Friends told him to "fight the good fight," he said, but he thought the last thing the NEA needed was a fight.
"It's the wrong metaphor. The right one is a conversation, and good conversations are always changing."
Not everyone gets that: A Dim View of Dana Gioia.
Let me say upfront that I know Dana and like and admire him and his poetry. The problem I have with what Regina Hackett has to say is that the NEA is meant to serve the citizens of this country regarding art, not simply those citizens of this country who are artists. And the best way to start serving the citizens of this country regarding art is to get a conversation going that persuades those citizen's of art's value. The NEA under Dana has brought more than just Shakespeare and Tennyson to the attention of the public. It has reminded the public of writers like Steinbeck and Willa Cather (to name two that come to mind just off the top of my head) and in so doing has provided readers with what Van Wyck Brooks called a usable past, a literary context.
I think what Hackett would prefer is a government agency doing art patronage. As someone who used to peddle art, I don't think that's a good idea. Art patronage and art collection are best done by individuals not bureaucrats - or even curators, for that matter. As I have said before, visit the Phillips Collection and note the difference between what Duncan Phillips himself collected and what has been gathered since by curators.
The NEA is a government agency. In other words, a political entity. And politics works best when common ground is established. Finding that common ground is what Dana has been doing - and doing well.
I just read Hackett's story and her blog entry and I disagree with her. No one can even name a head of the NEA before Dana, because none of the ones before him ever did any work. I admit I'm biased -- I appear on three of the audio programs for the Big Read, including the one on Marilynne Robinson (Marilynne Robinson! Not Shakespeare or Chaucer!) -- but I have seen the guy at work and he is busting his butt to make art accessible to as many Americans as possible.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe poseurs like the idiot 'artiste' who posted on Hackett's Seattle story saying he had to move to Paris to do his art cause he's not supported in America. His comment: You have to go to the dogfood aisle in Wal-Mart to see art. Well, ya know, that would be a good place TO see it. The average person visits the Wal-Mart several times a year, but the average person never goes to the Whitney or the Venice Biennial, or any of those places where supposedly edgy, great art is being shown.
Besides, if they did, a good part of what they'd see would turn them off: It's shocking, alright, in a physical way (the emphasis on bodily decay has dominated art for twenty years now -- enough already!), but not an aesthetic way. I'm all for championing aesthetically shocking art, and no doubt Dana would be too if he could see any of it.
I get so tired of hearing mediocre artists whine. The real ones are getting on with it, doing what they can't NOT do. We are just in a Concrete Age of culture. I'm sad that I will probably not live to see the next Golden Age, 'cause nothing is indicating it will ever come -- at least, not in the fine arts.
Having lived in D.C. for 13 years, I'm amused at Hackett's faith in a large federal bureaucracy to champion edgy, risky, contemporary art. Besides, even if the federal government could successfully champion "risky" art, would risky suddenly be the new square?
ReplyDeleteWhen I see a pundit or journalist worry that the public might be persuaded to read "safe" poets like Shakespeare and Tennyson, I read it as a deep discomfort with the notion that the public might actually find they enjoy Shakespeare and Tennyson. Quel horreur!