“What Lies Behind Us” – 2013

When reflecting upon the year now passing, as well as mulling over what is to come, it is perhaps best to remember the wisdom of the great American poet and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) when he said: “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” I regard Emerson’s words, not as an appeal to abandon the world for a personal retreat into the inner-self, but as an invitation to contemplate how we should respond to the world’s big questions. In that spirit, I offer the following twelve essays written in 2013, thoughts concerning world events, artists, and aesthetics.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty ( Jan. 19 )

“Given the abysmal level of cultural literacy in the U.S. at present, it is utterly astonishing that some 50 years ago a nationally televised popular show like Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concert series even existed on mainstream TV. By comparison, today’s television broadcasting only provides further evidence that we have slipped into the New Dark Ages. (….) The high arts, which include classical music, prepare one for lofty thoughts, ideals and dreams, and without these we cannot hope to create a better world.”

Maurice Merlin & the Black Legion ( Jan. 24 )

This article is a review of the exhibition, Maurice Merlin and the American Scene, 1930–1947, mounted by the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, January 19 to April 15, 2013. “That Merlin’s work remains unknown gives evidence to the ahistorical nature of the contemporary art scene; The Huntington show is the perfect antidote. The exhibit includes some 30 works by the artist covering a wide range of mediums – oils, watercolors, screen prints, drawings, woodcuts, and lithographs.”

The Invasion of Iraq – Ten Years Later (March 19)

“March 19, 2013 marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. war against Iraq.

To commemorate the somber occasion I am presenting fifteen separate articles pertaining to the Iraq war that I wrote for this web log from 2004 to 2009, starting with the earliest post and ending with the most recent. Each piece discusses individual or cooperative artistic responses to the imperial war… all writings express this artist’s disdain for the war and its instigators.”

Iron Lady: Rust In Peace (April 19)

“Mark Twain once wrote of a memorial service, ‘I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.’ The following comments regarding Margaret Thatcher having ascended to the choir invisible are written with that same attitude, a spirit no doubt shared by millions in the U.K. and around the world.

When I heard the news on April 8, 2013 that the “Iron Lady” had passed away at the age of 87, it was like receiving word of a long-time nemesis having given up the ghost. Numerous memories of Thatcher came to mind, none of them pleasant, as I waited for the deluge of corporate media sophistry that would conceal the real legacy of Maggie Thatcher.”

Echoes of Weimar ( June 8 )

“Barthel Gilles (1891-1977) was one of those artists overlooked by history, he was a fabulously talented painter who lived during the rise and fall of Germany’s Weimar Republic (1919-1933), not to mention the ascendancy and demise of the Nazi regime.(….) Since the Nazis tightly controlled the museum and gallery system as well as all other aspects of cultural production, those who criticized the regime were hounded, banned from making art, imprisoned or worse. How many of us could withstand such persecution? Ultimately it is a question of one’s own humanity, do you keep it by resisting or lose it by consenting to the most despicable outrages. That Gilles collaborated with a genocidal regime to save himself is his shame, that many of us today accept the unacceptable is ours.”

A Postmodern 4th of July (July 2)

“(….) The crisis we face is much more than a ‘political’ question, it is also cultural paralysis and torpor that confronts us. In fact, the two have always been intertwined.

(….) While U.S. society teeters on becoming the surveillance state depicted in George Orwell’s 1984, it has already become the conformist, ahistoric, consumer-oriented and sex-obsessed social order from Huxley’s Brave New World. Perhaps President Obama’s mass surveillance of U.S. citizens is not such a bad thing… providing that everyone looks hot.”

Ward Kimball – Art Afterpieces (July 7)

“I never forgot Kimball’s Art Afterpieces, though it seems the rest of the world did. Searching online for evidence of the book’s existence turns up almost nothing, scarcely even a mention.

More baffling is Kimball’s persona non grata status in the elite art world, where kitsch aesthetics are all the rage and lowbrow art regularly, if mystifyingly, fetches astronomical prices. Today’s museum curators, gallery directors, arts writers, critics, art historians, and wealthy art collectors pay no attention to Kimball, but I say, give credit where credit is due.”

Farewell Mr. Deitch (July 26)

“In 1750 the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, writing in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, observed that ‘the arts spread flowery garlands over the iron chains of law, inducing consent without obvious coercion.’

Rousseau’s critique seems pertinent here, given that corporate power and men like Mr. Deitch are turning the art world’s remaining shreds of autonomy and integrity into exceedingly bad jokes.”

Chicano Park & Chile (Sept. 11)

“The young artists that created the murals in the Logan Heights Barrio, painted their spiritual, political, international, and Chicano visions onto the walls for all to see.

Those murals continue to be a great source of community pride, moreover, they stand as examples of an authentic ‘people’s art,’ the very antithesis of today’s detached, elite, postmodern art. Rather than being frozen in the past, the Chicano Park murals embody a way forward for today’s artists.”

Protest at the Detroit Institute of Arts (Oct 5)

“History was made on October 4, 2013, when hundreds of people gathered on the steps of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) in Detroit, Michigan for a demonstration against city plans to sell the museum’s world-class art collection. The city has paid Christie’s auction house $200,000 to appraise the DIA’s holdings. The process is now underway to prepare for a massive auctioning off of the museum’s cultural treasures in order to pay down Detroit’s multi-billion dollar debt.”

LACMA Halloween Nightmare (Oct 25)

“Hallowe’en… what fearfu’ pranks ensue! This October 26, 2013, the trendy vampires and way-out ogres of Los Angeles will shamble and hobble their way to the 10th-annual ‘Muse Costume Ball’ thrown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

(….) LACMA’s monster mash is not for bête noire proletarian miscreants, it is strictly for upper-crust bloodsuckers and villainess socialites. At $100 per general admission ticket, what is a poor working ghoul to do?“

Art Is For Everyone! (Oct 18)

“In some quarters art has become a cynical intellectual exercise that is incomprehensible without an art degree and knowledge in dubious and obscurest theories. Things are really much simpler; making and appreciating art is what makes us human. Art is but one facet of an ordered human community, it has always been so. If you want to know what mathematics are all about, you might want to ask a mathematician. If curious about the stars in the heavens, talk to an astronomer. It follows that if you want to know about art, you should ask an artist. Leave the critics to argue amongst themselves.”