by The Tears of Things
[This post is based on Joe Watson's nicely detailed and perfectly titled (Bush League) Phoenix New Times follow-up, published Thursday; and we also do a partial fisk of the new press release on the Herberger site, which just replaced the old one Jerome copied in full for his previous piece. We note for any record that Mica Matsoff, the Information Specialist, nevertheless retained the earlier date of August 11.]
. . . [ASU Museum Senior Curator Marilyn] Zeitlin assured [Dean of Fine Arts Robert] Wills that "we also know of several mediocre pieces that focus on Kerry that we can add." -- email quoted in the Joe Watson article, p. 13.
People love mediocrity best. -- Catherine King.
We have to brag on us -- we have to crow a moment, Dr. Crow: we called it. We called it all. And we called it before anybody else, including New Times. We called it back on that smoky April 20th, with our made-up parodical preview, based on a single sentence in an article about Heidi Hesse [the German Heffa -- Ed.]:
[Hesse] has been chosen for inclusion in "Democracy in America," a group show scheduled for this fall at ASU Art Museum jointly curated by ASUAM's entire curatorial staff.
Right away, we saw through the pseudo-Toquevillean title, we predicted the anti-Bush premise and subsequent juggernaut, we even accurately predicted several specific artists and artworks. You can look it up, on the sidebar.
Remember, we didn't and don't have access to anything or anybody. We are outsiders. No invitations to openings, no press releases, no official credentials, no confidential sources. (Some fool from out there tried to sneak in once on an email about the Cuban Art series -- she wanted to be deep background -- but we slapped her away. Oops, did we burn somebody?) We are anathema at Arizona State University, from Zeitlin to Spiak to Neal Lester to Beverly MacIver to Mary Bates to Michael Ray Charles; we're two artists, writers, thinkers, out here on el fringay; two smart brains, four sharp eyes, who have been around this Valley for a combined sixty years, but who can't even get a peep out of HSFA Communication Director Stacey Shaw, much less 400 emails which reveal a craven disregard for fairness, truth, balance, or anything but covering one's red-as-a-mandrill's-ass!
How could we, so out of the loop, call it so well? How did we know what all these five-sided comedians confirmed, that it would be hard to find pro-Bush art? The sad fact is that there has been a uniform sensibility in art schools for twenty years, and this is the dessicated result. The scrawny chickens are making themselves at home.
To us, the heartbreak here is magnified by the manifold cowardice. Why won't anyone stand up unequivocally for Democracy and America, not even the President of the University?
Dr. Michael Crow, you should be ashamed of yourself. This is Jerome du Bois talking. Whether you like it, or whether I'm justified in doing so, I'm pulling a little rank.
My late father, Alan V.F. du Bois, educational philanthropist and, from its inception to his death in 1995, President of the E. Blois du Bois Foundation, a multi-million-dollar donor to the University -- you can see his name etched in glass on Cady Mall, in the glass pile near the Dale Eldred sunpiece -- my old man is shaking his grizzled head in shame at you. He spent a lot of time and money on young people who couln't afford to take anything for granted. This is what he would like to say to you, since he stills whispers in my ear from time to time:
"'Democracy in America' was a transparent lie from the beginning. Just look at the two of them! You had a contract -- way before Zeitlin and Spiak gave birth to their stinky thing -- with the Commission on Presidential Debates, which guaranteed impartiality. There is no First Amendment issue. Where's the wiggle room? You were obligated to honor that contract. Spiak, Zeitlin, Mills, Shaw, the other bliveys I won't bother naming -- they knew this. They tried to submarine you anyway, and bludgeon you with First Amendment issues while hiding behind their own lies -- and you almost let them. They suffer from Bushrabies, a new strain of virulence. It isn't about Bush or Kerry. These clowns had their hands on both handles -- Democracy and America -- but the handles were too hot, too true, and they burned these stupid fools, so they had to swerve into stuff adolescents used to scratch on bathroom walls. And now you're refusing interviews. Well, they sure as hell don't make them like they used to, and this sure as hell wasn't what I went to Okinawa for."
We're still here, Dad. Right now we're the #1 Google for the search terms <"democracy in America" ASU>, and we'll try to keep it that way up to and through the debate.
Now let's finish this preview review. All you cue-rate-ors. . . read it and weep.
Where to begin? How about with the process?
In late July, Dean of Fine Arts Robert Mills wrote an email to museum staff which included these words:
We should have avoided this situation entirely, and the processes which have brought it to life . . . And we need to devise plans . . . and agreements for how and why it will never happen again.
Back before the second anniversary of 9/11, we met with John Spiak (BurlyMan turned GirlieMan) in his ASU office to talk about a commemorative installation. In general terms, he answered that the museum was booked five years in advance. Maybe he was shining us on. But then there's this from Jerome's last piece:
Months later, as Watson was researching his article, he received a June 24th email from Assistant Vice President for Public Affairs Nancy Neff, which read in part:
There is no 'exhibit' at this stage of the process . . . it generally takes a year, and sometimes as much as two years, to curate a professional exhibit. There are a number of community, academic, and/or cultural programs/events that are being discussed in connection with the debate, but nothing is even close to being finalized . . .
Except now it's a done deal, bing-bing, in supersonic record time. Spiak, Zeitlin, and I suspect Ted Decker, just began pushing forward, commissioning and collecting pieces -- time's a-wastin' -- without consulting anybody, thinking they would present some irresistible fait accompli.
But it's pathetic. We pity Dr. Mills when the international -- hell, the local -- media turns its voracious eye on this meandering morass of mediocrity. Two new examples follow.
We have more details about a couple of the pieces, from the revised press release. One is Dan Collins's I Cannot Tell a Lie, in which a video of a bust of George Washington (handily available from the museum collection) grows a Pinocchio nose, which then shrinks, and grows, and shrinks, and grows. That's it, folks.
Now here is Zeitlin: " . . . is he questioning George’s honesty or just wistful that today’s politicians be more like that?"
More like what? That whenever they tell a lie, their nose will grow, so they'll be truthful? Yes! Perfect! That's the answer! Call Tom Ridge! That way we don't have to think for ourselves, there'll be an automatic signal when we're being screwed. Oh, would that it were so for you, you adult babies . . . Dan, Marilyn, grow up! "Wistful?" This is wartime, and some of us are adults, and you offer us pap. Eat it yourselves.
Another example, from the new release:
photos [sic] collages that challenge the viewer to match local Republicans and Democrats with their dogs . . .
While you're ruminating on that, let's pair it with another Zeitlin quote:
“The words democracy and America carry enormous emotional weight. They are words people have died for. To what extent do they mean the same things now that they did in Tocqueville’s time?” she questioned.
Maybe it depends on what kind of dog they have. I'm sure the piece is so darned charmingly insouciant that it's simply, as they used to say, to die for.
Especially if we get hit again while the show's up. While we're burning and crying, and dying by the thousands, while we're locking and loading, while we're counting the dead and our lucky stars, will the ASU Art Museum be open for business, regular hours, come on down and laugh at our country?
[As a matter of fact, and a challenge: This is Jerome calling out Spiak and Zeitlin. Just this once answer just this question, I don't care if you go back into hiding after that: If we get hit again before the election, will you shut the exhibition down?]
Now, what about that morphing title?
"Democracy in America" was always meant to be ironic, because we believe that the very first and still central piece was Jon Haddock's 98 Nazi-saluting papier-maché Senators. (We think that as soon as Spiak heard about the debates, all those little saluting Senators, some of which he had helped to craft with his own hands, leapt immediately to mind.) Those words and that piece were the two poisonous seeds. Then they began making calls, and every artist they contacted was eager to trash the current President and the country that cradled them while they "earned" their art degrees. Cruelly, however, Zeitlin and Spiak overlooked any artist who understood the terms as de Toqueville did. My wife, for one, who describes a sad day of inspiration to desolation after reading about the need for balance in the exhibition.
The new title, "Democracy in America: Political Satire Then and Now," is a twisted bait and switch. The first part is the bait -- something serious which was always intended to be taken ironically, thrown down, and used as a doormat; and the switch, which was a patchwork forced on six curators (and their advisors) by those with real power who know how to apply pressure, because they feel the hot breath on them as well.
The new title should have been "Political Satire in America Then and Now," which would accurately reflect the dated, vapid, compare-and-contrast middle-school-level compromise the curators were forced into after they realized they were mere twinkiedoodle art school lightweights, who have no idea that some words, such as democracy and America are living things; they pump red blood; and that people with real weight, and with complex motives, will defend those ideas against minor-leaguers like you without a moment's hesitation.
Finally, let's return to the epigraph, in which Marilyn Zeitlin has no problem cobbling together mediocre anti-Kerry art to balance an exhibition already overloaded with mediocre anti-Bush art. Standards of quality need not apply here. And she has no problem admitting it to her Dean.
Saddest of all, these supposedly responsible adults may actually have to follow some written supervision -- "plans and agreements" -- before they have a chance to (dis)organize another exhibition.
Update 8/21: I must add two important notes. First, in both of the New Times articles, important female University administrators, including Nancy Neff, Stacey Shaw, Denise Tanguay and Colleen Jennings-Rogensack, are repeatedly referred to as spokeswomen. This practice is both sloppy journalism -- these people have precise titles, full of information -- and denigrating to women. What's up, Editor Rick Barrs and Associate Editor Amy Silverman?
Second, on the revised press release, two quotes:
. . . the exhibition explores the love-hate and humorous relationships between politics and the populous. Clearly, the word here should be populace. Are you taking notes, Mica?
Also, check out the first sentence:
Political art past and present will merge at the ASU Art Museum this election year during the dialogue-inducing exhibition Democracy in America: Political Satire Then and Now . . .
Childbirth labor is induced; vomit is induced; but dialogue is an irresistible human impulse; it does not need to be induced.
Posted by Jerome at August 21, 2004 01:10 AM | TrackBack