Update on sculpture for sale on Craig's List

Read it here

See our earlier post here

Sell a Public Sculpture on CraigsList?

I had a post for this week already in the queue, so to speak, but this controversy is too hot to let slip by! Apparently New York Congressman Wiener and Councilwoman Ferreras think it's okay to sell works of public art, owned by public entities, on CraigsList. Consider this: Frederick MacMonnies's Civic Virtue. Read one of the many reports online here and the actual CraigsList posting here: For Sale: 22-ton (sexist) marble “Triumph of Civic Virtue” statue by renowned sculptor Frederick MacMonnies. Own a (tasteless) piece of New York City history! Triumph of Civic Virtue created by sculptor Frederick MacMonnies – the artist behind iconic figures such as the Quadriga in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza – is now up for sale for a limited time. This controversial and offensive statue crudely depicts a young man with a sword triumphantly standing over the defeated bodies of two women. In 1941, then-Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had the good sense to banish the figure from its initial location in City Hall Park. Unfortunately, it ended up in Kew Gardens, where it remains to this day. Now, community leaders want to see it go. All proceeds from the sale of this sexist eyesore will benefit the city of New York. Shipping is not included. -Posted By Rep. Anthony Weiner

Times have changed...or, have they? Read an interesting letter to the Editor, that appeared in the New York Times 24 years ago, about this sculpture and its history. MacMonnies' sculpture is considered a landmark work because of its place in public history, social history, and art history. As someone who researches and promotes public art -- its past, present, and future -- I see this sculpture's relevance today wrapped into a tight matrix with its past. Someone's desire to move the work, or, in this case --the sale of that work to anyone -- does not necessitate action. The current debate focuses not on moving the sculpture to another location nor on its condition but on its sexist portrayal of women.

As we enter Women's History Month, I ask readers to consider what this proposed action really invites. Does it sanction taste? Does it censor? Does it foreground feminism as the concern in an effort to raise funds for a budget that has been depleted for months? Could the primary concern in this CraigsList Conundrum be activism? Consider the source...A quick wiki search reveals that Weiner was Jon Stewart's roommate in college, represents a multi-ethnic and diverse district in Brooklyn and Queens, and places his focus on concerns such as quality of life issues for his constituents. Read through the wiki info on him and you'll notice a dearth of activity related to public art and arts funding. And, yet, his CraigsList posting discloses his authority to judge an historic work of art by calling it "tasteless", "controversial", and "offensive." This action and the use of language, to me, at least, suggests that the posting serves as a knee-jerk reaction and activist motion with another agenda and, yet, I am not sure what the agenda is. The base thought of selling a work of public art on CraigsList brims with complication, confusion, and impropriety -- at least in my opinion. Or, should I use Weiner's own words about the sculpture against him? Was his act tasteless, controversial, and offensive? I'd be interested to read what you think.

BTW, photo credit: http://kewgardenshistory.com/ss-queensblvd/qb-0500-NL.html

Critical Issues: Taste Classifies...(part two)

A few weeks ago I made a post that linked Pierre Bourdieu and the permanent collection at Harvard through a discussion of changing the face of the collection by adding portraits to show the complexion of the college community. I posed questions to the blog followers asking who you would like to serve as a representation of our institution and, further, asking what ways do you think that the art on the walls (however narrowly or broadly defined) classifies the institution.

This week, I've been asking students a different kind of question: If the college were to do something together -- as a community -- such as reading a book, what book would you select? Your choice could come from poetry or prose, fiction or non. Might you choose epic? tragedy or comedy for you Shakespeareans among us? novel, short story, or creative non-fiction? Would you select fiction, biography, spiritual, historical?

The choice should not be full of jargon or purely discipline specific and appeal to the widest possible audience -- students, staff, and faculty. Here are some of the responses that students have given (and I've provided links from amazon.com for editions that I've selected for demonstration purposes only):

Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist

Vandana Shiva's Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit

Bill McKibben's Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Idiot

Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak

John Gardner's Grendel

What book would you choose? And why? Please post here and let's discuss.

Photo pulled from Black Swan Books. If you've not been, you don't know what you're missing!

Critical Issues: Taste classifies...

and it classifies the classifier....See the full quote at the end of this post.

I recalled these words of Pierre Bourdieu as I read an article recently about the permanent collection of Harvard (not to be confused with that of the Fogg Art Museum). The basis of the article is this alarming statistic: "Of the approximately 750 oil portraits that grace the libraries, dining commons, and undergraduate residences of the nation’s oldest university, roughly 690 were of white men, as of a 2002 inventory by the curator of the university’s portrait collection." The article further posits that "only two portraits, commissioned in the 1980s and ’90s, were of minorities. The remaining portraits were of white women — Radcliffe professors, benefactors’ family members, presidents’ wives." What of our very own permanent collection--how does it compare? We do not have a wealth of portraits. We have several (close to 20) portraits of former presidents of the college. We also display busts of esteemed educators and donors (for example, the bust of J. J. Rucker, the faculty member who led the efforts to integrate female students into the population thus making GC co-ed.)

In contrast to Harvard, at GC, we do not have funds to actively commission works of art for our college's permanent collection. But we are fortunate to receive donations of works of art and, in some cases, add works to the collection as the result of a collaboration or project (such as the series of portraits of students, faculty and staff for a curatorial project entitled Me, Myself, and Art as well as a series of photos of the GC campus, London, and Dublin by GC alum, Hannah Davis.) Would the large banners that bedeck several campus buildings, including the Wilson Fine Arts Building, serve as portraits in our collection? If so, to what ends?

According to Sandra Grindlay, former curator of Harvard's portrait collection, “People tend to think, ‘Oh, the portraits. Nobody looks at them.’ But they do have the power to represent the institution, insofar as when some students look at them, they think, ‘If this is Harvard, what am I doing here?’’’ The thought of changing the face of the collection -- literally, by adding portraits to show the complexion of the college community is an interesting one.

I pose the question to blog followers, then:

• Who would you nominate to be depicted as a portrait to serve as a representation of our institution?
• And, secondly, in what ways do you think that the art on the walls (however narrowly or broadly defined) classifies the institution?

From above: In the words of Pierre Bourdieu, "Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar, in which their position in the objective classifications is expressed or betrayed." (from Distinction). Note: Students from "The End of Impressionism" class should remember that quote, over which we labored for several days.

"If I just had a pencil and paper..."

..."the sunrise wouldn't be that interesting." I was astonished when I heard David Hockney say that. He was referring to the concept of his current exhibition in Paris, "Fleurs Fraiches", where the medium is the message. Digital screens are the viewing mechanism for his iPad-created art. While Hockney claims to have found an access point into a revolution, both in terms of process and curatorial methodology, I have to question the viability of this medium and its true intentions. See the article here.

Hockney has always pushed the boundaries so it is natural that he is making art using iPhones and iPads and all of their tools (such as "Brushes" mentioned in the article). He is one of art's old guard: he's been around (b. 1937) and is always poking his head into something new. Moreover, he has opinions and is not afraid to share them. His popular fame came with the photographic collages of the 1980s -- a process that is often explored in basic photography courses. More recently, however, art historians lambasted as well as embraced him for claiming that earlier artists, Old Masters particularly, traced their work. That is, they used drawing aids. He went to great lengths to demonstrate that artists had used the camera obscura as an aid for defining underdrawing and overpainting. His published findings, I would argue, serve as a demonstration of knowledge (and the importance of knowledge and inquiry as part of the artistic process); although noted scholar Susan Sontag begged to differ, remarking "If David Hockney's thesis is correct, it would be a bit like finding out that all the great lovers of history have been using Viagra." To, me, though, optical aids can, indeed, yield photographic likeness but the use of them need not diminish the importance of drawing or the finished work.

In looking at Hockney's oeuvre (and this current contribution to the stories of art), we see that his work in stage design, drawing, printmaking, painting, and photography enabled (and forced) him to experiment ambitiously with these art forms and push the manner in which they challenge perception and reality. He has taken on fax machines, computers, and, now the iPad. Am I turned off by this new concept just because it's technology? Or, is there something deeper that is gnawing at me? It's the latter. Hockney is moving toward the easy way out. He commented: "It's a real privilege to make these works of art through digital tools which mean you don't have the bother of water, paints, and the chore of clearing things away." This comment, and the one at the head of this post, smacks of laziness and a pressure to perform rather than inventiveness and/or a "revolution" in the making. Having made this comment, myself, however, I only hope folks take the time to read the article and this post. It's a wee bit of work, but hopefully you're up for it!

For the Sontag quote, see Graeme Sullivan, Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in Visual Arts, Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 2010, 122.

NOTE: You'll have to excuse the article that the link points to above. As a review, it's quite awful, particularly the reference to the Eiffel Tower. Hello, cast iron! That was an incredible technological invention that transformed the state of 19th century engineering. To make a reference to that irony of the digital art "in a lush and ornate gallery a stone's throw from the Eiffel Tower" is irrelevant.

Answering the question

The University of Oxford is famed for its interview questions -- not because they are particularly difficult in terms of demonstrating intensive academic knowledge but, rather, because they engage prospective students in ways of knowing. Dr. Lynn Robson, lecturer in English and frequent visitor to our college during the spring Oxford interviews at Georgetown College, disclosed one of the typical questions asked of Oxford-wannabees: "Why do you think an English student might be interested in the fact that Coronation Street has been running for 50 years?" [For those who may not be familiar, Coronation Street is a British soap opera featuring stock characters (from a host of social classes) such as the busybody, war vet, and pensioner as well as youthful rebel and university student.]

On the surface the question seems mundane. It throws students for a loop because it's not a particularly scholarly question that might yield a demonstration of knowledge of the thousands of pages of literature with which the interviewee may be familiar. Yet, it is an interesting conversation starter aimed at seeing how people respond to known material. Robson notes that this question “first and foremost...brings popular culture into the mix and shows that techniques of literary analysis can be applied to other media. It could also open up discussion about things such as techniques of storytelling; mixing humorous and serious storylines/characters; how a writer might keep viewers or readers engaged; collaborative writing; the use of serialisation, and how writers/texts might move from being perceived as ‘popular’ (like Dickens, say) to being ‘canonical’.”

How would you respond to a question like this? Examples might include:

• What is the most influential work of art that you have seen face-to-face (not through a book or reproduction)?
• What work of literature would you give as a gift to a graduating senior and why?
• Why do you think the Mona Lisa is considered one of the most famous works of art?
• How does a work of art, any work of art, demonstrate evidence of the production of new knowledge?

As we bring the semester into its final third, consider these kinds of questions as you approach art, design, and research projects. Consider what your work offers to its audience. Consider its purpose, goals, and objectives. Consider decisions made at every step of the way. Are you able to articulate your thoughts about your own production and that of others? How do you see your work fitting into the larger matrix of work produced as a graduating senior, an art student, an artist, or any other identifying group? Feel free to stop by my office and chat about ways of knowing and ways of answering the question...whatever it may be.

For more information on the Oxford interview, see the Times Higher Ed article.

Author and Scholar Lynn Nicholas at UK Tuesday

Those interested in WWII repatriation will not want to miss Lynn H. Nicholas's talk tonight at UK. For context, see an earlier post that I made on a critical issue of art history's relevance. Nicholas is one of several lecturers who will devote an entire week of lecture, presentation, and discussion to issues of ownership, access, restoration, and repatriation. See the full listing here.