And maybe some people will choose to think about the work anyway? My point is that people are bound to think–you can’t stop them, and artists, being aware of this tendency, are going to design their work to take advantage of the thoughts being stimulated.
For the same reasons you can teach comparative religion, or teach the Bible as literary history, in public schools, but you can’t have the school organize a prayer service and baptize it’s students. It’s not the same thing.
Representations of saints, of Jesus, of the resurrection, of scenes from the Bible.
It sounds like dimensional parameters are making a difference to you - why you are excluding all two-dimensional Christian art from counting as the Christian art seen in public museums?
I guess I don’t understand the point you are trying to make here. Are you saying that statues criticizing Christianity are common in art museums, but statues glorifying Christians are absent?
… and then catch the bloody spew, wipe it on a canvas, put it in an art gallery, expect the taxpayers to throw tax dollars at it… and then complain if some don’t want to.
I don’t care about any depiction of Mohammed. If people want to kill artists over it, then those people are a danger to society. Art shouldn’t be limited by Islam or Christianity. If someone feels that Jesus shitting on the American flag says something useful, I’d say go for it. If it doesn’t say anything useful, then it likely wont get anywhere. In the case of South Park, the point was specifically that in America, they could be as offensive as they wanted and noone would try to kill them over it.
In all cases where the right has gone crazy over something, its turned out to be much less benign than they make it out. Artists themsleves don’t usually care for being offensive just to be offensive. It’s way too simple a concept.
The left simply doesn’t freak out over right wing art all that much. There might be some really far left nutters that do, but the majority of the left is very much live and let live. If there were a good depiction of the nativity in a modern art house, I’d be happy to see it. Christian art can be every bit as good as any other art.
Really what this is, is the right trying to dictate what the rest of us can see. They can go ahead and defund their museums if they like. Their cities will lose a great asset, but that’s their choice. I’ll visit cities that have modern art museums. It wont stop the art from being made. The art itself is usually privately funded.
No, not at all.
All I’m saying is that any positive Christian expression in the public square is subject to calls for censure by certain elements of society while any negative expression is subject to censure by other elements of society.
A lot of your so called Christian art is simply western art. Excise “Christian” art from Europe and North America and you might as well shut down half the art musseums.
I suppose the argument might be exactly what constitutes art as opposed to simple expression, but I fail to see any defendable criterion that would exlcude a creche from a public forum while accepting a depiction of Christ crawling with ants under a government financed roof. You are aware that burial is a fundamental Christian practice to avoid scavengers defiling a body ? You are aware that it is insulting to many Christians? Americans as well? Don’t worry, its not particularly insulting to Jews, Muslims, atheists, African Americans, Gays or Lesbians. Just Christians.
Do I really care one way or the other ? Not really. I just want to see fairness. I just want to everyone to examine their motivations for accepting creche bans and 10 commandment bans while crying for freedom of expression when Jesus or Mohammed are insulted in a publicly funded or owned venue.
Complete horseshit. Christian art is perfectly welcome and even common in museums including museums of modern art. As soon as you quit making shit up, we can start taking you seriously.
Exactly. Although, it’s the opposite of what you said in the first paragraph. Now if you want to set different bars for your own religion, well then you are simply dictating what everyone else can see. At least your not threatening to kill people that make this art, I suppose.
The government finances the museums. I guess people feel good about having museums. As a matter of fact, not everyone agrees about what should be displayed in museums. You would like museums to display monotonous drivel that’s indistinguishable from anything done before WWII. I get it. You are a typical right winger that wants everyone to live in your comfortable zone.
Unfortunately, despite getting, some government funding, they are still dependent on getting customers. Since closeted conservatives like yourself, never go to museums enough to even know that Christian art is common, catering to you would be very poor business.
So, Muslims and Jews don’t bury people, and African Americans, gays, and lesbians aren’t Christian.
I’ve never heard of the ten commandments being banned from an art museum, can you provide a cite?
sh1bu1: No worries. I’d go further and say that the best talents don’t focus on painting anymore: this isn’t the 1500s. The mediums of music, movies, software and manga absorb a lot attention. I still like the stuff though, even some of the lame work.
Misleading. You are confusing marginal with fixed costs.
Dismantling a video installation on the basis of conservative hysteria doesn’t save the taxpayer money. Arguably, increasing turnover in the gallery costs money, although frankly I suspect that effect is pretty small. It’s best not to politicize the judgment of the Smithsonian’s curators – the best way to advance diversity, quality and freedom is to evaluate their oversight when taken as a whole. Your post would apply to direct grants to artists, of course.
I admit I’m not really outraged though: this is about an eighth tier issue for me. Let the conservative screamers have their fun: maybe it will take their minds off of national security. I admit I was a little perturbed by the treatment of Mapplethorpe in the 1980s-90s though, as I believed him to be a serious artist. (Piss Christ, OTOH, was pretty weak tea.)
Heh. …and the last sentence makes no sense (of course).
I guess it’s reasonable to say that I don’t want public facilities used to promote X, Y or Z, although I wouldn’t call it necessarily supportive of the free flow of information.[1] But surely there’s a distinction between a direct outlay in support of an artist, and merely showing his work. As a thought experiment, we could imagine somebody sponsoring the Piss Christ exhibit at the Smithsonian – that would certainly not be about taxpayer money. But I think the usual suspects would get bent out of shape about that one as well.
[1] Hey – but maybe there’s an exception for bigotry… although I find it hard to see how ants and Christ combinations could be considered hate advocacy.
Reject all you like. As I tried to make explicit in my earlier post, my premise is not that the court system is not a legitimate outlay to support from the public purse – rather, it’s that (a) the entire practice of law as a profession is contingent on there being an agreed means of adjudicating disputes, viz. the publicly funded court system. Rand Rover and his practice advising clients on how to legally minimize taxes is no less dependent on the court system, as a tacit threat to his clients underscoring their need for his services, as Drain Bead is as a public defender. Also, (b), The limitations on what constitutes a proper draw on the public purse are set, not by divine or Constitutional fiat, but by the common consent of we the people, as expressed through our budget-making congresscritters and state legislators. There IS no bright-line limitation (other than the funding of unconstitutional actions) delimiting what constitutes a legitimate from an illegitimate use of public funds. That line is pragmatic, drawn by the legislature in response to the public will.
Yes.
But one might diagram this sort of situation as a gradual fade from white to black. When you discuss the publicly funded court system, you place a dot on the diagram very near the white edge, representing the fact that there is near universal agreement concerning its proper role as recipient of public funds. The purchase of, say, jewelry, would similarly enjoy a spot far into the black zone, since it would take a truly ardent socialist to contend that public funds should be reserved for the purpose of outfitting the citizenry with jewelry.
The expenditures for art support in general would be nearer the middle, and the dot representing this particular exhibit would be farther towards the black side.
I recognize that all of these placements arise from the consensus of the body politic, and are nowhere carved in stone, but to the extent that ANY idea from the voting public can be said to be held universally, publicly funded courts would be on that short list.
Bricker and Polycarp have had an interesting discussion: I agree with both of them. I don’t think Bricker has a strong basis to vilify government, as his welfare and occupation are directly dependent on the public teat. I suspect you could say the same for most people, frankly. But Bricker could argue that the Smithsonian, in this instance, has been a poor steward of the public trust, insofar as they have permitted ants on Jesus. [1] I’ve noted that what he’s really saying is that he wants something else in place of ants on Jesus – this really isn’t a discussion about the level of public spending, as Smithsonian facilities were built years ago.
I would submit that anti-government rhetoric has a different feel to it than espousing competent and appropriate use of the public’s trust and treasure.
Incidentally, the 4 minute video is available at Andrew Sullivan’ blog. He comments:
Ok, but the video lacked the sort of reverence which is typically part of Christian iconography. The video was also, IMHO, somewhat lame: I don’t believe that it was part of the 10% of everything which is not crud. I’m hardly bent out of shape about it though. Oops, ETA: I only watched the first minute!!
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/12/an-assault-on-our-survival-and-our-humanity.html
…I loved the Rodin sculpture garden in Paris. This may seem like an odd thing to say, but it’s a great place to read a book. Doing something else while surrounded by terrific art is a blessing and a luxury.
[1] AFAIK Bricker hasn’t made this argument actually: he’s merely said that such an argument is legitimate.
Thank you for mentioning Maryhill. I’ve been there and it really is in the middle of nowhere. (Missed seeing the Stonehenge replica up close though).
Anyway, when I saw this thread, my reaction was identical that to this this well-known meme. I really hope that the next few years will not see a revival of the right-wing campaign against “dirty art.” You would think with the struggling economy, the war in Afghanistan, and the “War on Terror”, the new crop of congressional Republicans would at least have their priorities straight. But I’m probably expecting too much of them.
I think this performance art belongs in the smithsonian if only Eric Cantor wouln’t object to the work of Eric Cantor.