This show reminds me of another one I saw in the early 90s, one that reproduced a famous show ftom the 1930s designed to denigrate the artists and modernism in general... The museum replicated the general presentation, including translations of the snarky title cards next the art from the original show... What was that one called? Oh yes: Degenerate Art.
It was an exhibition put together in Germany as a form of Nazi propaganda, intended to show the public dangers of modernism and free thinking. It was designed specifically to point out "qualities such as "decadence", "weakness of character","mental disease", and "racial impurity." It's hard not see plenty of painful similarities between that one of this, though the 1937 show displayed some 1500 works instead of the rather paltry number in Brooklyn. In both shows jokes and cynical comments were included next to each piece, again, as if they were afraid the public might draw their own "incorrect" conclusions on their own.
For what are totalitarian means, if not totalitarian ends? But that's the easy question. The hard one, that each will have to answer for himself: If a dictatorship promised to deliver everything I want out of politics, would I support it? I think that those in the Monoculture have implicitly answered yes.
It's ironic that Picasso, who was always fashionably leftist and officially communist (though that had practically nothing to do with his actual life) is now a whipping boy for "progressives." I suppose his politics are no longer useful, or much less useful than his repurposed role. Funny how that works.
It may be that the wall paint scheme is the most interesting thing here, in terms of what it says about the Brooklyn Museum and its ethos, to call it that. Really, the whole business is simply not respectable.
Regarding Gadsby, no matter how eagerly she went along with this little stunt, I hope she knows she was used, and not for her art credentials (such as they are). Still, I wouldn't call her grating, exactly. More like a wit wannabe, though it sounds like she's too sophomoric to be offensive. It's all...lame.
Jun 13, 2023·edited Jun 13, 2023Liked by Franklin Einspruch
It's as if quite adult (at least age-wise) people had never realized, or childishly refused to accept, that great (even genius) talent, whether for art or anything else, absolutely does NOT require being a nice person, let alone a truly good one--and all too frequently, the bearer of such talent could say, like Mae West famously did, that goodness had nothing to do with it. However, the kind of denial I'm referring to is not due to ignorance, immaturity or stupidity but convenience, as in whatever fits the agenda.
And by the way, I resolutely dislike Picasso as a person, but his art is what he made, not what he was.
This show reminds me of another one I saw in the early 90s, one that reproduced a famous show ftom the 1930s designed to denigrate the artists and modernism in general... The museum replicated the general presentation, including translations of the snarky title cards next the art from the original show... What was that one called? Oh yes: Degenerate Art.
It was an exhibition put together in Germany as a form of Nazi propaganda, intended to show the public dangers of modernism and free thinking. It was designed specifically to point out "qualities such as "decadence", "weakness of character","mental disease", and "racial impurity." It's hard not see plenty of painful similarities between that one of this, though the 1937 show displayed some 1500 works instead of the rather paltry number in Brooklyn. In both shows jokes and cynical comments were included next to each piece, again, as if they were afraid the public might draw their own "incorrect" conclusions on their own.
For what are totalitarian means, if not totalitarian ends? But that's the easy question. The hard one, that each will have to answer for himself: If a dictatorship promised to deliver everything I want out of politics, would I support it? I think that those in the Monoculture have implicitly answered yes.
It's ironic that Picasso, who was always fashionably leftist and officially communist (though that had practically nothing to do with his actual life) is now a whipping boy for "progressives." I suppose his politics are no longer useful, or much less useful than his repurposed role. Funny how that works.
It may be that the wall paint scheme is the most interesting thing here, in terms of what it says about the Brooklyn Museum and its ethos, to call it that. Really, the whole business is simply not respectable.
Regarding Gadsby, no matter how eagerly she went along with this little stunt, I hope she knows she was used, and not for her art credentials (such as they are). Still, I wouldn't call her grating, exactly. More like a wit wannabe, though it sounds like she's too sophomoric to be offensive. It's all...lame.
It's as if quite adult (at least age-wise) people had never realized, or childishly refused to accept, that great (even genius) talent, whether for art or anything else, absolutely does NOT require being a nice person, let alone a truly good one--and all too frequently, the bearer of such talent could say, like Mae West famously did, that goodness had nothing to do with it. However, the kind of denial I'm referring to is not due to ignorance, immaturity or stupidity but convenience, as in whatever fits the agenda.
And by the way, I resolutely dislike Picasso as a person, but his art is what he made, not what he was.