----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Take comfort, you don't need to be ashamed to be an American. As it states
in the title, the exhibition is of British artists. Also, I find your
implication that art should have no personnal content extremely disturbing.

-----Original Message-----
From: WILLIAM KEAVENEY [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, September 27, 1999 3:03 PM
To: <a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9909%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7BIT%26P%3D394918%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>
Subject: Re: Brooklyn Museum and Mayor Guiliani (fwd)


----------------------------Original message----------------------------

Art should enrich the intellectual and aesthetic lives of people
not serve the psychoanalytic needs of the "artist."  "Artists" who
are in need of psychotherapy should visit a shrink, not pollute the
walls and floors of cultural institutions with their deification (or
the excrement of any animal for that matter).  Their health
insurance, not public arts funding should finance their "work."  If
this exhibition in any way reflects the state of cultural
affairs in the United States then I am ashamed the be an American.


> Date:          Sun, 26 Sep 1999 11:29:35 EDT
> Reply-to:      ART LIBRARIES SOCIETY DISCUSSION LIST <<a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9909%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7BIT%26P%3D394918%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>>
> From:          Rayanne Lockard <<a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9909%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7BIT%26P%3D394918%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>>
> Subject:       Re: Brooklyn Museum and Mayor Guiliani (fwd)
> To:            <a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9909%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7BIT%26P%3D394918%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>

> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
> I thought this message on CAAH-L about the Brooklyn Art Museum and Mayor
> G. would be of interest to ARLISters.  RAL
>
>                                 Ray Anne Lockard
>                          Head, Frick Fine Arts Library
>                            University Library System
>                             University of Pittsburgh
>                              Pittsburgh, PA  15260
>                               Voice:  412-648-2410
>                                 Fax:  412-648-7568
>                           E-mail:  <a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9909%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7BIT%26P%3D394918%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>
>
>                 A book should be a ball of light in one's hands.
>                                    Ezra Pound
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 15:50:59 -0400
> From: mnh <<a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9909%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7BIT%26P%3D394918%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>>
> Reply-To: CONSORTIUM OF ART AND ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIANS
>      <<a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9909%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7BIT%26P%3D394918%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>>
> To: <a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9909%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7BIT%26P%3D394918%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>
> Subject: Re: Brooklyn Museum and Mayor Guiliani
>
> I hate the idea of art historians again being manipulated into a
sound-bite
> standoff that will only benefit the person who started it -- Guiliani.
Many
> in the press will report this according to old formulas and will openly
play
> to the strong streak of anti-intellectualism in the country.  Once again,
we
> are being suckered into a fight that is likely to cost us dearly.  We
can't
> let ourselves be bulldozed into playing parts in a public melodrama
written
> by Guiliani's campaign staff.
>
> The important thing to consider right now is not the motives of the museum
> professionals who have brought the show to the Brooklyn Museum (an
> institution for which I have deep respect and high regard), but how to
avoid
> a political debacle.  The motives that we need to keep in mind right now
are
> Guiliani's.  We do not appear to be facing any kind of grass-roots,
> spontaneous protest by museum-goers.  Instead we are being baited by
> professional opinion-makers who like to make public funding of the arts
> their whipping boy.
>
> Certain politicians will always be able to make hay off of art that
offends.
> Self-censorship is probably not the answer. That's harmful in itself and,
> besides, won't work.  Politicians will always be able to find some
publicly
> supported exhibition, somewhere, that will serve their purpose, even if
the
> museum community itself declines sensational exhibits or shunts them off
to
> venues that seem appropriate.  So self-censorship is both questionable
> ethically and unlikely to work as a strategy, in my opinion.  On the other
> hand, if politicians find that the tactic backfires on them, they might
> knock it off.
>
> As CAA members try to come up with a response, I think we should avoid
> playing into the hands of the people who have manufactured this bogus
> crisis.  I suspect that the mayor's office would just love to see news
> footage of academic art historians gathered in front of the (supposedly)
> offending works, defending them on their merits.  Perhaps these merits are
> considerable -- I haven't seen the work.  But it's not Rudy's call, is it?
> If we respond by defending the work itself, we are taking the bait.
>
> Some sectors of the public are surely as weary of this kind of
grandstanding
> as we are.  It is so transparently self-serving that I think we would be
> wise to make sure the focus stays on the mayor, and not on the exhibition.
> Museums all over New York exhibit art that some people don't like -- this
is
> a crisis?  Do voters really want a Jesse Helms wannabe calling the shots
at
> the Met?  Why should the borough of Brooklyn pay the freight for the
mayor's
> cheap grab for votes?
>
> This has gone on too long, but I hope we can avoid news footage of some
CAA
> member standing in front of a dung-speckled Madonna talking about form and
> tonal values, or even making the perfectly sensible argument that one
> respondent made recently about the cultural origins of the piece.  I
suspect
> the press will simply report that we are saying shit isn't shit.
According
> to formula, the anchor (or print reporter) will carefully juxtapose this
> with Guiliani's interpretation of the piece, in the interest of "balance."
>
> I'd rather see someone posted in front of the museum, calling the mayor a
> selfish ignoramus who will sacrifice one of Brooklyn's biggest assets to
> promote his own career.
>
> Martha Hagood
> University of Delaware
> <a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9909%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7BIT%26P%3D394918%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>
>
> By the way -- cancel the exhibition?  Of course not.  And I'd love to see
a
> cartoon of Rudy "Jesse" Giuliani as the new Cultural Minister of Brooklyn.
> Will he also decide who pitches for the Mets and the Yankees this weekend?
> etc. etc.
>