Original_To:  BITNET%"POLITICS@OHSTVMA.BITNET"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Tue, 15 Sep 1992 02:14:00 EST
From:         Tyrone Slothrop <199561011@VUVAXCOM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: It's always the money

From:         Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: It's always the money

>>  The great treasures of our culture were not created with the funding
>>   of the mainstream; what makes you think the treasures of tomorrow
>>   can be?
>
>Hint: most NEA money goes to art from OTHER cultures, dead cultures.
>Look at what orchestras and operas play.

BTW - the great treasures of our culture WERE created with private
funds.

>        orchestras and operas play what they do because most of their
>        funding comes from rich white folks who want to have someone
>        keep playing mozart and tschikovski.  stravinsky is rarely
>        seen, nor is john cage.  why?  because people have a certain
>        conception of classical music that they do not like challenged,
>        and if the orchestra doesn't play hit tunes, they don't get
>        funding.

So much for the theory that the NEA helps and pushes american
cultures.  Most of the money goes to support dead european art,
because that's what rich Americans like.  Why shouldn't they pay for
it?

        not what i said, man.  these things (safe art) are supported
        by rich white folk thru private donations (a friend of mine
        donates heavily to a local orchestra, and subsequently, her
        ex-husband's symphonies are performed by said orchestra).  this
        is the effect that the market has on art; it reduces it to the
        lowest common denominator.  "good art" becomes infinite repetitions
        of the same damned monet waterlilies and those wonderful string
        interpretations of beatles songs that we hear in the malls.

>The great treasures of American culture are commercial films and
>American music, not to mention rodeo, and car racing.  (The great
>american art form is monster truck racing accompanied by R&B.)
>
>        great.  _Satan's Cheerleaders_ and Boston's "more than a feeling"
>        are great treasures of american culture.  hoorah.  don't
>        forget the Care Bears cartoon and Designing Women...

brni's preferences for Boston may explain why he wants someone else to
pick his art for him.  I was thinking of Stagecoach, Manhattan, Larry
Mahan, Dale Ernhardt, John Moses Browning, etc., and I'm ignoring the
audio arts.

        hmmm.  i would tend to classify thelonious monk as an american
        treasure, but he wasn't really that commercial, you know.
        Boston seems to be the paradigm of commercial american music,
        which is (according to you) an american treasure.

>NEA money goes to art that American's didn't produce and don't
>value.
>
>        i suppose that robert mapplethorpe wasn't american.  nor is
>        karen finley, or judith schechter, laurie anderson.  funny,
>        they all talks like americans...

Mapplethorpe is a bad example for NEA supporters.  His grant didn't
provide him anything but status; he'd made it by the time they got
around to noticing.

Brni insists that the NEA is important, but doesn't have any examples
where that's actually true....

        sure i have.  judith schechter is a stained glass artist here
        in philadelphia.  she gets about $500-1000/year in nea funds,
        and this covers the gap between what she brings in and what
        she needs to live and produce.  and her work is amazing, btw.
        she is slowly become internationally known.

>        so, your art is monster truck racing, eh?  no wonder its
>        so expensive.  i think that you would be hard pressed to
>        defend it as an art, tho.

No, my art isn't monster truck racing.  However, I can defend monster
truck racing as art on exactly the same basis that is used for any
other art form.  Feel free to provide an honest definition of art that
includes "performance art" yet excludes monster truck racing.

        a performance art piece may include or consist of monster
        truck racing, but then it is being put into the context of
        the artworld, not that of monster truck racing.  by skewing
        the context of the act in this manner, the artist can convert
        a normal object or action into a piece of art.

-andy

ps - "no wonder it's so expensive." doesn't make any sense.
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