September 3, 2003
Where I stand on art, part II
Where I stand on art in relation to society.
There are two issues that involve art and public policy. The first is the role of regulation by the government of art. The second is the role of the government to fund art. I am an anti-Libertarian in both regards, as I see it as an essential duty of the state to promote the public good by restricting art in both the public and the private sphere. In the private sphere subsidiarity demands that the government not excessively regulate what a man chooses to see behind closed doors, but the government has a compelling interest in trade, and must first and foremost regulate or see to the professional regulation of craft standards. An art litho must be in conformance to the accepted standards of art lithography: the artist must have worked the image himself, without recourse to photochemical means, the run must conform to the stated number, plus a reasonable number of artist’s and printer’s proofs, the stone (or plate) must be effaced and an effacement print made, etc. There is a lot of technical knowledge as to what constitutes an art litho, and the term is abused by the unscrupulous. Many times I see posters that were offset printed from photochemical plates, unsigned, un-numbered, yet called “art prints” or “art lithos.” To protect the consumer, this should be regulated.
Beyond certifying the veracity of the materials and processes, the regulation of art in the private sphere should mainly be concerned with outlawing only pornography or the patently blasphemous. Art in the public sphere, on the other hand, must be held to stricter standards. Contrary to mainstream public opinion, I believe that the local ordinary should have the power to at least restrict viewing of certain paintings, films, sculptures, etc. to adult audiences. The state’s role is to enforce his decision. If something is really bad, then let it be cast out of the public sphere altogether.
Obviously one will notice that I see the state and the Church working hand in hand to promote the public good. Obviously this gives you some idea of where I stand on politics! But that is for another entry on another day, when we will discuss syndicalism, Falangismo and Francisco Franco y Bahamonde. Meanwhile we will stick to art policy.
Part of the Church and state working together is the use of the Church tax as well as the young people in their national service term to work towards grand, publicly funded art in the form of Cathedrals, public sculpture, etc. Even in our debased secular era, even in the absence of my long awaited Catholic dictatorship, I believe strongly in the public funding of the arts. There has never been a time when the arts were not publicly funded. The nature of the state changed, but the patronage has always been from the taxes paid by the people (or the tithes).
Very little of what the NEA has funded has been complete garbage. Most of what they have done has been excellent. The NEA has brought art to crappy little burgs, I mean, uh, humble little towns that would otherwise have been completely devoid of higher culture. The NEA has funded some of the greatest achievements of the American performing arts, the preservation of many traditional arts, the education of countless children in at least the seeds of artistic contemplation.
Of course the best example of public funding of the arts is probably the US Army band. Countless jazz musicians honed their chops and learned terrific discipline as a result of their stints in the Army band. This is not to slight the Navy. On the contrary, I remember at the Stanford Jazz Workshop we had some Navy guys who were all around great musicians, and really good guys as well. I am sure the Marines and Air Force provide this service as well.
I am a big supporter of bands, and believe that every town of over 100 people has a duty to support a municipal band. The level of support could be nothing more than providing uniforms and a bandstand in the park, or it could be full-time salaries with benefits depending on the city. I am often saddened to see beautiful bandstands in parks that are neglected. The bands could do a lot to promote the civic identity of a place, too. Towns could stick to the Sousa basics or venture into Nino Rota arrangements or whatever, depending on the tastes of the town. I consider this a practical blueprint for society as it stands. It would be an easy, educational, and completely beneficial program for a town to sponsor a municipal band. Towns with a rich heritage of musicianship could even have competing neighborhood bands, the cream of which form the City Municipal Band. I guarantee you that a public band program would lower juvenile delinquency (otherwise, there’s trouble, right here in River City!).
I also believe that every parish should have a band for processions. I think that it is a disgrace how we have neglected these magnificent public displays of the Faith. Haydn and other composers have even written masses for wind bands. It is time to give these works a dusting off, and to bring back this tradition to our churches.
So, in addition to what was posted below, we have the following:
1. Keilholtz believes in regulating art to ban pornography and blasphemy.
2. Keilholtz believes in public funding of art
3. Keilholtz admires the military band tradition
4. Keilholtz has some funny idea that there should be municipal bands raising a ruckus in our parks on the weekends
5. Keilholtz wants Catholics to march around, raising a ruckus on Holy Days.
Now, on to more unfinished business. I spoke against the formulaic versus the experimental in art. Jeff rightfully questioned what I meant, figuring that I was not for anarchy. He is right. I do not advocate anarchy, but rather see good foundations of rules and structures to be the only way of breaking free of formula.
I gave a couple of hasty examples in the comments box, but let me offer them again, with some more detail.
Example One. I freely go at a canvas. I used the Jackson Pollock imitation model earlier, so now I will use the Thomas Hart Benton model. I do not base my work on “rigid” classical rules of composition, color, line, etc. Rather I go with the flow, painting objects and people undulating against each other. What will almost inevitably happen is formula. I will seize upon something and repeat it over and over and over. When I start a painting, it will become an exercise in doing it again. A painting will come out exactly as it was supposed to. There is no room for anything but me here!
If, instead, I work based on classical norms of composition, or within a structural system I have developed over time, with a lot of careful introspection and contemplation, the chances are much better that I will be surprised by some beauty in the painting that I did not predict. Often it will mean taking a calculated risk, but often the discipline comes from subjecting the art to the rules and using veto powers over the whim.
If I degenerate to formula, whether completely abstract or more realistic, I will end up with the painting I started with. Dead. Dull. Crank it out and get on with another one. It is the deadliest trap of modern art, avoiding the formulaic. OK. Enlarge a poloroid photo of the subject here. Silkscreen it with some outlandish color choices. OK, repeat it. Presto! Sign it and on to the next one! Yawn. The formulaic is the choosing of the facile over the long careful look. The formulaic is in self-imitation. The formulaic is in good craftsmanship married to poor ideas. Keanes, Kinkade, Koons are the most egregious after Warhol. Norman Rockwell verged on the formulaic but saved himself as an illustrator (just don’t call him a painter!). In milder cases the fomulaic results in bland, unoffensive but unremarkable art: Wyeth comes immediately to mind. You look at his work and get the idea that he could have put it together in his sleep, without a model, without thought.
Picasso could dip into the territory, and his worst work smacks of formula. After all, Pablo was a great commodity. Demand had to be met! However, simply because Picasso was such an able draftsman and a keen observer, even the paintings he threw together at the last minute had something going for them. A good idea becomes formula when the artist does the painting without thinking about it. Nathan Oliveira turned a great idea into a formula out of laziness. So did Georgia O’Keefe.
Not all repetition of idea is formulaic, though. Manuel Neri and Robert Ryman were able to do many works that differed from each other only slightly in basic idea, yet managed to carve out their own space. I particularly like Ryman, by the way, but absolutely do not recommend him in reproduction. You must not only see his work in person (preferably a whole room of it, like SFMOMA used to have), but need to take a long look at each piece. He remains one of my favorite painters.
Example Two. I offered the example of playing a baroque piece on the harpsichord. I can sit down and play through a Bach suite without much thought to performance practice and make a credible performance. It will be with a lot of feeling and expression and all of that. However, if I do not take the piece for granted, and instead study it with an eye towards historical performance practice, and theoretical analysis, I can end up with a much more interesting performance, one that even surprises me as a performer.
You want formulaic baroque? Sir Neville Marriner and the lumberjacks of St. Martin in the Fields. They can saw through Bach with the best of them, and they are all good musicians, so it will work, but listen to Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music doing the same piece. The contrast will be striking. One will be utterly predictable. You will know when the melody is going to turn, even if you have never heard the piece before, simply because they play firmly within our current cultural expectations.
Hogwood, on the other hand, will have the humility to approach the piece as an alien, to investigate and poke and prod with the greatest of intellectual vigor. None of this is to suggest that a historically informed performance jettison expression and feeling. On the contrary, a historically informed performance DEMANDS those things. It is through the discipline of study that we can tap into the music that is there rather than try to force the composition to yield to our own wills.
And finally, this brings us to some painters I neglected to mention in my list of favorites/influences:
Vermeer, Degas, Vuillard, Hodgkins, Terry St. John, Gustave Dore, Beardsley, Ruskin (more about him later, in his role as a critic), Whistler (had to put them together on the list), Marion Cavenaugh Wachtel, Maynard Dixon, Hassel Smith, Xavier Martinez, Bierstadt, Church, Constable, Turner, Klimt, the Brueghels, Kandinsky, Klee, Hans Hoffman, e&.
I have gone on too long to get into content of art, so that will have to wait another day!