[See the sidebar, "Democracy in America" at ASU, for background.]
by Jerome du Bois
More drama about the "Democracy in America" exhibition at ASU appears in the recent (Oct.15) Web Devil / State Press article by Joshua Spiegel, "Democracy Debacle." Read it and see Marilyn Zeitlin acting like the media image of Senator Kerry, her motives and actions changing over time, taking every position possible except copping to any mistake. Never mind what really happened. Read it and listen to the self-important justifications of artist Ryan McNamara, demanding clarity about why his piece, "Angry Americans," was cut from the show. Read it and notice the glaring absence of curator John Spiak, McNamara's champion for at least four years. Spiak is unavailable, still dodging comments, even though he originally solicited for and obtained the piece.
Read it for the minor fillips of unintentional humor, such as this from caricaturist Linda Eddy:
Eddy brushed off the idea that her work was brought in only to balance the show, saying, "My work is unparalleled in the field of digital art. That's what qualifies it for a show of this stature, not simply the 'politics.'"
Thus betraying herself as doubly deluded.
Marilyn Zeitlin shows more of her true colors:
McNamara said Zeitlin did not tell him about any of the correspondence. He said he found out his piece would be cut from Joe Watson, a writer for the Phoenix New Times, who wrote about the museum this summer.
What a pro. What a weasel. What a coward. But typical of her.
In this post, hopefully the last about this stupid exhibition, I'm going to seriously examine "Angry Americans," and ask the reader to do so as well. That is, I would like readers to pop it up and stare at it for at least a minute. I guarantee it won't be easy, but I'll try to make the payoff worth the pain.
And I'm going to settle the First Amendment issue once and for all, and easily -- by a simple timeline. In the words of someone familiar, "They can run, but they cannot hide" from the truth.
Angry Americans by Ryan McNamara, 2003.
McNamara explains this work:
"As a resident of lower Manhattan during Sept. 11, 2001, and its aftermath, I began to notice a national confusion between fear, anger and patriotism," he said. "These motivations and ideals began to pollute each other and resulted in some fairly unfortunate global consequences. 'Angry Americans' was a place where I attempted to frame and highlight this loaded, emotional knot."
Let the fisking begin.
"As a resident of lower Manhattan during Sept. 11, 2001, and its aftermath . . .
Great. Another one of those jerks, like artist Brad Kahlhamer ("it seemed so cinema") and writer Walter Kirn ("I'm so over 9/11") and cartoonist Art Speigelman ("Waaaaah!"), who were there -- but somehow not there -- not to feel it, anyway -- and now they're all bitching about having their so-called feelings manipulated by politicians, as if they had no mature, adult self-control.
. . . I began to notice a national confusion between fear, anger and patriotism . . .
First, Manhattan is not the nation in microcosm, so his conclusions must have come from the national media. And once again we see the alienation from emotion by failing to recognize that fear, anger, and patriotism often, and should, coexist, each one growing and shrinking, accommodating the other two, and many others, as reason guides the self. And the self contains and balances many emotions, such as sorrow. Remember sorrow, Mr. McNamara?
His confusions become clearer in the next sentence:
These motivations and ideals began to pollute each other and resulted in some fairly unfortunate global consequences.
In other words, President Bush went off half-cocked and the world is worse off for it. I assume Mr. McNamara uttered these words near the publication date of Spiegel's article, October 15, 2004 -- one week after Afghanistan voted ten million strong for the first time in 5000 years. Long after Uday, Qusay, and Saddam were brought into unfortunate consequences -- for them. Long after three-quarters of Al Qaeda's leadership is in chains or with their dicks in the dirt. Long after 25 million Iraqis were freed from horror.
And notice the metaphor -- pollute -- as if emotions were germs. Further evidence that we must keep everything separate. No; an integrated self manages the continually contending impulses.
"'Angry Americans' was a place where I attempted to frame and highlight this loaded, emotional knot."
Implying that we're stuck. And he's right, but only about himself and others on the Left like him. Many of the rest of us manage our pain -- about attacks by people like him on our decency, about 9/11, about every American soldier's death or injury in Iraq right now. McNamara and his type (e.g., Richard Serra) are stuck in a knot of resentment because their stale notions don't count for shit in the real world. Honestly, ask somebody if they know about Serra or McNamara's political work. Who? they would say.
McNamara shows his simplistic understanding of the exhibition, of the word "balance," and perhaps of the world, right here:
He added that if the curator wanted to balance the show, she should have found pieces that discourage voting since there is a piece by artist Julian Schnabel in the show that features the word "VOTE" prominently.
Spoken like an ASU graduate. By this illogic, had she included his own piece, she would have had to add one entitled and showing "Happy Americans."
To the work, then. Let us allow David Velasco, Mr. McNamara's partner (right on, stand by your man), to describe it. Velasco wrote an open letter of protest to Dean Mills of ASU's Herberger School of Fine Arts, posted at the National Coalition Against Censorship. It reads in part:
In the spirit of disclosure and transparency: I learned about this act of censorship from my partner Ryan McNamara, whose piece “Angry Americans” was among those set to be exhibited. I would like to use his piece as an example, as you already have. “Angry Americans” is a series of eight large photographic portraits of young children theatrically demonstrating their best attempts at anger. These color close-ups are installed side-by-side, forming a large rectangle of six by nine feet. Earlier this year this piece was requested for "Democracy in America," and was routed straight from a show in Belgium to be stored at Arizona State University until its installation. Several days ago one of the curators, John Spiak, informed Mr. McNamara that this piece was too controversial and would not appear in the show. Mr. Spiak, whose implication in these events leads me to question his credibility, will no doubt take some of the fall, though I and others will be watching to make sure he is not used as a scapegoat as this controversy unfolds.
Six by nine feet! Arrgghh! Where's my flamethrower? Now, the kid on the lower left, say what you will about child abuse, every time I see his face I want to slap him into next week. All the others, save one, I could live with as goofiness if the subject matter wasn't so serious. Only the boy in the upper row, third from left, looks genuinely angry, and therefore out of place. ("I may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside.")
I now see this piece as the perfect emblem of the seething subtext of the history of this exhibition, which is unfocused, childish rage. We hate President Bush and that ought to be enough! He was wrong about Iraq and that ought to be enough! We don't want war and that ought to be enough! We don't need to give you reasons! Each frame in McNamara's piece reminds me of a cell in the multifaceted fly-eye of a demon in our culture -- the Left, mutated beyond recognition by ingesting its own poison, showing us its full-bleed bulging ugliness -- the cyclopian eye of a giant baby in perpetual tantrum that its priveleged world has been torn open by reality and truth.
Let's redo the piece, Mr. McNamara. You're still in New York City, right? Perfect. Go get eight more subjects, but adults this time, people of your persuasions -- cowardly gaywads like Ross Bleckner, Paul P., Christian Holstad, your partner David, Daniel Reich -- and this time, make them angry for real before you take your photographs. Since I'm doing the thinking for the both of us on this, let me supply some of the goading script:
"Think about what happened to Uday! Did you see that picture? Did he deserve that? Qusay? Did he ever harm you? And what about the way they treated Saddam, like an animal! Abu Ghraib, man! What about the Iraqis dignity?"
And so on. I'm sure you'll get more genuine shots that way. Actually, ditch the script: given the output of New York artists on political art, all you have to do is repeat, over and over, "Bush! Bush! Bush!" That's all your Pavlovian friends need to foam at the mouth and spit out some half-assed art. "Read My Apocalips"? "Richie Bush"? "The Hole Truth"? Oooh, you lefties, we President Bush supporters are getting the allover fidgets with these devastating blows. Please, lay off, yer killin us!
Am I exaggerating? Here, from today's (Oct. 22) NYT, page B37, Ken Johnson reviewing a show by 41 artists at Exit Art, called "The Presidency," first paragraph:
"The Presidency," a selection of works by 41 left-leaning artists, could make you decide that artists should keep their art and their politics separate. It looks like a student show and ranges from mildly amusing to irritatingly predictable. Almost nothing in it will make you think in any deep or unexpected way about its theme.
Who's surprised? Wankers. I'll tell you what makes me angry, Mr. McNamara. You won't act like a man, you don't respect yourself, and you have contempt for others. You would rather attack decency and dignity with silly satire than engage the emotional complex that you only dimly recognize, much less the concepts of "democracy" and "America," which recede even further beyond your limited horizon of understanding.
But your main dishonesty, Mr. McNamara, like your partner's, and that of many others, consists of ignoring the logic of the timeline and thus skewing the spin from the beginning.
In January, the Office of the President of ASU announced that Gammage Auditorium would be the site of the third Presidential Debate. At the same time, it was made known that there was an agreement of impartiality between ASU and James Baker and Vernon Jordan, brokers of the debates. ASU, as an entity, would remain neutral. It was a contract.
In February, John Spiak and Marilyn Zeitlin, knowing the above information, concocted an anti-Bush exhibition, in the face of the neutrality agreement. These are facts. Zeitlin came up with the title, but it was always ironic, and they both busily began commissioning explicitly anti-Bush artworks.
The rest of the timeline is well-known, from Watson's and Seigel's articles, and our own series. There was no First Amendment Issue, and thus any cries of "censorship" are not only disingenuous but illogical. Zeitlin and Spiak consciously tried to end-run the University and its president, and they didn't get away with it. Such is the arrogance of the art crew out there that they thought they could.
Do you bozos not get it yet? This exhibition should never have been. You try to foreground it, in space and time, and that's a lie. First there was the debate, and nothing else. This exhibition should never have been. And now the ASU Art Museum curators, and all the artists associated with the debacle, have to eat the consequences. Good.
Posted by Jerome at October 22, 2004 07:57 PM | TrackBack