ART: Chicago Sculpture. Choices?

From: IN%"[email protected]" "Art Criticism Discussion Forum" 21-SEP-1993
23:35:56.24
To: IN%"HRL@xxxxxxxxxxxx" "Howard Lawrence"
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Subj: RE: The Braves

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From: [email protected]
Subject: RE: The Braves
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To: Howard Lawrence <HRL@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Kevin: Thanks for helping to move the blood in the arteries of this list.
Now to some of your responses. 1st. I think that art is more powerful than
your response suggests. Mr. John Q. Public may be aware of responses much
like you mentioned, but, I think that Mr. JQP is subjected to a host of
subliminal messages that form opinions, direct prejudices, and generally
create an ethos. Mr. JQP is not aware of these subliminal messages (esp.
when they are presented as works of art with a historical "feel" and all
the credentials that hang about such works)...and as a result Mr. JQP is unable
to defend him/her self against the infiltration of such notions. {BTW if this
is true, it imposes a terrible moral burden on the artist, does it not?} These
works soothe (in a way) the soul, assuage the guilt, and remind us of how won-
erful and creative the human being is (of course, in this case, it is the
Western European idealization of the human being that is so elevated). Yep,
art is very powerful. *****
2nd. If I remember the press re the show of works from the 3rd Reich correctly
the show was a blockbuster because people LIKED the works. Think about it,
if you put up a show of official paintings from that time and place---the
portraits, the propaganda paintings---and if you removed the obvious symbolic
references to Nazism, we know that this work would fit the mold of what JQP
would think good art (actually, it is much like illustration from the '30s and
'40s). Further, if you gave JQP a choice: a show of works by Duchamp or
a show of works of the Soviet Realists.....? And if there is still any ques-
tion of how very Germanic we are as a people, do any of you know about the
experiment conducted several years ago that was designed to show that Germans
did what they did because of their unquestioned adherence to authority? This
study never left the US because the control tests showed that Americans would
do whatever the authority figure asked...if inflict what seemed great pain on
another human. Now, of course, I speak of a general social ethos in which none
of us who belong to the enlightened class would participate. Right?
*********Finally, what would look good there? Two large Oldenberg's.
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