Aesthetics – Page 5 – artdiamondblog.com

“The Whole Point of Camp is to Dethrone the Serious”

(p. W1) The 2000 film “Billy Elliot” was a surprise hit. It’s an absorbing drama about personal transformation and the power of art to ennoble the human spirit. “Billy Elliot: The Musical” — the noise is supplied by Sir Elton John — is a depressing spectacle about partisan politics and the ephemeral power of schlock.
. . .
The musical, a campy, anticapitalist confection, is just one of the latest prepackaged exercises in “transgression.” Maybe it’s “Corpus Christi,” Terrence McNally’s play about a gay Jesus Christ. Maybe it’s “The Goat,” Edward Albee’s play celebrating bestiality, or a production (p. W4) of “The Flying Dutchman” in which the heroine sports posters of Che Guevara and Martin Luther King on her bedroom wall. The point about these unpleasant offerings is not how outrageous but how common they are.
. . .
In the film, there was one extended reference to Margaret Thatcher. Mrs. Wilkinson’s middle-class drink-sodden husband (tellingly made “redundant” — that is, laid off) praises the prime minister for showing down the miners. He is hardly a sympathetic figure, but he had a point: If it costs more money to get the coal out of the ground then you make from selling it, why keep the pit open?
If there were truth in advertising, the musical would have been called “Billy Elliot, The Musical, Featuring Margaret Thatcher as the Incarnation of Evil.” She is roundly abused by several characters in the opening scenes, is the object of casual calumny throughout the show, and features in a Christmas children’s song — replete with gigantic scary Thatcher masks and puppets — whose refrain is “Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher. We all celebrate today because it’s one day closer to your death.” Nice stuff, eh?
In one sense, “Billy Elliot: The Musical” represents a growth enterprise. Everywhere you turn these days, you are met not only with celebrations of the vulgar but also entertainments that pretend to be brave, challenging “interrogations” of established taste which in fact are simply reflections of established taste. The little sermons about Thatcher and capitalism and bigotry are presented as if they were fresh thoughts designed to disturb the dogmatic slumbers of the audience. In fact, they simply reinforce the left-liberal clichés audiences everywhere internalized decades ago. It’s an odd phenomenon. In theaters and museums across the Western world you find audiences applauding sentiments that, were they translated into the real world, would spell their demise.
Perhaps it’s an instance of what Lenin was talking about when he said that the bourgeoisie was so rotten that it would sell the rope with which it was to be hanged. The matinee I attended was packed to the last emergency exit with a cheery crowd of nice, middle-class folks who cheered and clapped and whistled and bravoed.
. . .
The impressive thing about “Billy Elliot” the film is its dramatic enactment of serious questions. “Billy Elliot: The Musical” spoofs and sentimentalizes those questions, replacing them with a series of political sermons and distracting gymnastic exhibitions. In 1964, Susan Sontag famously said that the “ultimate Camp statement” was “It’s good because it’s awful.” Sontag wrote as an enthusiast for Camp. I have no doubt that she would have emerged happy from “Billy Elliot: The Musical.” “The whole point of Camp,” she wrote, “is to dethrone the serious.”

For the full commentary, see:
ROGER KIMBALL. “Culture; A Clumsy Mix of Art and Politics; Broadway turns subtle themes into simplistic fare in shows like ‘Billy Elliot’.” Wall Street Journal (Sat., DECEMBER 13, 2008): W1 & W4.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Czech Republic’s Sly Cerny Humorously Skewers European Foibles

“David Cerny’s artwork “Entropa” is a symbolic map of Europe depicting stereotypes attributed to the individual member countries.” Source of the caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A6) . . . , an enormous mosaic installed in the European Council building over the weekend, was meant to symbolize the glory of a unified Europe by reflecting something special about each country in the European Union.

But wait. Here is Bulgaria, represented as a series of crude, hole-in-the-floor toilets. Here is the Netherlands, subsumed by floods, with only a few minarets peeping out from the water. Luxembourg is depicted as a tiny lump of gold marked by a “for sale” sign, while five Lithuanian soldiers are apparently urinating on Russia.
France? On strike.
The 172-square-foot, eight-ton installation, titled “Entropa,” consists of a sort of puzzle formed by the geographical shapes of European countries. It was proudly commissioned by the Czech Republic to mark the start of its six-month presidency of the European Union. But the Czechs made the mistake of hiring the artist David Cerny to put together the project.
Mr. Cerny is notorious for thumbing his nose at the establishment. . . .
. . .
Before the hoax was discovered, the Czech deputy prime minister, Alexandr Vondra, said “Entropa” — whose name alone should perhaps have been a sign that all was not as it seemed — epitomized the motto for the Czech presidency in Europe, “A Europe Without Borders.”
“Sculpture, and art more generally, can speak where words fail,” he said in a statement on Monday. “I am confident in Europe’s open mind and capacity to appreciate such a project.”
But he does not feel that way now.

For the full story, see:

SARAH LYALL. “Art Hoax Unites Europe in Displeasure.” The New York Times (Thurs., January 14, 2009): A6.
(Note: ellipses added.)

“Commerce in Goods Brought with it Commerce in Entertainment, Music, Ideas, Gods and Cults”

“This terra-cotta vessel, from the Hittite site in Turkey, looks strikingly modern.” Source of photo and caption: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. D7) The show whisks us along on complementary interlocking narratives that take the visitor down a spaghetti junction of cultural confluences. We learn that in the 1950s a prominent Turkish archaeologist excavated a site known locally as Kultepe. It yielded a vast hoard of cuneiform tablets that record in detail the town’s trade in copper and numerous aspects of its domestic life, including letters home — many of which are on display. As a result, we know that Assyrian merchants in the copper trade moved en masse to Central Anatolia and founded the town, and many like it, to feed the burgeoning trade in what Ms. Aruz calls “the luxury goods of the time.” She adds that “potentates competed to possess artifacts like these — the more distant and exotic their origins, the more desirable because their possession denoted power and prestige.”

Visitors should, in particular, feast their eyes on the smoothly burnished terra-cotta spouted vessels from Kultepe and Hittite sites in Turkey. Outlandishly geometric and eerily modern, futuristic even, they alone are worth the price of admission.
In following the visual motif of bull-leaping acrobats from Crete to Anatolia to Egypt on everything from Minoan vases to cylinder seals and carved boxes, the show makes the point that commerce in goods brought with it commerce in entertainment, music, ideas, gods and cults. Suddenly images of Sphinxes and Gryphons pop up all over the 15th-century B.C. geosphere, as do toys and board games and educational institutions.

For the full story, see:
SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN. “Doing the Math to Find the Good Jobs; Mathematicians Land Top Spot in New Ranking of Best and Worst Occupations in the U.S.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Jan. 6, 2008): D2.

For the case for the complementarity between capitalism and culture, see:
Cowen, Tyler. Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World’s Cultures. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.

“The cuneiform inscription . . . is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.” Source of the cuneiform and the caption: http://www.libertyfund.org/aboutlogo.htm
(Note: ellipsis added.)

A Standing Ovation, and a Salute, for Colonel Jack Moelmann

“Colonel Moelmann, a retired Air Force officer, sold seats for $50, but had to spend almost $120,000 of his own to perform.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

I do not share Colonel Moelmann’s particular dream, but I do salute him for paying for his dream himself, rather than trying to force taxpayers to finance it, as so many do in pursuit of their dreams.

(p. A18) Col. Jack Moelmann, a retired Air Force officer from O’Fallon, Ill., blew $118,182.44 on a one-night stand in New York on Saturday. It was everything he had dreamed of, and more: three hours with the mightiest of the mighty Wurlitzers, the legendary pipe organ at Radio City Music Hall.

The experience left him sweaty and exhausted — having your way with a mechanical marvel that contains more than a million parts is hard work — and it reduced his net worth to “the mid-five figures,” he said. But Colonel Moelmann had no regrets. He soldiered through tune after tune, from “The Trolley Song” from “Meet Me in St. Louis” to patriotic songs like “America the Beautiful,” “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Which, as he pointed out before he climbed onto the bench of the giant ebony console at the left-hand edge of the Rockettes’ high-kicking home, guaranteed him a standing ovation.
. . .
“Not many people get their name on the marquee,” he said.
Not many people spend a large chunk of their life savings to buy their way in, either.
The idea for a Radio City concert began with the president of the year-old Theater Organ Society International, the Rev. Gus L. Franklin, and Mr. Page, a member. “We turned our pockets inside out and said, ‘It’s not going to happen,’ ” Mr. Page said.
Colonel Moelmann, the society’s secretary, decided to make it happen — “I looked in the mirror and said: ‘Jack, you have a dream. Go for it.’ “– even though, he said, it was a foregone conclusion that “we’re going to lose money big time.”
He and the organ society put the price of the tickets at $50 a seat, but the show was far from a sellout. Even with the three balconies closed, the orchestra level was about a third full.
Some in the audience were Moelmann fans from way back. Susan Conrad Wells, a law librarian from Granby, Mass., said she had met Colonel Moelmann through an organ club in 1967, when he was stationed in Massachusetts.
Colonel Moelmann said that playing at Radio City presented its own challenges. “You can’t listen to what you’re playing,” he said. “If you listen note by note, once you’ve hit the note and you hear it, it’s too late to say, ‘Oops, I hit the wrong note.’ ”
In the end, he got his standing ovation.

For the full story, see:
JAMES BARRON. “Organist Rents Radio City to Play, Fulfilling Wish.” The New York Times (Mon., August 11, 2008): A18. (B4 in NY edition)
(Note: ellipsis added.)

“Jack Moelmann always wanted to play Radio City’s pipe organ, above, even after playing at Westminster Abbey and the Pantheon.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Atlas Statue “Reveals the Powerful Paradox of Strength and Despondency”

“The Atlas at Rockefeller Center has years’ worth of lacquer and wax, in addition to the weight of the heavens, to bear. The four-story-high statue will undergo a six-week cleaning.” Source of the caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 31) Of course, he’s angry. Of course, he’s disheartened. The weight of all the heavens has been on his shoulders for 71 years and, according to the mythological timetable, he has exactly forever to go.
But only a close-up view of Atlas, at the base of the International Building in Rockefeller Center, reveals the powerful paradox of strength and despondency created by Lee Lawrie and Rene Chambellan, the artists behind the four-story-high, seven-ton bronze.
. . .
“Everyone reads the substance of things through the surface,” said Jeffrey Greene, president of EverGreene Painting Studios, which is about to begin a six-week cleaning of Atlas, down to the original patina.
. . .
A snapshot staple of any visitor’s souvenir New York album shows Atlas and the 21-foot-diameter armillary sphere on his shoulders (representing the heavens with which he was burdened by Zeus as a member of the losing Titan team), silhouetted in front of the twin spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral across Fifth Avenue.
. . .
On Monday, Mr. Greene said, a translucent scrim will be wrapped around the scaffolding. After that, the statue will get a low-pressure steam bath. Any residue will be cleaned with a gel solvent. A clear acrylic protective coating will be applied and the statue will be hand-waxed to a sheen that is more polished at sculptural highlights and flatter in the interstices.
One block south, Atlas’s popular brother, Prometheus (by Paul Manship), was restored nine years ago.

For the full story, see:
DAVID W. DUNLAP. “Bringing a Smile (Well, a Shine) to a Burdened Statue of Atlas.” The New York Times, Section 1 (Sun., May 4, 2008): 31.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Sir Laurence Olivier Got Mad at Those Who Ridiculed Charlton Heston’s Acting

(p. 5go!) “In 1985, I took a train to London from Royal Air Force Mildenhall (Base) with a couple of med techs and decided to check out some of the plays,” Brodston recalled in his e-mail.
His theater date was a native Briton who had joined the U.S. Air Force.
“We came upon a play that had Charlton Heston in it, ‘The Caine Mutiny Court Martial,'” Brodston remembered. “We couldn’t afford the tickets, so they put us on the ‘king’s cuff’ (standby tickets for students and servicemen).”
Just as the house lights were dimming, an older woman led Brodston and his companion up the steps to a private box because no one had claimed the seats.
“Be quiet and don’t tell anyone,” she furtively whispered because she wasn’t supposed to give away box seats that normally fetch up to $300 each.
Two minutes into the play, the door at the rear of the box opened, and two people sat behind them. Engrossed in the play, Brodston and friend paid little attention.
“At intermission, we looked up and saw Lord Laurence Olivier and his wife, Joan Plowright, sitting behind us!”
. . .
In 1999, Brodston crossed paths with Plowright in New York, and she remembered the night they shared a box at the London theater.
“Larry used to get mad when people made fun of Chuck’s acting,” Plowright told Brodston. “He loved Chuck in ‘Ben Hur’ and that silly ape movie (‘Planet of the Apes’). He and the children would watch those movies again and again.”

For the full commentary, see:
BOB FISCHBACH. “Bob’s Take on Cinema: A night of fine theater with Chuck, Larry.” Omaha World-Herald (Thursday, June 12, 2008): 5go!.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

Stark Artistic Depiction of Chinese Communism

“Zhang Xiaogang’s “Bloodline: The Big Family No. 3.”” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. B1) BEIJING — Sotheby’s sold $51.77 million worth of Chinese contemporary art in three auctions in Hong Kong on Wednesday, allaying concerns that the global economic slowdown would depress the prices.
. . .
The star of that auction was a 1995 painting by Zhang Xiaogang, one of China’s most prominent artists, which sold for just over $6 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting by a Chinese contemporary artist.
That oil on canvas, “Bloodline: Big Family No. 3,” depicts a family of three during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution in China, when children were sometimes led to denounce their parents. Three collectors bid feverishly for the piece, which sold for far above its high estimate, about $3.4 million.

For the full story, see:
DAVID BARBOZA. “Chinese Art Continues To Soar at Sotheby’s.” The New York Times (Thurs., April 10, 2008): B1 & B5.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

Blindly Imitating a False Vision of Ancient Sculpture

“Trojan Archer from the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

Ayn Rand’s Howard Roark in The Fountainhead railed against the mindless imitation of the classics, as embodied for instance in the Parthenon. In sculpture there has also been blind imitation of white classical figures, such as one that has recently been installed next to the Arts and Sciences Building on my campus at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
One imagines that Rand and Roark would have been amused by the article quoted below, that shows that the classical sculptures were actually rich in color.

(p. D8) The Venus de Milo: white. The Apollo Belvedere: white. The Barberini Faun: white. The passing centuries may have cast their pall of grime, yet ever since the Renaissance rediscovered antiquity, our Platonic ideal of classical statuary has been bare marble: bleached, bone white.
The Greeks and Romans did not see it that way. The current show “Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity” — through Jan. 20 at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum on Harvard University’s campus — makes a bold attempt to set the record straight. On view are replicas painted in the same mineral and organic pigments used by the ancients: pulverized malachite (green), azurite (blue), arsenic compounds (yellow, orange), cinnabar or “dragon’s blood” (red), as well as charred bone and vine (black). At first glance and quite a while after, the unaccustomed palette strikes most viewers as way over the top. But few would deny that these novelties — archers, goddesses, mythic beasts — look you straight in the eye.
. . .
By the 18th century, practitioners of the then-new science of archaeology were aware that the ancients had used color. But Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the German prefect of antiquities at the Vatican, preferred white. His personal taste was enshrined by fiat as the “classical” standard. And so it remained, unchallenged except by the occasional eccentric until the late 20th century.

For the full story, see:
MATTHEW GUREWITSCH. “CULTURAL CONVERSATION With Vinzenz Brinkman; Setting the Record Straight About Classical Statues’ Hues.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., December 4, 2007): D8.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

Omaha Government Displays Pretentious Concrete Donuts: Is Dog Poop Next?

The city of Omaha is forcing its citizens to endure four concrete donuts that are sometimes called "Sounding Stones" and sometimes called "art." Source of photo: online version of Dane Stickney. "ART MOVEMENT; Some neighbors don’t want sculpture in Elmwood Park." Omaha World-Herald (Sat., Nov. 17, 2007): B1.

I believe that all art should be private art. But if the government is going to force art on us, at least they should commission art that most find enjoyable to look at.

Tom Wolfe in The Painted Word skewered the pretension of modern "artists" whose "art" is not intended to please, but is intended to make some obscure philosophical point.

If somebody wants to privately finance such activity, fine. But don’t force the rest of us to finance it through taxation.

(p. 1B) “So is this where they’re putting Stonehenge?”
Stan Hille was walking his dog through Elmwood Park when he stopped to ask me the question. He thought I was a city employee.
“Yes, it is,” I said as I stood near one of the gravel pads awaiting Leslie Iwai’s gigantic five-piece sculpture “Sounding Stones .” “But you don’t sound excited.”
“Well, I guess I’m not,” he said, stopping to contemplate art. “This thing just reminds me of that old question: ‘When is art not art?’ ” Hmm. Great question. Ancient question. I suggested it might not be art until people, especially a commission of people, tells you it’s art. Or, if it’s big, it’s art. Or, if you make something and then say there’s some meaning to it, then maybe it’s art.
As we pondered, Hille’s dog defecated.
“Perhaps if I can find some meaning in this poop, then maybe it’s art,” I told him as I rubbed my chin.
The retired UNO professor and Dundee resident absorbed my genius. “Perhaps,” he responded, rubbing his chin also.
But, alas, I could find no meaning. “Perhaps its lack of meaning is its meaning,” I then argued, sounding not unlike French philosopher Jacques Derrida. “It’s post-postmodern ironic poop.”

. . .

For Hille and others around Elmwood Park, the bigger question seems to be aesthetics.
Elmwood Park is a quiet forest setting. Is this really the place for large chunks of concrete, no matter what they mean?
“It just doesn’t seem to fit,” Hille said.
I’m with him on that. “Sounding Stones ” might make more sense, or at least be better received, in the midst of, say, modern architecture, not nature.
You know, perhaps put it downtown, where it could look like it fell off the old Union Pacific building.
But if “Sounding Stones ” does end up in Elmwood Park, whichit most likely will, I’m guessing it still will end up being a positive move.
Because, as with Hille and me, it’s going to get people thinking and talking about art.
And even when you’re looking at dog droppings, taking time out of the day to contemplate art can’t be a completely bad thing.

Yes, Robert, it can be "a completely bad thing" if you have alternative uses for your time.

For the full commentary, see:

Robert Nelson. "Rocky art may lead to heavy thoughts." Omaha World-Herald (Nov. 21, 2007): 1B.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

A Tale of Two Churches: Russia Has an Entrepreneurial Tradition Too

Two old and exotic churches, St. Basil’s in Moscow and Kizhi in the Russian north, survived the Soviet era and are invariably depicted in brochures and books to suggest the distinctiveness of Russian culture. Both feature the tent roofs and onion domes that dominated the skyline of medieval Russia. But each bears mute witness to a very different tradition: one, imperial centralism; the other, entrepreneurial regionalism. Both are embedded in Russia’s history; the conflict between them may well determine Russia’s destiny.

St. Basil’s, looming over Red Square, is an enduring symbol of theatrical autocracy; the Kizhi church, of frontier inventiveness. Authoritarian centralism has been growing recently under President Putin. But he also is fond of Kizhi and brought its new priest with him on his last trip to New York.

. . .

Tolerance was implicit in the northern tradition of dvoeveria: the simultaneous belief in both the old pagan spirits and the new Christian God. Medieval petroglyphs of the Kizhi region freely intermixed symbols of both. Peasants in the region were not enserfed. The northern region lost much of its independent power when Moscow sacked and subdued Novgorod.

. . .

Many more people have seen St. Basil’s on Red Square than Kizhi on an island in Lake Onega — and most see Russian history in terms of autocratic power in Moscow rather than creativity amid adversity in the regions. Kizhi is the supreme monument to this forgotten tradition that continued to unfold as the vast Russian domain spread north to the Arctic Ocean and across the Pacific to Alaska in the 17th and 18th centuries.

No one knows who was the architect of either monument. But Russian popular folklore suggests that the creator of St. Basil’s was forcefully either blinded or drowned to assure that it could never be duplicated. In contrast, the creator of Kizhi is said to have simply thrown his ax into the lake and lived on peacefully as a holy man in the northern forests.

During that time, Moscow autocrats looked out from the closed front porch of St. Basil’s to see the enemies of central power drawn and quartered publicly in Red Square. By contrast, the Kizhi church was wider and open to the sky — and where local people gathered to solve practical problems, facing a vista of lakes and forests.

Much of the renewed vitality in Russia today is coming from young people in the regions. Their hopes for a more participatory and accountable political and economic future depend on the kind of open community that created Kizhi — not the closed circles that cling to St. Basil’s.

For the full commentary, see:

JAMES H. BILLINGTON. "MASTERPIECE; Two Churches, Two Russias; One born of authoritarian centralism, the other of entrepreneurial regionalism." Wall Street Journal (Sat., September 16, 2006): P18.

The Creation of “Freedom” in Iraq

"Freedom" (oil painting by Esam Pashwa). Source of image: http://www.artvitae.com/art.asp?art_id=1571&bhcp=1

When Saddam Hussein fell, artist Esam Pashwa pulled down a huge poster of Sadam and painted a mural underneath. The gesture, and the art, attracted the attention of art expert Peter Falk, who contacted and encouraged Pashwa. He learned that Pashwa, in addition to his art, has served as a translator for the coalition forces in Iraq. Falk has organized a show of Pashwa’s work in a New York gallery.

As of 2/1/06, the "Freedom" oil painting above was offered for sale through the gallery. For more information: Peter Hastings Falk Hastings Art Management Services, Inc. P.O. Box 833 Madison, CT 06443 203.245.4761 peterfalk@comcast.net

(The source of most of the information in the entry above, was a CNN report/interview entitled "The Art of War" that was broadcast on 2/1/06. It is viewable at CNN.com at: http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/world/2006/02/01/intv.art.of.war.cnn)