The Value of Art: Money, Power, Beauty. Michael Findlay. Munich, London, New York: Prestel, 2012. 208 pages.
Michael Findlay has the experience in the art world to tackle his declared topic. After many years as the director of Acquavella Galleries, working with artists, collectors, auction houses and museums, his stories reflect on these encounters with thoughtful arguments and gentle mockery. In a book meant for “amateurs, from the Latin amare (to love),” who wonder what appreciation remains in the art world, he discusses how to consider the question of the value of art. He presents an engagement with art through the conceit of the Three Graces: Thalia (whose province is fruitfulness and so, commerce), Euphrosyne (joy and thus, society), Aglaea (beauty). The overall value of art engages these elements, in a constantly shifting balance, influenced by varying tastes at different times and in diverse cultures.
Acknowledging the ties that bind this triangle of ideas, people, or graces–with wonderful stories that alone make the book a pleasure to read–Findlay is largely advocating that we return to looking at art, individually, independently, immediately. The newspapers will ensure that big-hit auction items receive attention, and self-generated publicity will let us know about a new artist or gallery, but the constant among the highs and lows of the art market is a simple, visual appreciation maintained across time by spectators. One can begin to appreciate why this is, not by reading a biography of an artist, a gallery press release, or a theoretical underpinning for the work, but simply by taking the time to look. After ten minutes, Findlay warns, you may be bored, but after twenty you will find something unexpected, and after forty, you may no longer be keeping track of time.
This is the advantage that art collectors have against those who visit museums: time. Time permits a relationship with an individual work that will be there after a bad day at work, or the best day, in the morning and at night, glowing under professional lighting or shadowy in a night walk through the house. This advantage however can be allayed by a patient, focused visit to a museum. Findlay remembers his high school art teacher, Anthony Kerr, sending his less talented students into London for museum visits, after which each boy was expected to discuss what he had seen. These trips permitted Findlay, who was one of these less talented, to find compelling works and wonder why he found them so. Museum guests could likewise select a work to view for an extended period of time rather than rushing through the rooms to have seen everything the museum contains and, yet, be able to discuss none of it. The point is well made.
Findlay acknowledges a general discomfort with imagery in favor of textual knowledge, but encourages his reader to reconsider, titling one subsection “Perception trumps Information.” Approximately 20% of the information that the brain receives about a visual image, such as color and form, comes from the retina. We fill out what we see with other areas of the brain, including memory, which helps explain the subjective response to works of art. Reading placards may help us see, but it may equally influence what we see, diminishing our own vision. Seeing a lot of art and growing a personal repertoire of references will, however, develop a better eye than any amount of reading can, and Findlay is careful never to provide an opinion of the works whose stories he tells, instead encouraging his reader to consider them independently.
Towards the end of his book, Findlay states, “I am convinced that in modern times the most exciting and innovative art occurs in concert with events (invention, war, migration) that mark tectonic shifts in humane behavior and thought,” which he reiterates in several places. His forty plus years as a gallerist undeniably provide him with a breadth of experience about the art world, both the established blue-chip and truly bohemian. The importance placed on art’s response to the socio-political world, however, is an attitude whose importance in the 20th century may no longer serve a generation raised by political imagery. The politics of the Cold War, the fight against AIDS, the celebrity culture of certain diseases from autism to Parkinson’s, and then, of course, 9/11 have been projected like a slideshow onto our psyches. News cameras, impressive photo journalism, cell phone images, tweets, Facebook posts, all provide us with a constant barrage of information about the world in which we live. Art need not reinforce that disillusionment; otherwise it simply repeats a message already presented. In the 21st century, therefore, art may need to consider an alternate approach to the significant socio-political perceptions of the previous century.
In keeping with Findlay’s argument, we need stillness–a return to the self pausing to reflect on the world in which we live. Art has always been a place where this can occur. However, works in response to 9/11, which he seeks, may not appear as obviously political. To traverse contemporary concerns may require the quieter concentration of the beautiful, with respect for the perspective produced within the art work. We have seen the world’s cruelty; art may need instead to show us an alternate vision so that we have something to cherish as we fight for change. Outspoken works of art propagate action, which is certainly important, but so is consideration for the desired outcome, before hand. Some political motivated paintings and sculptures manage to make us pause, but many choose language and concept over the visual that Findlay so eloquently insists is, finally, the one inherent value in a work of art. After a century of cultural and political revolutions, the “most exciting and innovative” art of these modern times may have something new (again) to propose about the personal and the political by providing us a framed space for private reflection, a place from which to position our own perspective.
I only voice this small disagreement because Findlay’s book is the most arresting argument on behalf of the pleasure of art that I have read in a long time. He does not denigrate an economic art market that allows so many artists to earn a living, nor the social market that ensures their work remains appreciated, even as he recognizes the inherent foibles of the participants in both of these. The value of art lies in the eyes of the beholder, which means beauty can only be appreciated, its economic and social value understood, if after reading this review and his book, you go look at a painting in your home, one you noticed in a gallery, or a work in your favorite museum, and look at it, and look at it, and forty minutes later have forgotten that you were wondering why, because looking at it is just that good.
Supergirl No More! Book Review: Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Crisis of Overachieving Girls by Liz Funk
Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Crisis of Overachieving Girls. Liz Funk. New York: A Touchstone Book, 2009. 244 pages.
Accused of being an occasional Supergirl myself, I was intrigued by Liz Funk’s Supergirls Speak Out, a book offering to reveal the Supergirl psyche through interviews and case studies. There are many books about Supergirls, perfect girls, those girls that seem to always get it right–whatever it is. We have read about the connection to eating disorders, self-hatred, anxiety, exhaustion and now Liz Funk joins the bandwagon with a how-to guide for those desiring to take it down a notch.
Let me begin then by saying that this book should under no condition be given to any young woman you think might be a Supergirl, if you do not want to encourage a storm of masochism that might well lead her into the sanatarium. The adolescent girls in this book will make any Wonder Woman you know seem relaxed. Liz Funk worked so hard that besides the usual list (an A student, editor of the school newspaper, president of a foreign cultures club, class treasurer, etc.) she had a literary agent by tenth grade. At the wise age of nineteen, she has published this book on her overachievements on the way to taking it easy. She now lives in Manhattan with a seemingly successful writing career that many college students would envy. Her overachieving self seems to have brought her many rewards...why is she discouraging others from doing the same?
Her bio claims she spent a long time wishing she were Carrie Bradshaw, to learn that “it would be more fun (and more fulfilling) to just be herself” and certainly herself seems to have succeeded at that. The five girls she follows closely, and many of the 100 women she interviewed for the book, are exemplars of adolescent perfection. The problem she explains is that these women are fulfilling goals without a sense of pleasure in their accomplishments, or life. Her book hopes to encourage these women to laugh, and take life a little more lightly. Undoubtedly these young women deserve to cut themselves some slack but, given the case studies she shares, they can afford to do so since their hard work has borne fruit.
Many Supergirls, in fact, do not see results like the ones described here, and far more difficult is explaining to those girls why they should not work as hard as they do. Despite their dieting, they are not a size 0 (since the goal is obviously to disappear). Despite their makeup, clothes and hair stylist they are not attracting hordes of admirers (since constant recognition is the requirement). Despite their grades, extra-curricular activities, charity work and part-time internships, they did not get into the school of their choice (since there are only a dozen or so acceptable colleges to attend). These girls worked hard, and for naught.
This book will only make those girls feel worse.
Not because those girls did not work hard enough but because there has never been the competition for school admittance or jobs as there is today. Every girl, and every boy, who does not have the advantage of a trust fund and a parent who will ensure that every one of their contacts is notified about the brilliance and availability of John or Jane Junior, needs to work harder, better, faster, smarter than others. The race begins earlier than a young mind can apprehend which is why parents manage and manipulate their children into the right schools, activities, therapists, friendships. Is this ideal? No! Is it what you see if you live in Liz Funk or Carrie Bradshaw’s Manhattan? Most certainly, yes.
In her chapter on feminism, Liz Funk points out, these Supergirls are on auto-pilot, meeting deadlines and goals, despite Betty Friedan’s warning years ago that living through someone else is easier than “to become complete yourself.” She explains that society needs to learn to accept women for who they are, “to not punish women for being born female, and to stop expecting them to compensate for their gender with resumés,” a tired and true statement among many that fill this book. Funk seems to believe that her trite repetition of past feminist sayings will break through the hard shell of Supergirls’ success drive so that they will begin “sleeping late and reading Cosmopolitan”–a statement which leads me to doubt she has altogether absorbed some of the underlying messages of the feminists she quotes. Betty Friedan was right in her time and because she was, the nature of the problem has subtly changed so that the equivalences Funk presents–superachiever is linked to popularity, dieting is for love and attention–are simplistic. Her work would have benefited from reflecting on these overachieving women not from the standards of the women’s rights movement several decades ago, but through the altered lens of today.
Her book concludes with advice from other Supergirls on how to relax. Planning time off is key, she explains. Doing it until it feels natural is the only way to make it normal. Think about who you are, what you want and what life you desire, she adds. This advice is good, available in most women’s monthly magazines, and unfortunately avoids addressing the complicated fear of what happens when you do pick a different life, one not scripted, not even by a Supergirl like Liz Funk.
Accused of being an occasional Supergirl myself, I was intrigued by Liz Funk’s Supergirls Speak Out, a book offering to reveal the Supergirl psyche through interviews and case studies. There are many books about Supergirls, perfect girls, those girls that seem to always get it right–whatever it is. We have read about the connection to eating disorders, self-hatred, anxiety, exhaustion and now Liz Funk joins the bandwagon with a how-to guide for those desiring to take it down a notch.
Let me begin then by saying that this book should under no condition be given to any young woman you think might be a Supergirl, if you do not want to encourage a storm of masochism that might well lead her into the sanatarium. The adolescent girls in this book will make any Wonder Woman you know seem relaxed. Liz Funk worked so hard that besides the usual list (an A student, editor of the school newspaper, president of a foreign cultures club, class treasurer, etc.) she had a literary agent by tenth grade. At the wise age of nineteen, she has published this book on her overachievements on the way to taking it easy. She now lives in Manhattan with a seemingly successful writing career that many college students would envy. Her overachieving self seems to have brought her many rewards...why is she discouraging others from doing the same?
Her bio claims she spent a long time wishing she were Carrie Bradshaw, to learn that “it would be more fun (and more fulfilling) to just be herself” and certainly herself seems to have succeeded at that. The five girls she follows closely, and many of the 100 women she interviewed for the book, are exemplars of adolescent perfection. The problem she explains is that these women are fulfilling goals without a sense of pleasure in their accomplishments, or life. Her book hopes to encourage these women to laugh, and take life a little more lightly. Undoubtedly these young women deserve to cut themselves some slack but, given the case studies she shares, they can afford to do so since their hard work has borne fruit.
Many Supergirls, in fact, do not see results like the ones described here, and far more difficult is explaining to those girls why they should not work as hard as they do. Despite their dieting, they are not a size 0 (since the goal is obviously to disappear). Despite their makeup, clothes and hair stylist they are not attracting hordes of admirers (since constant recognition is the requirement). Despite their grades, extra-curricular activities, charity work and part-time internships, they did not get into the school of their choice (since there are only a dozen or so acceptable colleges to attend). These girls worked hard, and for naught.
This book will only make those girls feel worse.
Not because those girls did not work hard enough but because there has never been the competition for school admittance or jobs as there is today. Every girl, and every boy, who does not have the advantage of a trust fund and a parent who will ensure that every one of their contacts is notified about the brilliance and availability of John or Jane Junior, needs to work harder, better, faster, smarter than others. The race begins earlier than a young mind can apprehend which is why parents manage and manipulate their children into the right schools, activities, therapists, friendships. Is this ideal? No! Is it what you see if you live in Liz Funk or Carrie Bradshaw’s Manhattan? Most certainly, yes.
In her chapter on feminism, Liz Funk points out, these Supergirls are on auto-pilot, meeting deadlines and goals, despite Betty Friedan’s warning years ago that living through someone else is easier than “to become complete yourself.” She explains that society needs to learn to accept women for who they are, “to not punish women for being born female, and to stop expecting them to compensate for their gender with resumés,” a tired and true statement among many that fill this book. Funk seems to believe that her trite repetition of past feminist sayings will break through the hard shell of Supergirls’ success drive so that they will begin “sleeping late and reading Cosmopolitan”–a statement which leads me to doubt she has altogether absorbed some of the underlying messages of the feminists she quotes. Betty Friedan was right in her time and because she was, the nature of the problem has subtly changed so that the equivalences Funk presents–superachiever is linked to popularity, dieting is for love and attention–are simplistic. Her work would have benefited from reflecting on these overachieving women not from the standards of the women’s rights movement several decades ago, but through the altered lens of today.
Her book concludes with advice from other Supergirls on how to relax. Planning time off is key, she explains. Doing it until it feels natural is the only way to make it normal. Think about who you are, what you want and what life you desire, she adds. This advice is good, available in most women’s monthly magazines, and unfortunately avoids addressing the complicated fear of what happens when you do pick a different life, one not scripted, not even by a Supergirl like Liz Funk.
Outside the Republic
I recently moved to a neighborhood filled with artists, writers, more artists, a couple restaurants, even more artists, and some project buildings from the second half of the 20th century. It is a small neighborhood and only a few blocks in any direction you will find that only some of the streetlights work, that random piles of broken glass and televisions do not get swept away, and other such details that keep many from moving here yet.
Most of the people I know who moved here did so for the cheap rent that permit them to dedicate themselves to their art. I am here to share my life with one of those crazy people. As Socrates said, poets don't belong in the republic–and whether because they are corrupting or for other reasons certainly we live in a society that does not make an artist's life possible–so they left the island republic of Manhattan and found themselves living among other outcasts, a strange and awkward community. They were willing to accept the increased crime rate, discomforts of living in industrial "lofts" for the ability to be able to create their work away from the republic which rejected them. Uncomfortable though at first, inevitably local strongholds formed so that individual outcasts did become friends, support each other's projects, interests, dreams, and load trucks, shows, vans with lights, wood, art work and alcohol for the after party.
That was the neighborhood.
Then rents went up as young art students, transients, came for the summer or the year. The amenities didn't improve but the prices changed. A restaurant got reviewed by the New Yorker, the New York Times, another by the London Financial Times. Everyone sighed. Things changed but at least it was local businesses that were succeeding. And then last week, a gallery opened.
A big gallery. A gallery that took around 12,000 square feet, invited or purchased all their super-tall, gorgeous models for the opening, and showed works that had nothing to do with, nor were from, the neighborhood.
At first I was confused. After all, we had been the original gentrifiers, so how could we rightly complain that this large public gallery was coming in and starting the neighborhood change? They were simply economizing on what we had begun. Right? Or so I thought for the last five days.
Not until I found myself arguing about Oscar Wilde's The Critic as an Artist as a miffed, sarcastic, funny reply to Plato's The Republic did I begin to see the problem with this reasoning. The poets were rejected from the republic and willingly wandered away to produce their work elsewhere because, after all, who is going to take time to fight the republic where there are paintings, poems, plays, films, sculptures, sonnets to create that are worthwhile for one's own self, whether the republic recognizes them or not as productive, profitable material. So the outcasts wandered, here, there, and some number settled here. Years go by, more people settle here, and it is not so dangerous as before, the trains run somewhat regularly, and living here has become, in its uncomfortable and uncomfortably bohemian way, relatively comfortable.
At which point, the politicians and merchants and families from the republic look over and say: well, gee that looks like a good place! And so they come in droves with strollers, trend-setting political statement bags, and overpriced boutiques because they can rent from landlords who are...the same vilified landlords elsewhere so I shalln't go into that here. But wait a minute! The republic asked all those artists to leave, if not literally as Socrates would have by claiming their ideas were poisonous, then by virtue of making it impossible for them to live there financially, and some might argue socially too. So then why is the republic moving here, to them?
The artists had just gotten settled into their studios–it takes years to build it out so that it functions in just the right way. Move...again?
Maybe not this year or the next...but sometime soon when the republic remembers that actually the poets don't belong in the republic. And this is now a part of the republic so those strange people need to go. That is usually around the time that it notices the philosophers, the critics, who have been discussing, and even (poor Socrates!) writing, about the hypocrisy of the current republic. We know the philosophers are not king. No, they are not even knights. They are scoundrels, dissidents and need to depart. The critic has been too creative in pondering the complexities of the community and, as with the artist, must out. So they, the critics, and the artists wander away again. Because the republic is strong. It is at any rate always stronger than the creative exuberance, haphazard pleasure of the lunatics, lovers and poets.
If some artists make it in the republic, then power to them. But most don't. So when the first major gallery comes to the neighborhood, the reason that the locals are not happy is for the simple reason that it sounds the death toll. The neighborhood will die, the sweet enclave where productivity was a creativity, where it could occur without the calculations of the market watch, will disappear. Like Soho, sure, but like all of Manhattan, like the Left Bank but like all of Paris, and now, like here.
Most of the people I know who moved here did so for the cheap rent that permit them to dedicate themselves to their art. I am here to share my life with one of those crazy people. As Socrates said, poets don't belong in the republic–and whether because they are corrupting or for other reasons certainly we live in a society that does not make an artist's life possible–so they left the island republic of Manhattan and found themselves living among other outcasts, a strange and awkward community. They were willing to accept the increased crime rate, discomforts of living in industrial "lofts" for the ability to be able to create their work away from the republic which rejected them. Uncomfortable though at first, inevitably local strongholds formed so that individual outcasts did become friends, support each other's projects, interests, dreams, and load trucks, shows, vans with lights, wood, art work and alcohol for the after party.
That was the neighborhood.
Then rents went up as young art students, transients, came for the summer or the year. The amenities didn't improve but the prices changed. A restaurant got reviewed by the New Yorker, the New York Times, another by the London Financial Times. Everyone sighed. Things changed but at least it was local businesses that were succeeding. And then last week, a gallery opened.
A big gallery. A gallery that took around 12,000 square feet, invited or purchased all their super-tall, gorgeous models for the opening, and showed works that had nothing to do with, nor were from, the neighborhood.
At first I was confused. After all, we had been the original gentrifiers, so how could we rightly complain that this large public gallery was coming in and starting the neighborhood change? They were simply economizing on what we had begun. Right? Or so I thought for the last five days.
Not until I found myself arguing about Oscar Wilde's The Critic as an Artist as a miffed, sarcastic, funny reply to Plato's The Republic did I begin to see the problem with this reasoning. The poets were rejected from the republic and willingly wandered away to produce their work elsewhere because, after all, who is going to take time to fight the republic where there are paintings, poems, plays, films, sculptures, sonnets to create that are worthwhile for one's own self, whether the republic recognizes them or not as productive, profitable material. So the outcasts wandered, here, there, and some number settled here. Years go by, more people settle here, and it is not so dangerous as before, the trains run somewhat regularly, and living here has become, in its uncomfortable and uncomfortably bohemian way, relatively comfortable.
At which point, the politicians and merchants and families from the republic look over and say: well, gee that looks like a good place! And so they come in droves with strollers, trend-setting political statement bags, and overpriced boutiques because they can rent from landlords who are...the same vilified landlords elsewhere so I shalln't go into that here. But wait a minute! The republic asked all those artists to leave, if not literally as Socrates would have by claiming their ideas were poisonous, then by virtue of making it impossible for them to live there financially, and some might argue socially too. So then why is the republic moving here, to them?
The artists had just gotten settled into their studios–it takes years to build it out so that it functions in just the right way. Move...again?
Maybe not this year or the next...but sometime soon when the republic remembers that actually the poets don't belong in the republic. And this is now a part of the republic so those strange people need to go. That is usually around the time that it notices the philosophers, the critics, who have been discussing, and even (poor Socrates!) writing, about the hypocrisy of the current republic. We know the philosophers are not king. No, they are not even knights. They are scoundrels, dissidents and need to depart. The critic has been too creative in pondering the complexities of the community and, as with the artist, must out. So they, the critics, and the artists wander away again. Because the republic is strong. It is at any rate always stronger than the creative exuberance, haphazard pleasure of the lunatics, lovers and poets.
If some artists make it in the republic, then power to them. But most don't. So when the first major gallery comes to the neighborhood, the reason that the locals are not happy is for the simple reason that it sounds the death toll. The neighborhood will die, the sweet enclave where productivity was a creativity, where it could occur without the calculations of the market watch, will disappear. Like Soho, sure, but like all of Manhattan, like the Left Bank but like all of Paris, and now, like here.
The Pugilist
Last night on my way to the National Arts Club, I happened to walk by the home of George Bellows on 19th street. I had no idea he had lived there, though I have walked down these streets too many times to count. Of course I thought of Stag at Sharkey's, his famous painting of two fighters during the period in New York when prizefighting was illegal, when athletic clubs like Sharkey's got around these laws as purported gyms but kept matches going with all the secret excitement of prohibition.
George Bellows had been a baseball player before becoming one of The Eight, a group of New York artists influenced by Robert Henri who thought that American Art should lose the influence of European Impressionism and its national glorification of the American West. Henri's book The Art Spirit is an easy and pleasant read, largely forgotten among the many writings on art produced across the 20th century–I definitely recommend it.
We usually separate art from athleticism, which is a mistake and shame because both require an incredible degree of competition on the part of their participants. Artists and athletes both have to see the terrain for what it is, with all the obstacles on their way to the goal, with all the unexpected cleverness of the other participants in the game. It is not just how good you are, but how well you play the game that provides the endurance to be a long-term success.
I know the young director Jay Bulger who is finishing a documentary on Ginger Baker, the genius on drums most famous for his time with Cream. Jay had been a boxing champion when he was younger, and watching him develop the financing, get the interviews with every major drummer alive today, and ensure that the film was true to his vision–even as it shifted–was to observe a passion that withstood every punch along the way. And, I happen to know there were some, though fewer than there might have been otherwise because he knows how to throw a mean punch too.
The Ancient Greeks included sports as a part of the education of a well-bred man. They also learned how to describe objects, ekphrasis, to be able to discuss a work of art. They competed on the field and at the podium, their education grounded in making them succeed at both. George Bellows has a great deal of respect for these fighters, though the faces of the observers suggests a keen awareness of the violence that spectators can embody. Both art and sports are largely a spectator activity, where the audience can be far uglier than any work of art or athletic performance. Art pretends to be refined, as if there were no sweat involved, but anyone who has sat down to write, or stood alone in a studio, or prepared for an audition knows that fear is laced with a will to fight, that nerves are stressed by sensory data, adrenaline pours through the body which begins to move, and as the body moves, the mind sculpts the action.
As a child, I danced. As a teenager, I developed a yoga practice. When I was twenty-three, I bought a punching bag and hung it in my living room. It changed my life.
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| George Bellows, Stag at Sharkey's 1909 |
We usually separate art from athleticism, which is a mistake and shame because both require an incredible degree of competition on the part of their participants. Artists and athletes both have to see the terrain for what it is, with all the obstacles on their way to the goal, with all the unexpected cleverness of the other participants in the game. It is not just how good you are, but how well you play the game that provides the endurance to be a long-term success.
I know the young director Jay Bulger who is finishing a documentary on Ginger Baker, the genius on drums most famous for his time with Cream. Jay had been a boxing champion when he was younger, and watching him develop the financing, get the interviews with every major drummer alive today, and ensure that the film was true to his vision–even as it shifted–was to observe a passion that withstood every punch along the way. And, I happen to know there were some, though fewer than there might have been otherwise because he knows how to throw a mean punch too.
The Ancient Greeks included sports as a part of the education of a well-bred man. They also learned how to describe objects, ekphrasis, to be able to discuss a work of art. They competed on the field and at the podium, their education grounded in making them succeed at both. George Bellows has a great deal of respect for these fighters, though the faces of the observers suggests a keen awareness of the violence that spectators can embody. Both art and sports are largely a spectator activity, where the audience can be far uglier than any work of art or athletic performance. Art pretends to be refined, as if there were no sweat involved, but anyone who has sat down to write, or stood alone in a studio, or prepared for an audition knows that fear is laced with a will to fight, that nerves are stressed by sensory data, adrenaline pours through the body which begins to move, and as the body moves, the mind sculpts the action.
As a child, I danced. As a teenager, I developed a yoga practice. When I was twenty-three, I bought a punching bag and hung it in my living room. It changed my life.
Fayum portraits
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| See what a small section it is! |
The portraits seem to be largely produced in the 3rd Century AD in Egypt's Fayum region (see map to the left) and blend Greco-Roman portraiture style into their own technique of using beeswax and pigment. Analyses of the pieces have revealed the use of a plant-derived red pigment used for much of the clothing and a combination of a lead white and a blue pigment to create the striking eyes. Gold leaf can also be seen in the portrait above on the far right.
Having just seen the Renaissance portraiture show at the Met, I am amazed at how striking these portraits are. We tend to think of the Renaissance as the time of high-art. This is reasonable given some of the innovations (perspective, anatomy studies), the political support for the arts by the Church (Sistine Chapel) and families (the Medici), as well as the constant energy of the artists (Michelangelo, Botticelli). Nevertheless, these portraits remind us that powerful artistry is present even when least suspected.
Persistence
Although every writer dreams of getting it right on the first pass, very few succeed. Writing is craft and, like all craft, proceeds by stages: conception, material selection, rough shaping, detailed shaping, sanding and finishing. (That’s for writing nonfiction, which feels like woodworking to me. Writing fiction is more like throwing clay, and writing poetry more like watchmaking.)
– Richard Rhodes, from “Beware of that Voice in Your Head” in the Dec 10th, 2011, Wall Street Journal.
I sent this quote to myself in December and left it sitting in my email box until today, which is of course a very silly thing to do but then how easy I forget the motivating instances in life for the defeating and debilitating. The nature of doing any creative work, whether painting, sculpting or thinking is that when it doesn't happen just as planned the obvious problem is oneself and the stubborn resistance of the creative mind to produce on demand. Irritating insolence of the imagination!
I share this today because yesterday I was reminded by one of the writers that I most respect how important hard work always is, which includes working even when nothing seems to be moving. Though breaks are certainly necessary, returning to the work even when daunted is as well.
The fact is that if you have dedicated your life to your creative work then you are already succeeding at it. Though our culture values celebrity, success in the creative world is simply being able to practice your craft day in, and day out, supporting yourself on its occasionally meager, sometimes stupendous, and generally salvageable pay. And the only way to attain that type of independence is to work, work, work at it. That other jobs may sometimes be required, or even be an inspiration, is also a part of that work. The key is not to let the other job dominate to the exclusion of the time and effort necessary to cultivate your craft.
Seems obvious. But it bears repeating.
The Rhetoric of Conversion
Earlier this week, I was discussing with a friend the confusion that I feel regarding art that is political. In general, I find overtly political art tiresome. If I wanted a statement after all, I would read a pamphlet. And it feels disrespectful to me of the other, possibly more important but certainly disregarded, arena that fine art enters–that is, the ability to produce a non-linguistic experience.
Of course, to say that I do not like political art is simply false because much art that has been produced over the years has undeniable political content. At the Renaissance portraiture show currently at the Met, the political can be witnessed in the Giuliani Medici portraits that were produced after his murder as a testimony to Medici loyalty, and also as a warning to other plotters. Picasso's Guernica might have come to mind for some. I don't object to it. But I do mind Sanja Ivekovic's hyper-feminist work currently on display at MoMA. This concern on my part has me generally avoid any art, performances, or readings that are described as political, or seem to have an underlying political message that is being presented. In conversation with the friend, she tried to convince me how important political messaging is in art, how it has helped change the world, but I am bored and bothered by its lack of nuance, its emphatic rhetoric, that like hers did not change my mind about situations the way information clearly discussed can make me suddenly start donating to an Animal Welfare group, or the local homeless shelter.
With these issues of rhetoric in mind, I was hesitant to see The Convert currently at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, NJ. That it was also running over three hours added to my consternation. But, someone I respect told me the work was excellent, so off I went to see the new play by Danai Gurira about the Shona rebellions in 1895-7, in the Rhodesia of Queen Victoria that we now call Zimbabwe. Gurira's introduction explains the conflict: "There is a grappling with home, place, space, and voice–on one side are the ardent keepers of culture and land and language and on the other there are those...glad to be free of the strictures of their forefathers...delighted to declare themselves the ambassadors of the new order, finally feeling significance and a purpose." Bafus, they are called by the Shona tribe members for having left the tribal ways: living in houses with cement floors like the Whites, spreading their Christian religion while neglecting the respect due to the ancestors, and making money incomparable to what can be made working in the mines. The Shona people are sons of the soil. The whites have destroyed that, and those blacks who have left are traitors, bafus, for forgetting or ignoring their past.
The cast of seven completely won me over. When the first intermission arrived, I could hardly believe that an hour had past. I was immersed in Jekesai's (Pascale Armand) extraordinary learning curve under the guidance of Chilford (LeRoy McClain), a young man who has left the savagery of the tribe to follow Christ's path, hoping that one day the Roman Catholic church will allow a Black to be a priest. Mai Tamba, the absolutely wonderful Cheryl Lynn Bruce, has her son Tamba, Warner Joseph Miller, bring Jekesai to work for Chilford instead of having her marry an old man. Jekesai agrees to be Chilford's Christian pupil under the name Ester (a good Christian name) and quickly memorizes long passages of the Bible, learns English, and embraces Christ's message of equal love with such sincerity that she corrects the white priest for which Chilford has to remind her that is not permitted.
Ester is so content in her new life and role that Prudence, played with strength by Zainab Jah without any of the disdain or melancholy that her character could have lapsed into having, asks what is left of Ester. Prue has come to Chilford's in search of her philandering fiancée, Chancellor, whose sexual proclivities and social acuity are entirely likeable in Kevin Mambo until he permits his character the necessary smarmy turn. Prue was also educated, a rarity for women at the time which makes her a strange creature with no place. She has chosen however to continue to speak Shona to the tribal members, managing to engage with both cultures. Chilford's adamant stance that all elements of the savage life must be destroyed does not permit Ester that same option.
Of course, the civilizing colonialism is not successful and the tribes become angry for the change in their lifestyle, the menial labor in the mines, their polygamy disallowed, and the anger of the ancestors at the presence of the colonists. The uprisings include massacres on both sides, which conflicts create conflicts for the characters that are presented on an intensely personal level. I was never watching a story about the uprisings of Southern Rhodesia in 1897. Rather I saw Chilford angry that black men would cause the death of his beloved Father, the priest whom he writes every evening, and in that anger lose compassion for Mai Tamba whose work for him does not keep her from maintaining her ties to the tribe. Ester will undergo the greatest heartbreak as she sees the ethical lessons that she has gained in following the education and religion of the Whites disregarded by them in their treatment of the Blacks, regardless of justice. Pascale Armand's concluding monologue will break your heart as you see the chaos created not by religion, or race, or politics but by the complex web of a life lived among warring factions.
Danai Gurira's play The Convert has given me faith that art can be produced which is utterly engaging on all its aesthetic dimensions, even as it negotiates with the mind-numbing brutality of any sectarian belief. Emily Mann is known for being a director who creates an ensemble, working with the every aspect of the production to create a unit whole, one that this play in particular would need. The attention to detail was such that the show brought in a dialect coach to help the actors create their own nuanced sound of the English they were taught, allowing the very sound of the play to be embodied by the decisions the actors were making for their characters. Rhetoric did not convert me to the belief that the political can exist in art, but rather by the ability of the aesthetics to handle that additional weight. The art of theatre was present in every aspect of this show, perhaps out of respect for the heavy content, but certainly there in every piece of dialogue, lighting cue, background sound, acting moment, directing decision. I am profoundly moved by this play, not only because it made me think, but also on its own terms. And that, my friends, is a great play.
*******
The Convert at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, NJ. January 13-February 12, 2012.
(Take NJ Transit to Princeton stop, not Princeton Junction, and walk across the street.)
Of course, to say that I do not like political art is simply false because much art that has been produced over the years has undeniable political content. At the Renaissance portraiture show currently at the Met, the political can be witnessed in the Giuliani Medici portraits that were produced after his murder as a testimony to Medici loyalty, and also as a warning to other plotters. Picasso's Guernica might have come to mind for some. I don't object to it. But I do mind Sanja Ivekovic's hyper-feminist work currently on display at MoMA. This concern on my part has me generally avoid any art, performances, or readings that are described as political, or seem to have an underlying political message that is being presented. In conversation with the friend, she tried to convince me how important political messaging is in art, how it has helped change the world, but I am bored and bothered by its lack of nuance, its emphatic rhetoric, that like hers did not change my mind about situations the way information clearly discussed can make me suddenly start donating to an Animal Welfare group, or the local homeless shelter.
With these issues of rhetoric in mind, I was hesitant to see The Convert currently at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, NJ. That it was also running over three hours added to my consternation. But, someone I respect told me the work was excellent, so off I went to see the new play by Danai Gurira about the Shona rebellions in 1895-7, in the Rhodesia of Queen Victoria that we now call Zimbabwe. Gurira's introduction explains the conflict: "There is a grappling with home, place, space, and voice–on one side are the ardent keepers of culture and land and language and on the other there are those...glad to be free of the strictures of their forefathers...delighted to declare themselves the ambassadors of the new order, finally feeling significance and a purpose." Bafus, they are called by the Shona tribe members for having left the tribal ways: living in houses with cement floors like the Whites, spreading their Christian religion while neglecting the respect due to the ancestors, and making money incomparable to what can be made working in the mines. The Shona people are sons of the soil. The whites have destroyed that, and those blacks who have left are traitors, bafus, for forgetting or ignoring their past.
The cast of seven completely won me over. When the first intermission arrived, I could hardly believe that an hour had past. I was immersed in Jekesai's (Pascale Armand) extraordinary learning curve under the guidance of Chilford (LeRoy McClain), a young man who has left the savagery of the tribe to follow Christ's path, hoping that one day the Roman Catholic church will allow a Black to be a priest. Mai Tamba, the absolutely wonderful Cheryl Lynn Bruce, has her son Tamba, Warner Joseph Miller, bring Jekesai to work for Chilford instead of having her marry an old man. Jekesai agrees to be Chilford's Christian pupil under the name Ester (a good Christian name) and quickly memorizes long passages of the Bible, learns English, and embraces Christ's message of equal love with such sincerity that she corrects the white priest for which Chilford has to remind her that is not permitted.
Ester is so content in her new life and role that Prudence, played with strength by Zainab Jah without any of the disdain or melancholy that her character could have lapsed into having, asks what is left of Ester. Prue has come to Chilford's in search of her philandering fiancée, Chancellor, whose sexual proclivities and social acuity are entirely likeable in Kevin Mambo until he permits his character the necessary smarmy turn. Prue was also educated, a rarity for women at the time which makes her a strange creature with no place. She has chosen however to continue to speak Shona to the tribal members, managing to engage with both cultures. Chilford's adamant stance that all elements of the savage life must be destroyed does not permit Ester that same option.
Of course, the civilizing colonialism is not successful and the tribes become angry for the change in their lifestyle, the menial labor in the mines, their polygamy disallowed, and the anger of the ancestors at the presence of the colonists. The uprisings include massacres on both sides, which conflicts create conflicts for the characters that are presented on an intensely personal level. I was never watching a story about the uprisings of Southern Rhodesia in 1897. Rather I saw Chilford angry that black men would cause the death of his beloved Father, the priest whom he writes every evening, and in that anger lose compassion for Mai Tamba whose work for him does not keep her from maintaining her ties to the tribe. Ester will undergo the greatest heartbreak as she sees the ethical lessons that she has gained in following the education and religion of the Whites disregarded by them in their treatment of the Blacks, regardless of justice. Pascale Armand's concluding monologue will break your heart as you see the chaos created not by religion, or race, or politics but by the complex web of a life lived among warring factions.
Danai Gurira's play The Convert has given me faith that art can be produced which is utterly engaging on all its aesthetic dimensions, even as it negotiates with the mind-numbing brutality of any sectarian belief. Emily Mann is known for being a director who creates an ensemble, working with the every aspect of the production to create a unit whole, one that this play in particular would need. The attention to detail was such that the show brought in a dialect coach to help the actors create their own nuanced sound of the English they were taught, allowing the very sound of the play to be embodied by the decisions the actors were making for their characters. Rhetoric did not convert me to the belief that the political can exist in art, but rather by the ability of the aesthetics to handle that additional weight. The art of theatre was present in every aspect of this show, perhaps out of respect for the heavy content, but certainly there in every piece of dialogue, lighting cue, background sound, acting moment, directing decision. I am profoundly moved by this play, not only because it made me think, but also on its own terms. And that, my friends, is a great play.
*******
The Convert at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, NJ. January 13-February 12, 2012.
(Take NJ Transit to Princeton stop, not Princeton Junction, and walk across the street.)
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