“You don’t make art when nothing’s wrong.” –Jill Giegerich
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So the arts in New York are being energized by an unexpected source of inspiration: the upcoming Republican National Convention.
Could it be that President Bush has made politics cool again for the arts in New York? Nothing in recent memory has stirred the far corners of this world like the prospect of the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 and of the crowds that will visit to record the event and to protest or support it.
This occasion has made unlikely partners of scruff and style, uniting old-time protesters, counterculture artists and mainstream producers as well as the “Sex and the City” crowd from the world of design, galleries, public relations and sleek magazines.
Truly, since the late 80’s when everything about life was political in New York City, there had been a noticeable lack of interest in things political in the “art world.” Artists who focussed on political topics were snickered at, considered “throw backs” or irrelevant, and thought to be compensating for a lack of “interesting” ideas. But this article is missing a key element of why there’s a burgeoning resurgence. It’s not only the Republican National Convention, it’s not only the war, it’s not even only opposition to the Bush administration. I’ve been visiting artists in their studios constantly over the past three years and I believe it’s (finally) a reaction to 9/11 that’s responsible for the shift. Only not all of the artists are fully aware of it yet, so they say it’s other things. Ask someone, “Is this a response to 9/11?” and generally, they’ll sneer you out of their studio.
Oh there were the expectedly awful group shows dealing with the attack in the months following it, and the occasionally inspired tributes, but anything directly related to the event continues to be avoided as too easy, or too manipulative, or too, well, emotional. But like most suppressed emotions (and artists, despite Hollywood portrayals of raging geniuses, tend to suppress their emotions), the anger, fear, and heartache the attacks brought to the art world are showing up in all kinds of places. They had to.
They’re still not admitting that’s what’s inspiring them, though. They’ve rallied around getting rid of Bush to justify their “uncool” return to political topics. But I remember the looks in their eyes, the uncertainty in their voices, the paralysis in their studios, and the directionless work they were producing in the months after the attacks. They’ve had time to process it now and they’re mad as hell. I’m just not convinced they’re only mad at Bush. (Having said that, I am convinced the puppets at the protests will be much, much better than in previous years.)
The Rovians are going to be working feverishly to prevent any of this artistic upheaval from leaking into national media, and the Bloomberg administration seems to be playing their assigned role as well.
So, will any of the the comments and sentiments of New Yorkers be able to penetrate the balloon and be visible to us out on the left coast?
The last line of the NY Times Arts story is the story:
“People want to get rid of Bush.”
Perhaps some of them even displace their anger about 9/11 onto Bush….
Perhaps some of them even displace their anger about 9/11 onto Bush…
Perhaps some of it. Although most of them were angry at him before 9/11, so it’s not all that.
“You don’t make art when nothing’s wrong.”
Anything else aside, isn’t that both a limited, and unpleasant, view of art?
I wouldn’t want to live in that world. It’s unfortunate I won’t get the chance, but still.
Anything else aside, isn’t that both a limited, and unpleasant, view of art?
Depends on how you interpret “wrong” I guess. For some folks what’s wrong is what’s inside them, not only what they see around them. But all the best artists I know are somewhat obsessed (not just “driven”), and you can interpret that obsession as being what’s “wrong.”
It ain’t necessarily unpleasant, but it ain’t what you’d call “normal” either. Whatever “normal” means.
“Depends on how you interpret “wrong” I guess.”
I’m still trying to find one that still lets us have the Ode to Joy, Raphael’s School of Athens* or HMS Pinafore. I believe that you can’t make art without a strong emotion, but I don’t think that it has to be a harsh one.
Moe
*My girlfriend’s choice, but one I support.
I’m still trying to find one that still lets us have the Ode to Joy…
I did a report on Beethoven in 9th grade (which, I understand, falls somewhat short of establishing myself as an expert), and one thing I remember is that he had a horrible childhood and a not-particularly-happy adulthood. Miserable people can still produce joyful art.
Not that I necessarily agree with the thesis either, mind you, but it’s an article of faith in the artistic community (so I understand) and has been for some time. For example, here’s Hemingway writing to Fitzgerald:
Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it.
Anyone know when the “great art requires great suffering” idea got its start? Seems like the sort of thing that would’ve come out of the Romantic school, but maybe it goes back farther?
“Miserable people can still produce joyful art.”
OK, point. I’m with you about wanting to figure out when this notion got started, though.
I’ll put it another way, and also thank you for your reply and perspective, Edward.
Art is the last thing I’m expert on (okay, also not good on gardening). That’s your field, and I eagerly assert I know only a smattering of bits about it.
But in my incredibly limited knowledge, while there are a vast number of exceptions, most great art doesn’t seem to arise from petty political disputes of the day (yes, Guernica, others). Do we have a lot of good art over the Silver Debate of William Jennings Bryan (surely no less hot than the disputes of today), or out of the Missouri Compromise (ditto)?
In other words, the fact that artists are upset might make for nicer posters in the next year, but beyond that, what? Great art? Significant cultural changes? Or trivial cultural blip not noticed in twenty years?
Are we going to see stuff going into the museums from this being “energized”? Or are we just going to see a number of folks feeling good about themselves?
In short, is there anything here to actually applaud, aside from a couple of dozen folks having a better time drinking coffee with each other?
I don’t know. I truly don’t. I welcome input and perspective from Edward on this. I should certainly, as always, welcome great art we’ll regard as such in fifty years. And, randomness being itself, it might happen. Causality, though?
I’m still trying to find one that still lets us have the Ode to Joy, Raphael’s School of Athens* or HMS Pinafore. I believe that you can’t make art without a strong emotion, but I don’t think that it has to be a harsh one.
One could argue that the artists in question felt a need to cheer people up?
I could (and often do) go on for hours about this, but I unfortunately have some work I have to do today, so I’ll try to be brief: Does great art require “suffering?”
I think that’s the wrong question actually. I’d phrase it “Is attempting to communicate an idea few people around you seem to understand a pleasant or deeply frustrating experience?”
Beethoven felt Ode to Joy; he heard it in his head, felt it in his heart, knew it in his soul. It wasn’t an attempt to make something up so that other people could feel joyous. It was the outpouring of something inside him. The giving of birth, so to speak. And as joyous an event as childbirth can be (so I’m told), I understand it’s also quite painful.
Ode to Joy, HMS Pinafore, or the uproarious fiasco during a local production of Peter Pan…these are rare gifts to the world, but they were not necessarily borne out of a sunny disposition or charmed life. Joy can’t be produced on demand.
Anyone know when the “great art requires great suffering” idea got its start?
There’s a sense that it started with van Gogh’s death actually, but I honestly don’t know. As opposed to a presumed previous notion that great art requires nothing as much as hard work, I’d say it’s not a useful characterization.
I don’t believe “You don’t make art when nothing’s wrong” is true because I believe artists must be miserable wretched creatures incapable of enjoying a puppy’s kiss or uncontrollable fit of the giggles. I believe it’s true because “art” is not a simple recounting of what one sees, but a lot of hard work. It’s a meaningful, time-consuming, often lonely reaction to what one sees, driven by an absoulte NEED to express it. Unless you are so deliriously happy that you’re driven to express that happiness (and you aren’t first locked up in the local mental institution), your art (even that which expresses joy) is more likely to be a reaction to what others are missing somehow or not appreciating or simply too busy with their daily lives to notice. It’s only by being driven to express it that you’d put aside your daily life to make the effort to share it with them.
So much for being brief, eh?
I’ve wondered if urban, highly educated sorts–especially artists themselves, but not only– look for in art what many people look for in religion; a way of coming to terms with that which cannot be explained rationally. And you need more of that in harder times. Sort of the analog of “no atheists in foxholes.”
I don’t know about visual art, but SO much of my favorite writing deals with politics at some level. Especially poetry and plays. Easter, 1916 by Yeats; Spain, by Auden; plenty of Whitman and some of Lowell; Angels in America, Copenhagen, Pentecost….
Now, you may disagree about those individual works, and this is partly because I’m a politics geek, but even so.
And I wonder if the influence of politics on visual art is any less, or it’s just harder to see in many cases.
But I have written things because I was very happy. Not because I was so deliriously happy I needed the whole world to know, but because I was unusually aware of being happy and wanted to set it down and remember exactly why.
because I was unusually aware of being happy and wanted to set it down and remember exactly why.
That’s the drive I’m talking about. Would you have been content to not write it down? If not, then not writing it, in some sense, would have been “wrong” or made you feel that something was “wrong.” You felt compelled to write it.