[This is the first part of an exactly two-part article.]
by Catherine King
The second half of 2004 began for me with a powerful rush of artistic inspiration.
The night before, June 30, Jerome and I had been going over Joe Watson's "Heil to the Chief" article, which is the cover story of the July 1-7 Phoenix New Times. It provides reproductions of six wall works and one sculpture that have already been accepted for ASU's fall art exhibition, "Democracy in America."
On the cover of the newspaper there was the big closeup of Jon Haddock's hokey Patriot Act sculpture, 98-107. "Kathleen Thomas and all his friends who helped him at their famous papier-maché party didn't do such a good job," I remarked cattily to Jerome. This piece is nevertheless very popular, because people love mediocrity best.
Basically I was ranting to Jerome about the amateurish quality of the work shown in the article. I am both professionally and academically qualified to judge. Three of the six wall works, Read My Apocalips by Robbie Conal, Let's Play Amageddon by somebody with a fake name I won't use, a piece by Shepard Fairey with George Bush cradling a bomb -- all looked like middle- or high-school poster design projects (of which I've seen more than my share). The figures were clumsily rendered and the copy was treated with the least possible imagination -- headlines across the top and bottom in plain block letters. A fourth, Richie Bush by Peter Kuper, replicates a comic book cover -- derivative, mundane and juvenile.
A fifth illustration, of Not a Pipe by Peter Kuper, is simply a nine-panel comic strip with three rows of simplistic scenes of a decadent, dangerous and doomed America. And again, many, many schoolkids could have designed far more awesome and professional-looking comic strips. With a weary gesture, Jerome passed an open hand over the tragedy-laden cartoon and said, "There's sure nothing here about America the beautiful."
The painting called Bushwacked that ASU Art Museum director Marilyn Zeitlin solicited from a university art professor, Alfred Quiroz, really made me mad. The bursting montage features George Bush surrounded by poorly painted cliches. "Quiroz' work reminds me of painting that Prairie Prince was doing in art school 35 years ago," I told Jerome, "only Prairie's subject matter was so much more innovative, with unidentifed flying objects and psychedelic aliens. And his draftsmanship, even as a student, was way better than this guy's."
You see, yesterday's art student created work that is conceptually and technically superior to the university professor of today. It must be said. What's happened in the meantime? What are they doing over there at Herberger? What has happened to standards -- of originality, of technical skill, of artistic judgment? I have been unimpressed by the art faculty at ASU for some time now, and as I said before, I am both academically and professionally qualified to judge. (I'll tell you a little secret -- in academia, it's not about quality, it's about kissing ass, and finding the right asses to kiss -- which is why I'm not there.)
But far more importantly, the "art" that had already been accepted for the show just struck me as being unjustifiably self-satisfied with the least effort and the smallest notion and the handiest propaganda. It was immediately obvious that night as Jerome and I looked over the work that had been solicited for the "Democracy in America" exhibit by John Spiak, Marilyn Zeitlin, Heather Lineberry, and Peter Held, that none of the "artists" had put any heart, much less soul, into their work. The crafting was shoddy, the subject matter was filled with clichés, their treatment was unimaginative. And all depressingly one-note: Anti-Bush. "If someone had asked me to contribute something to the show, I would have been so honored and excited," I admitted to Jerome. "Believe me, I sure wouldn't have submitted anything like this cheap shlock."
I felt mad, but not surprised, that university curators had actually gone out and solicited this art that I considered unworthy of any kind of serious, major exhibition. Not surprised, because I've become disillusioned with curators and museum directors, right along with art teachers, professors, gallerists and "professional" artists around this town. It wasn't so long ago, though, that I thought it meant something to curate an art exhibition. . .
Jerome and I had envisioned and described a funny, fake alternate "Democracy in America" exhibition in a previous post. The purpose of the post was just to poke some fun at the predictable local artists and see if we could second-guess the type of art they would submit to depict "Democracy in America." Now that New Times was showing some of the actual art that the curators were soliciting for the real exhibit -- well, the so-called "art" wasn't funny but simultaneously vicious, spoiled, infantile, myopic and jaded.
People can be so disappointing. The curators are going around soliciting crappy art and none of the artists had a positive image of Democracy in America. This was how I was feeling about the exhibit when I called it a day on the night of June 30.
That night, the year 2004 was in perfect balance -- 183 days down, 183 more to go. What would tomorrow bring?
Part Two is here.
Posted by Jerome at July 6, 2004 05:40 PM | TrackBack