Of course it's a racket, not only fraudulent but hypocritical, sanctimonious and self-righteous. This is not new or even recent, but it's now so blatant that it's frankly indecent, not to mention contemptible. However, one must remember the fear factor--the players are mortally afraid of transgressing against the ever-more-rigid orthodoxy, and those who are cynical opportunists are not about to rain on their own parade and jeopardize their prospects, as that would run counter to their agenda.
And Franklin, I take issue with your title. It is not art's progressive omertà, but that of the art world or establishment as it now exists, which is purportedly about art but evidently not really.
As for Saltz and his online affirmations, not to say exhibitionism, of political correctness, that's his business, and it makes little difference whether he gets off on it or feels he must do it. The only thing that interests me about him, or any art critic, is how well he sees art as such and expresses himself about it. I care no more about his politics than I do about Clement Greenberg's, only Greenberg was rather more focused on--and rather better at--his actual job, which was not political commentary.
There was no mob - if there had been I might think differently - personally I think this protest and the resent ones in which people glue themselves to art works are stupid - they do not achieve their purpose -
But their protest are not your issue - your issue is that the liberal art world is hypocritical - which it obviously is - but not unlike many other sectors of capitalist society
Hypocrisy is a meaningless accusation against people who genuinely believe that there should be a double standard. My issue is that the persons and institutions responsible for the silence around the Gardner closure have totally capitulated to the enforcement of tribal norms. Their connection to progressive politics is a custom, not a philosophy, and they have to make a show of commitment to art to the extent that a money-laundering operation has to appear to be a respectable spaghetti restaurant.
As for me I don’t write on such things, I’m an art critic. As for my politics I do believe that at times business as usual must be interrupted and I judge that in accordance with the cause and it’s methodology- as for the museum shutting down in this caseb based on what you wrote this was not protesters objective - but the institutions response - there have been many protest at museums where this was not the result - as such II still think your logic is one of mixing apples and rotten tomatoes.
First, I disdain that rationale that closing the museum was not the protesters' objective. Given their intentions, which were stupid, the museum could either 1) allow them to monkey around with, and on, property that the museum holds under a conservation mandate, 2) knowingly subject their security team to a threat scenario with a need to neutralize and remove multiple actors, or 3) close. So they closed, and these dingalings told the press that the closure was the museum's decision. It's the kind of logic that you'd expect from a seven-year-old. They only threw the rock, it's the museum's fault that it was standing in its path.
I have it from you yourself - you believe that the mob was justified in shutting down the museum because you support the associated cause. I think that a mob shutting down a museum for any political reason is fascistic. We can agree to disgree on that.
Big difference between ecologist and decolonist and MAGA’s neo - Fascist. I all ways love how the right wants the left to be self critical - and calls it hypocritical when it doesn’t while ithe Right can’t even take credit for its own egregious acts - I don’t suppose if the Jan 6 er story were true you would have written this screed
Had my hypothetical scenario been true, I would have absolutely condemned it. Consider that an invitation to hold me to it should it ever come to pass. But it would have been redundant because so would you, Saltz, Smee, AICA, the American Alliance of Museums, and every newspaper, philanthropy, and arts organization from San Diego to Waterville. And that's what should have happened in this real scenario.
I suggest that you've proven my point. If in your opinion the difference of validity between environmentalism and decolonization on one hand and MAGA nationalism on the other bears on the question of whether protesters may rightfully shut down an art museum over an issue not germane to the museum, then we really are talking about tribalism and not the merit of those causes as such. I find Extinction Rebellion's express rationale for this protest, that umbrage and sorrow about the loss of these magnificent art objects should have been redirected to species extinction, to be - quite apart from my philosophical reservations about progressivism - singularly oblivious. Are you willing to defend that proposition?
As for MAGA, I'm not a fan, but I reserve "neofascist" for the administration that tried to force a newly developed injectable into the bloodstreams of 200 million citizens on pain of losing their jobs, instructed its organs of law enforcement to use threat, disinformation, and co-option to censor those citizens, is currently working to enshrine identitarianism into law, and has sided militarily with a Nazi-infested kleptocracy even at the risk of nuclear war. If progressives want to claim to be anti-fascist in 2023 they should try acting accordingly.
Of course it's a racket, not only fraudulent but hypocritical, sanctimonious and self-righteous. This is not new or even recent, but it's now so blatant that it's frankly indecent, not to mention contemptible. However, one must remember the fear factor--the players are mortally afraid of transgressing against the ever-more-rigid orthodoxy, and those who are cynical opportunists are not about to rain on their own parade and jeopardize their prospects, as that would run counter to their agenda.
Thanks for posting an image of that superb stolen Rembrandt, Franklin. Even as a photo it's exquisite.
And Franklin, I take issue with your title. It is not art's progressive omertà, but that of the art world or establishment as it now exists, which is purportedly about art but evidently not really.
Agreed.
As for Saltz and his online affirmations, not to say exhibitionism, of political correctness, that's his business, and it makes little difference whether he gets off on it or feels he must do it. The only thing that interests me about him, or any art critic, is how well he sees art as such and expresses himself about it. I care no more about his politics than I do about Clement Greenberg's, only Greenberg was rather more focused on--and rather better at--his actual job, which was not political commentary.
There was no mob - if there had been I might think differently - personally I think this protest and the resent ones in which people glue themselves to art works are stupid - they do not achieve their purpose -
But their protest are not your issue - your issue is that the liberal art world is hypocritical - which it obviously is - but not unlike many other sectors of capitalist society
Hypocrisy is a meaningless accusation against people who genuinely believe that there should be a double standard. My issue is that the persons and institutions responsible for the silence around the Gardner closure have totally capitulated to the enforcement of tribal norms. Their connection to progressive politics is a custom, not a philosophy, and they have to make a show of commitment to art to the extent that a money-laundering operation has to appear to be a respectable spaghetti restaurant.
As for me I don’t write on such things, I’m an art critic. As for my politics I do believe that at times business as usual must be interrupted and I judge that in accordance with the cause and it’s methodology- as for the museum shutting down in this caseb based on what you wrote this was not protesters objective - but the institutions response - there have been many protest at museums where this was not the result - as such II still think your logic is one of mixing apples and rotten tomatoes.
First, I disdain that rationale that closing the museum was not the protesters' objective. Given their intentions, which were stupid, the museum could either 1) allow them to monkey around with, and on, property that the museum holds under a conservation mandate, 2) knowingly subject their security team to a threat scenario with a need to neutralize and remove multiple actors, or 3) close. So they closed, and these dingalings told the press that the closure was the museum's decision. It's the kind of logic that you'd expect from a seven-year-old. They only threw the rock, it's the museum's fault that it was standing in its path.
I have it from you yourself - you believe that the mob was justified in shutting down the museum because you support the associated cause. I think that a mob shutting down a museum for any political reason is fascistic. We can agree to disgree on that.
Big difference between ecologist and decolonist and MAGA’s neo - Fascist. I all ways love how the right wants the left to be self critical - and calls it hypocritical when it doesn’t while ithe Right can’t even take credit for its own egregious acts - I don’t suppose if the Jan 6 er story were true you would have written this screed
Had my hypothetical scenario been true, I would have absolutely condemned it. Consider that an invitation to hold me to it should it ever come to pass. But it would have been redundant because so would you, Saltz, Smee, AICA, the American Alliance of Museums, and every newspaper, philanthropy, and arts organization from San Diego to Waterville. And that's what should have happened in this real scenario.
I suggest that you've proven my point. If in your opinion the difference of validity between environmentalism and decolonization on one hand and MAGA nationalism on the other bears on the question of whether protesters may rightfully shut down an art museum over an issue not germane to the museum, then we really are talking about tribalism and not the merit of those causes as such. I find Extinction Rebellion's express rationale for this protest, that umbrage and sorrow about the loss of these magnificent art objects should have been redirected to species extinction, to be - quite apart from my philosophical reservations about progressivism - singularly oblivious. Are you willing to defend that proposition?
As for MAGA, I'm not a fan, but I reserve "neofascist" for the administration that tried to force a newly developed injectable into the bloodstreams of 200 million citizens on pain of losing their jobs, instructed its organs of law enforcement to use threat, disinformation, and co-option to censor those citizens, is currently working to enshrine identitarianism into law, and has sided militarily with a Nazi-infested kleptocracy even at the risk of nuclear war. If progressives want to claim to be anti-fascist in 2023 they should try acting accordingly.