Say this person is a farmer, outdoors sixty to eighty hours a week, all sorts of weather, all times of day. He’s responsible when anything breaks, when the creek floods and the wind blows, not all his animals like him, running a fever is no excuse. So one day he goes to town to sell a few cows, and he decides while he’s there to see some art. Map in hand he wanders into the Cressman Center for Visual Art, up in louisville, and encounters ‘Nineveh’ featuring ‘vast hanging plateaus of grass,’ cited as the sort of project threatened by the philistines over at the capital.
Yes, it’s thought provoking, but the thoughts our farmer has won’t entirely correspond the deep philosophic nuances the arts council, the gallery director, or the media art critic have in mind. This farmer may not find a little patch of sod under grow-lights to be as impressive, as evocative of nature, as soul stirringly profound as the funding agency might have hoped. He might think ‘not worth an afternoon’s effort,’ but he’s just uninformed, right, doesn’t know a thing about art. So long as he pays his taxes when he sells his cows, he’ll contribute to this ‘art’ whether he likes it or not, and that’s all we need from him -- such a progressive state, KY.
There’s an obvious presumption here, one charity-immersed culture wags fail to recognize, can’t seem to see. Who are they, with their sugar-water degrees and ticket-punched credentials, having coffee around a conference table in the long afternoon, to decide what people seriously engaged in the unforgiving quest for daily survival should support as art, anyway? Who are they to pass out state money, attention, and prestige, to conceptualists whose airy creations are a guaranteed affront to most of those who work? Let’s remind everyone at this point the farmer came looking for art, and if he recognized in a painting something he felt about his land, or was charmed some other way, he just might take it home -- he just sold his cows.
Losing the charity-driven, bureaucratic side of art won’t end art. I’m betting, a long term bet, art would flourish among the very folks who’ve been resisting the art council’s progressive sensibilities up until now. There’s an appetite, no, it’s actually a need for relevant and meaningful art in the lives of people under the wheel, and it’s out there. The arts council doesn’t like it, won’t reward it. Say good bye.
Yes, it’s thought provoking, but the thoughts our farmer has won’t entirely correspond the deep philosophic nuances the arts council, the gallery director, or the media art critic have in mind. This farmer may not find a little patch of sod under grow-lights to be as impressive, as evocative of nature, as soul stirringly profound as the funding agency might have hoped. He might think ‘not worth an afternoon’s effort,’ but he’s just uninformed, right, doesn’t know a thing about art. So long as he pays his taxes when he sells his cows, he’ll contribute to this ‘art’ whether he likes it or not, and that’s all we need from him -- such a progressive state, KY.
There’s an obvious presumption here, one charity-immersed culture wags fail to recognize, can’t seem to see. Who are they, with their sugar-water degrees and ticket-punched credentials, having coffee around a conference table in the long afternoon, to decide what people seriously engaged in the unforgiving quest for daily survival should support as art, anyway? Who are they to pass out state money, attention, and prestige, to conceptualists whose airy creations are a guaranteed affront to most of those who work? Let’s remind everyone at this point the farmer came looking for art, and if he recognized in a painting something he felt about his land, or was charmed some other way, he just might take it home -- he just sold his cows.
Losing the charity-driven, bureaucratic side of art won’t end art. I’m betting, a long term bet, art would flourish among the very folks who’ve been resisting the art council’s progressive sensibilities up until now. There’s an appetite, no, it’s actually a need for relevant and meaningful art in the lives of people under the wheel, and it’s out there. The arts council doesn’t like it, won’t reward it. Say good bye.
2 comments:
Public expenditure for culture is not a new or radical idea (Google ‘history of art’ for further info). Much of our collective art/culture-making has involved shared interest and yes, shared sacrafice. In your folksy parable the farmer would not of blithely wandered into the fictional ‘Cressman Art Center’ because it would not of existed without some kind of public help - tax abatement, grants, public/private fund raising, etc. The notion that public money chokes off private/profit-based activities is blind to the fact that public support, in general, often lifts all boats in the struggle to keep afloat the precarious activities of creating and distributing art, music, dance, theater, etc.. Also I think it delusional to think that private/profit driven galleries can, on their own, provide the wide swath of community support, marketing, public relations, education and grant giving that are a part of a well-organized and healthy arts community. Do I agree with every aesthetic decision made in the name of the public with some (usually small) portion of their money in the balance? I absolutely do not, but I do enjoy living in a community that makes the effort to improve the quantity and the quality of our shared cultural experiences and also heightens the level of audience understanding and participation.
First I want to acknowledge that in six full years of this blog, and five years writing commentary in a similar vein in Nougat Magazine, while occasionally receiving a backbench amen, much appreciated, Mr. Beckman you are the first to to contend with anything I've said, and I thank you for your interest.
The recent election was indication of a deeper disgruntlement far beyond the two candidates, just stand-ins for fundamental social forces. Bernie brought an acknowledgement of the one percent who control the country through enormous wealth, and my concern is for the one percent who guide us culturally in pursuit of bureaucratic career strategies having little to do with visual art, their charge and the country’s deficit. They’re not required to even like art, it’s what they do at work. The incentives are on the wrong feet, and the pinch is reaching consciousness. Thanks for asking.
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