What arts education can and cannot do...by Gary Vikan on April 29, 2008 This is the subject of a very provocative, very important piece by Ann Hulbert in this week's The New York Times Magazine (April 27: "Drawing Lessons: What arts education can do, and can't," p. 11f.). What is this "censorship" nonsense?by Gary Vikan on April 24, 2008 The Yale student who made Tuesday's The New York Times (and my last blog) for her senior art project involving video-taping her multiple herbal-drug-induced abortions (after repeatedly inseminating herself) prompted a second article in the same paper yesterday (April 23): "Even if Art Isn't Real, the Furor Is." This is a litany of crazy "art" projects by crazy students. Not all of whom, as it turns out, are even art students. Some years back an undergraduate in evolutionary biology at Princeton—when she learned how close the species are—decided she was going to inseminate her self with the sperm of a chimp! Anyway, mid-way through this run down of the absurd, appears the "C" word: censorship. The idea being that college students somehow have an inherent right, under the heading of "art," to do any cockamamie thing they want to. And anyone up the university's food-chain of management who tries to stop it is in the censorship business. Where did/does this come from?
Not for the uninitiated...by Gary Vikan on April 22, 2008 Someone uninitiated in the subtleties of contemporary art-think and art-speak might be mystified by parts of yesterday's "Arts Section" in The New York Times. A big color photo at the top of page one shows three new pieces by Pop artist Jeff Koons perched atop the Met in the Cantor Roof Garden, illuminated by a brilliant sunrise over midtown Manhattan. The one at the front right is a balloon dog that looks pretty much like the balloon dogs we all used to get at the carnival as kids, except it's really big, and made of shiny metal. And unlike those we got as kids, this one—I guess by virtue of where it is, who made it, and what it's made of—is somehow (as we are told by the reveiwer) "mischievously meaningful": With its pneumatic, sausagelike parts, "Balloon Dog (Yellow)" is a sly Trojan Horse: it seems innocent but is loaded with aesthetic and erotic perversity. Hmmm. Well, now we know. Plus, we are reminded three times in the review and its photo captions that there is something extra-special about this Jeff Koons balloon-dog moment insofar as this work, like the other two, is "previously unexhibited." So an epiphany of aesthetic and erotic perversity awaits us on a New York rooftop. Now, turn to page two, at the top of "Arts, Briefly," and discover what's going on in contemporary art at Yale University, where student Aliza Shvarts' senior art project has the administration in a tizzy. It seems she has produced a video recording multiple herbal-drug-induced miscarriages after having inseminated herself "as often as possible" over several months. Whether she is telling the truth is not at all clear to those involved, but various university deans have concluded that Ms. Shvarts' advisers have committed "serious errors in judgement." Hmmm. Want some relief? The article just below and to the right (remember, this is "Arts, Briefly"), accompanied by a touching photo of mother-to-be and child, lets us know that Madonna's adoption hearing in Malawi has been delayed by the High Court of that country. So, stay tuned. Such is the arrhythmia of the heartbeat of "The Arts" in The New York Times on Tuesday, April 22, 2008. Which is not for the uninitiated....
Was Jesus left-handed?by Gary Vikan on April 21, 2008
But I have in mind a related, though somewhat more subtle question. Semir Zeki, the neurobiologist at University College, London, who a decade ago invented the concept of "neuroaesthetics," says that all artists are neuroscientists, even though they don't know it (my blog of 11/15/07). And somewhere I read that magicians are somehow the same, insofar as they have learned to find the seams and blind spots in consciousness in order to do their tricks (my blog of 8/22/07). Similarly, artists have learned how to achieve their aims by intuitively understanding the workings of the brain, and playing off that understanding. My main candidate for neuroscientist/artist is Alexander Calder, who through a combination of color, shape, and movement figured out in his "mobiles" how to make our fMRI-measured brains light up all over the place. That would be art as efficient vehicle for pleasurable brain activation. Not all, by any means, but certainly part of what art is about.
Now, have a look at this icon of Christ "The All Powerful" painted by an anonymous Byzantine artist about 1400 years ago—for another, but very different example, of the neuroscientist/artist. On the left is the icon as it normally appears, whereas at the far right is that same icon with a mirror placed down the middle of the face, in effect duplicating the proper right side of Christ's face, and the third image is a second such mirror-duplication, though this this time of the proper left side of Christ's face. I believe that this early Byzantine icon painter intuitively understood what in the last two generations has become commonly accepted by those who study the brain; namely, that our right brain hemisphere (the half that controls the left side of our face) has emotional dominance, and more specifically, that it has dominance of negative emotions. And that this brain asymmetry is given expression in the bilateral asymmetry of our faces—much as left-brain dominance in other matters makes us right-handed. (If your really into this stuff, see H. A. Demaree et al., "Brain Lateralization of Emotional Processessing...," Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews [4/1, March 2005, pp. 3ff.].) This icon is a document of that. But why bother, one might ask? But then one might ask why does a magician bother—or Calder, for that matter? Simply, to achieve an outcome. Which for the icon painter is to unite in a single face (of Christ the All Powerful) the multi-valence of the supplicant/Christ "spiritual dialogue." (Think here of going to confession.) Textual sources of the medieval period tell us that as a Christian supplicant, you will "read" this icon to match your own state of mind. Contentment and a sense of self-worth will gravitate toward and be vindicated by the proper right face of Christ, whereas anxiety and a sense of guilt will gravitate toward and be harshly judged by the proper left side (literally, the "sinister" side) of Christ's face. Neuroscience has also layered on an "approach/withdrawal" distinction as well, whereby we are literally drawn to the benign side of Christ's face and are very much inclined to flee the threatening side—which is nothing more, I guess, than common sense, rooted in our evolutionary wiring. (The necessity for our survival of escaping perceived malevolent forces.) But of course, for the medieval Christian, there was no escape for the guilty. Which means, among other things, that Calder and this icon painter are, as neuroscientist/artists, basically up to the same thing. Oh, that golden fence...by Gary Vikan on April 09, 2008
Lee was/is one among 10 MICA students who together conceived of and executed an artistic response in the four arms of Mt. Vernon Park to the Walters spring exhibition Maps: Finding our Place in the World. Beyond the Compass Beyond the Square got a tremendous amount of media attention—specifically in the Baltimore Sun—and the vast majority of that attention was directed toward Lee Freeman or, more accurately, at Lee Freeman, since most all of it was very critical. Lee's intention was to fence off all four arms of the park for two weeks, from March 16th to March 29th, when the fence would come down and the 9 other MICA projects would have their epiphany. The idea mostly was to oblige the public to consider the park(s) anew, from the vantage point of the outsider. In the meantime, his fellow students could install their art in peace, and the grass could grow.
And since a fair number of these complaints came my way—after all, this all unfolded in the Walters' front yard—it got me thinking. What I did not and still do not understand is the vehemence of some of the attacks. The words "sadism" and "depraved" were used, and for the first time in my 14 years as director I was called a "swine" and a "fascist." Anger I can understand, but for me, the words did not match the perceived crime. What did I miss?
|
Probably not. Statistics would suggest He was right-handed; and 1700 years of Christian art show Jesus exercising his miraculous powers with his right hand.
For more than two weeks the Walters was among those hit by incoming verbal salvos directed at young Mr. Lee Freeman, the author of the now infamous golden fence. 
Lee's idea survived only thee days before, in response to the onslaught of angry calls, e-mails, letters to the editor, and newspaper articles, he relented and opened sections in all four arms of the park. The dog owners returned but the complaints continued. 