I'm responding to Eric's query about why visual art seems more prone
to controversy than music.  (Sorry, but my primitive e-mail system
does not allow me to cut and paste.)  I think the answer lies precisely
in the fact that it is visual.  Visual symbols such as the American
flag (or the flag of any country, for that matter), the Christian cross,
and the swastika, only to name a few, evoke very powerful emotions and
ideas.  The ways in which they are "abused", "glorified", or "desecrated"
in art determines the level of controversy that arises.  I can't think
of any instance in music that carries the same emotional charge.  The
only example I can think of is when Jimi Hendrix used to play the national
anthem.  But that hardly raised the same kind of uproar that controversial
art exhibits have engendered.  Perhaps because music is more fleeting;
when it's over, it's gone.


Amy A. Douglass
Tempe Historical Museum
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