These days there is great bipartisanship when it comes to elected
politicians handing over appropriations for the NEA and NEH.  Andy
Finch's recent mailings showed just that.   It isn't always "Republican
mortar-fire" that targets the NEA and NEH.  For every loose cannon out
there we find that there is broad appeal for and interest in the cultural
arts, as well as in literature.   What is more important here aside from
the name-calling that a debate such as this whips up, is the fact that
the American people expect and demand culture from its society, and you
bet our politicians will continue to support NEA and NEH and the rest of
the programs we have worked for.  But I thought we were talking about
beauty and ugliness in art, not the mechanisms that exist to support or
destroy the other.  If I'd realized that "stand on its own" was a hot
button phrase, I would've been more circumpsect.  Now I'm all alone.


O

Olivia S. Anastasiadis, Curator
Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace
18001 Yorba Linda Boulevard
Yorba Linda, CA  92886
(714) 993-5075 ext. 224; fax (714) 528-0544; e-mail:  [log in to unmask]

On Fri, 24 Jul 1998 12:27:55 -0700 Dave <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>One has to remember that Picasso was one of the first modern artists
>to
>use the media to shape acceptance of his work. Still, it was a long
>time
>before 'contemporary' art was accepted as worthy of collecting.
>
>Asking the question "what is art?" opens a huge abyss of debate--as
>will
>on the question of "if" art can "stand on its own." For example, the
>motivations which led to the Armoury Show, and the successive tidal
>wave
>of support and detraction, make what happens when art world fault-line
>finally slips into the media and public attention. At that Armoury
>Show,
>the works there were not accepted by any of the existing major
>museums--but many are now the mainstay of those same museums.
>
>The NEA and NEH can be targets of Repulican mortar-fire, as they are
>by
>the neo-nazi Christian Right. In the wake of a smoke cloud from such a
>successful barrage, would be acceptance of an artistic banality like
>the
>1930's Nazi German pap.
>
>Of course, when the "great masters" were working, weren't there other
>artists who were being excluded in those mono-lithic structures of
>support and acceptance? Does "official art" leave room for art "to
>stand
>on its own?"
>
>Dave Wells
>Olympia WA
>
>_________________________
>JHANDLEY wrote:
>>
>> The idea that a work of art should "stand on its own," is certainly
>a
>> nice one, isn't it? Then again, such a notion reveals the canyon
>> between theory and practice that museum's face every day. Let's face
>> it folks, the Picasso-looking painting that the neighbor kid painted
>> will ever be as important as the Picasso that Picasso himself
>painted.
>> And, there are great arguments on both sides of the canyon.
>>
>>      John Handley
>>
>

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