>Ah, but there's the Nobel - officially "The Bank of Sweden Prize in
>Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel."
>
>Doug
And the Germans call it a science. Then again, the Germans call everything a science.
As for the rest, when people come out with phrases like, "I hate political art", I think they mean art that has pretentions to having aesthetic value but in fact has only its politics to recommend it (or not, as the case may be).
There's nothing wrong in principle with putting art -- and I'm talking about visual art, here -- to the purpose of politics, and some of the best political posters (for example) have extraordinary aesthetic qualities. But any art that wants to hang in a museum wall rather than on a pub wall has no right, as far as I'm concerned, to be what Tom Wolfe points out is essentially an illustration to the text -- either the implied text or the one that the museum curators have devised for it. Wolfe contrasts the way people look at a Rembrandt with the way they look at a modern abstract or conceptual (read: political) piece. In the first case they stand and look at the painting; in the second they glance at the painting (or rotting cow's head, or stack of cans containing the shit belonging to the artist's dog, or light show representing the rape of women in war) and then spend the next ten minutes reading the explanation on the wall. The less aesthetic value there is in the object, the more text there is on the wall.
Now of course there are lines to be drawn between rotting cow's heads and light shows representing the rape of women in war, and there's more than one kind of museum: I'll grant there may be places (large sort of funky warehousey type places where the pipes are exposed and an expanse of small-paned windows looks out on a grimy cityscape) where people with orange and green hair probably SHOULD get together and drink lattes and make "statements" about political events through visual means -- if only to keep them out of trouble.
And, hell, I can get a huge kick out of a poster that has the words "War Sucks" written across it if the design of the whole has its own aesthetic genius -- makes a powerful visual impression, increases me through non-verbal means.
But if what the conceptual/political artists are producing is not aesthetically increasing, exciting or even interesting, I'd just as soon they made their statements in words. Write a three-page essay and leave it on my desk.
Seinfeld talking about opera comes to mind: "I don't know about all that tra la la stuff -- if you've got something to say, say it".
bah, humbug. Joanna
www.overlookhouse.com