If the Smithsonian were to show, as part of an exhibit, fifteen seconds of a film of a six year old child being sodomized by a clown, I assume you would not raise this question.
(It’s incredible that I have to even make the following point, but experience has shown that I do: the point of the preceding hypothetical is to show that even a miniscule use of time and a tiny tiny percentage of budget can be properly forbidden. It is NOT to claim that child sexual abuse is the same as portraying Jesus covered with ants).
You make a good point: it’s much more defensible to take the position that ALL publicly subsidized art should be made to stand on its own feet.
But one can also take the position that the Smithsonian should not host an exhibit that depicts the Prophet Mohammed, for fear of offending the Islamic community. And it seems that if one can hold that postition, one can also take the position that an exhibit with images offensive to Christians should not be hosted.
As you say, you are equally free to call the holders of such idea idiots!
But if art was really supposed to make you think, how about getting away from such tired themes of homophobia and racism and sexism are bad, art doesn’t need to be art to be considered art, and Israel sucks and Palestinians are cool.
It’s been almost a hundred years since Duchamp displayed his urinal. I think after all that time, and all the crappy art that tried to show that having talent and making things that are beautiful are not necessary, it’s just not provocative any more.
The art scene is becoming more and more insular to the point that it is completely cut off from the public at large. Really, you want to put a crack in the floor and have people stand around and look at it? Or stack cold cuts on a bed?
If you really want to be controversial, how about an exhibition of beautiful pictures that require talent to produce with the theme of all that other crap isn’t art? That would cause a stir. But it won’t be done because it is offensive to the small, insider group of artists, critics, and curators that decide what’s cool. That would be OK of course, if they wanted to do it in their own private galleries and homes, but you are being a dick if you want to use public money to thumb your nose at the public and then scream “censorship”.
Here are some themes that you will never see in an art gallery, or receive an govt grant:
Patriotism and love for your country
The carnage done by terrorists on the left side of political spectrum
Abortion is murder
Capitalism is good for the world
Art should be beautiful and accessible (at least on some level) to everyone
I don’t agree with some of the above, but they would show a view outside of mainstream art. It would take actual bravery to stand up to your own peer group rather than just sit and laugh at the rubes who you delight to offend.
Instead we’ll just see the same tired themes, and the same crappy art, from the usual cast of disproportionately urban, gay, non-Christian, liberals and their fake controversial art.
You’re kidding, right? Let’s just stick with your first example for a sec: There are literally countless works of patriotic art hanging in museums around the world, some good (IMO), some bland treacley jingositic crap (IMO), but no shortage of this stuff is on public display. You could argue that most of the statuary on Washington DC’s streets is absurdly patriotic, absurdly public displays of art in exactly this vein–and you choose this as your first example of art that the government doesn’t support?
You obviously need to understand art history a little bit better to appreciate how outrageous and offensive impressionists (and pointillists, etc.) were roundly found to be in their own time. It is only perceived now as inoffensive precisely because people’s minds were liberated by having to think about the questions these artists were asking then, and that you’re taking for granted today.
So come out on the record and say you’re okay with a gay themed art exhibit at Smithsonian if it didn’t included the blasphemous imagery of the infidels*. You’re not too chickenshit or bigoted to do that, right counselor?
yes/no? This will be important later, but for now answer the question.
Further:
So you’re saying a government entities have a duty not to be offensive to a segment of the population if you take the Republican position?
Could you just confirm this? I just want to have it on record the next time a republican says gays are unnatural, will destroy families, or bring down the wrath of god or whatever. Because stuff like that is sure offensive, and there is a lot of gay people that attacks.
*just like the Taliban might say, which is pretty much the same sentiment this boils down to.
I think there’s a difference between statuary on Washington DC’s streets abd inclusion in gallery exhibits. The poster’s contention had to do with public accessibility; what’s more accessible than the streets?
But that said, there’s also no shortage of patriotic-themed exhibits and works, from Leutze’s famous painting to the paen to Lincoln by Daniel Chester French and Henry Bacon.
Garbage. I have an excellent appreciation for art history. The only thing remotely offensive from the impressionists was their technique; what they did was offensive to the elite art critic, personified by the Académie des Beaux-Arts. The public quickly accepted their approach; in fact, Napoleon’s decree allowing the public to see and judge art on their own terms was the direct result of the Académie’s rejection of Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe.
My first day in London was spent in the British Museum; my first day in Chicago was spent at the Art Institute, and I’ve spent dozens of days in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MOMA over the years, not to mention the hundreds of lunch hours taking advantage of the fact that the National Gallery is on a Metro stop here in DC.
It’s a minor point, **Bricker **(and I think you’ve got some major discussions started so I’ll understand if you don’t get around to answering this question.) What’s the difference between government funding gallery art with public moneys and tax-funded statuary on the public streets, except that the streets are even more accessible than the art galleries and the “installation” is even more permanent? I don’t get why you’re drawing a distinction since it seems to strengthen my point that government-funded, totally accessible patriotic art is easily found (and in Washington DC, practically unavoidable)–the opposite of “art you’ll never find.”
Sure, I’m OK with it. I’m even OK with the images under discussion, which don’t sound particularly offensive to me.
I do oppose NEA funding for stuff like “Piss Christ,” but for everything we’ve discussed so far, if I were the curator, I’d allow it, and if I were a Congressman, I wouldn’t threaten budget cuts over it.
No. I’m saying that if you depend on goverment funding, you must accept that government restrictions may appear, and they may be ones you don’t agree with. There’s no “duty to not be offensive.” But if the government thinks your art is offensive, they can turn off the spigot.
If the Taliban limited their objections to withdrawing financial support, I’d say they had every right to do so.
This outrage is ridiculous. If you bother to look at the images from the article linked in the OP, you see that the video represents a crucifix lying on the ground, with a few ants crawling on it. Anyone offended by that must never see any movies besides Hollywood blockbusters, or any art besides Norman Rockwell. And they must have missed the Exorcist, a fairly popular Hollywood offering from what I’ve been told, where a young girl masturbates with a crucifix. If someone asks me if a video including that image is acceptable for a taxfunder-supported display, I would have said “only a religious loony is going to object to it.”
All those talented artists are afraid of making any edgy artwork, because they know that their supporters don’t want to see images of aborted fetuses or anything else controversial, and so they have to resort to making plain inoffensive posters.
Do you really think this is how controversial art comes to be accepted, by the “public” rallying against the hoity-toity art critics? It is an even more elite group than the critics who change the dominant patterns in art, it is the artists themselves, who are generally despised for much of their own lifetimes (except those few who live to an old age), who introduce novelty and freshness to art, slowly winning over critics to their perspective, and THEN the public (usually kicking and screaming and mocking) who come aboard.
When you say “techniques,” you not talking about how the paint got applied, or how visible the brushstrokes were, but rather how they chose to portray the world–it was their choice of subjects, and how they saw and rendered those subjects that was so controversial. “My kid can paint better than that” is typically the “public”'s opinion of most new art, which the artists and the critics simply ignore. That’s why museums of “old” art are useful–people who want to look at pretty still lifes (including me, sometimes) can visit them any time they choose, but people who want to see edgier stuff, that encourages them to think about the world in new ways, should get to see what artists today are working on. Your perspective dictates to me what art is, while mine allows you to view whatever you like.