sight--out of mind, disappeared. Doesn’t one wonder on occasion what sense of history each human would have if each succeeding civilization wasn’t intent on destroying every symbol of the previous -- temples and libraries, gods and thought processes. 

Well they aren’t just symbols, these chunks of bronze downtown, but works of art built to outlast the fickle winds of society’s approval, and they’re still hanging around after the love has grown cold, cold. It’s bound to happen, songs are sung, but bronze is difficult to work with, lost wax, molding and pouring, and these are formidable accomplishments which might last damn near forever on their own. The one of Breckenridge just isn’t inspiring. It looks ordered from a catalogue -- go ahead, melt it down, but John Hunt Morgan on a horse, buttons on his tunic, spurs on his boots, the bogus equipment on his horse, a local whimsy, is really pretty nice. Not many artists and skilled shops could pull that off these days. 

Calling John Hunt just a lowly horse thief is sure enough silly, since we know every statue of Sherman in front of a northern courthouse is and will be safe, and he outdid John at every turn, in every way -- but that was all so long ago. Who cares, at this point, who John Hunt Morgan really was, let it rest. By now he’s just a bronze equestrian dressed up in military regalia, looking sure of himself full of youth and romance -- let him stay. 

healing arts and art -- getting better

My reality has worn spots, a patina of human usage, and leaves room for sudden shifts of purpose -- let’s go for a ride. I visit a hospital only when serious repairs are called for, but there I see a day-to-day much different from my own. Florescent lit and subterranean, endless hallways branch Escher-like behind the information desk, and me always lost after the second turn.  

Here is purpose beyond the individuals in it, each with personal lives but on time for every shift. It’s a worthy mission and an avenue toward full human potential, but there’s an environmental price to pay in all that sterile uniformity. The body thrives on vitamins and minerals but the total organism needs different levels of stimulation, and euro-style functionality and easily cleaned surfaces don’t provide much, especially everywhere all the time. 

That’s where the art comes in. Does art promote healing, maybe, but mostly that’s a theory found on grant applications. Discomfort, debility, worry and concern are all serious distractions from the enjoyment or even the consideration of art, and the average patient just wants to go home. Original art becoming a feature of hospital environments primarily benefits those who tread the same halls, traverse the same public spaces, eat in the same food courts everyday -- the hospital staff. 

Art on the wall, that distilled essence of human experience and empathetic communion, is the static antidote for surroundings drained of character, charm, and warmth by the need for efficiency, emotional distance and organic isolation. The hospital becomes more livable with real art. It’s only a side benefit if art seen by a patient, or maybe an attendant or relative, so catches the eye that the name of the artist is written down for future reference. Art displayed in that most public place, frequented by every social class and ethnic distinction, shows respect for all and gives the entire population ‘permission’ to like the art as well, and that’s a slice of spiritual healing all around. 

losing money -- a matter of scale

‘Why do so many art galleries lose money?’ is the provocative headline in the Bloomberg News, and it’s a reasonable question since, as they point out, the billionaires are running up the score on their end snatching up everything at the art fair over six figures. What gives? 

In the first place the high end contemporary market isn’t about art -- it’s about having so much money you get points for pissing it away, so much the better if it’s pointless. Six hundred horsepower to drive down to the launderette seems excessive, big boats that never leave the dock line the lakefront, and the ultra wealthy buy art just because it’s expensive. It probably wouldn't be practical to try to emulate that here.

Art discussed in terms of auction performance and not content might not be much to look at, but given the proper trademark signature it doesn't matter. For the sake of the present discussion we’ll ignore everything over five figures as being essentially irrelevant to our original question, since few art galleries in this territory go that high, and those uptown marketing strategies, appeals to peer prestige and glamour, grow weaker out here in the provinces.

When the proprietor of a retail shop spends all day looking out the front window it’s time to freshen the offerings, upgrade the stock, sell something else. It’s sorely tiresome to hear gallery owners bitch about dumb customers, the poor economy, their crushed hopes and dreams. They’re just not going to be able to sell grad-student imitations of what the big guys get away with because they don’t have the same conspicuous-consuming customer base who don’t care how much they spend, who never sacrifice to own art. It’s a matter of scale.

Gallery director, you may be doing your best to look like downtown Chicago, but that may not be the best way to address the audience in front of you. If the fault is not in your public maybe it's your merchandise. If not enough buyers are helping you with your rent isn’t it time to acknowledge that the home-grown product is more potent, more eco-friendly, and better for the economy and state of mind of the local population than that trendy magazine-derived stuff you can’t sell, a realization which could turn failure into success. Good luck.