In Terms Of

Tag: Washington Hilton Hotel

  • Good Ol’ Boys of the Appalachian Connection

    This week the College Art Association is holding its 104th Annual Conference in Washington, DC. In recognition of the event, In Terms Of is republishing four reviews of sessions from CAA’s 1979 conference, which also took place in the nation’s capital, on topics still relevant to the art world today.

    Recurring Regionalism: The Southern Rim
    Friday, February 2, 1979
    67th Annual Conference, College Art Association, Washington Hilton Hotel, Monroe Room, Washington, DC

    Moderator: William R. Dunlap
    Panelists: John Alexander, John Canaday, William Christenberry, Larry Edwards, Jim Roche, and James Surls

    Cynthia Navaretta, “Good Ol’ Boys of the Southern Rim” Women Artists News 5, no. 1 (May 1979): 11

    John Canaday, for those of you too young to remember, used to be senior art critic on the New York Times, and hence, some felt, the most powerful art critic in the country. I remember a Sunday column of his about a woman in the art department of Appalachian [State] University who had put together an exhibition so fine that he praised it unstintingly. This was particularly impressive to a New Yorker because at the time the very name of the university conjured up an isolated pocket of insularity where it was hardly expected art would be taught, let alone exhibited—and abstract art at that. Canaday’s Appalachian connection appeared again at College Art [Association], as we saw him on the panel, “Recurring Regionalism: The Southern Rim.” (The title came from an earlier conference of the same name.)

    Moderator William R. Dunlap of Appalachian [State] University acted like a suave cosmopolitan—that is, until he exhibited all the worst characteristics the rest of the country might attribute to New Yorkers. He was rude, egotistical, insulting, arrogant, uncaring, and crude. He also made a great show of swilling bourbon from a prominently displayed bottle. Typical of this Southern gentleman’s behavior was his reply to Elsa Fine’s question from the floor about the absence of women, or even one good ol’ girl, on the panel with the good ol’ boys. It was OK, Dunlap said, because there were two homosexuals on the panel.

    Having arrived late, I missed the opening presentation of slides, but I was in time to hear John Alexander entertain the audience with anecdotes from the past year which he had spent traveling the country in the role of famous artist, accepting recognition and success. He declared himself on the side of minority artists (Chicanos) but definitely against New York lady art critics with briefcases. (One had spent no more than three minutes scanning his show before writing a several-page magazine article.) He was bemused by Lions Club audiences who, in Lions Club tradition, roared approval of his witticisms rather than applauding. His other adventures ranged the country both sociologically and geographically. Alexander enchanted the CAA audience in general, the women less so.

    James Surls, apparently the only member of the panel concerned with human values, was generous in crediting the Dallas Women’s Co-op with opening up the art scene there. They did all the work, he said—politicking, letter writing, and the rest—that made it possible to exhibit art in Dallas outside the museum. He said he himself “rode in on the coat tails.”

    Discussion continued as, by and large, a series of rambling non sequiturs. Members of the audience seemed to feel compelled to make statements themselves, like at a revival meeting, and their random statements, usually irrelevant to the discussion, prompted other remotely connected observations. One item surfacing in this manner was the moderator’s statement that New York had “closed down for young artists.” He attributed that to Marcia Tucker’s departure from the Whitney. (Maybe it was the bourbon.)

    This profundity was followed by an editor of Art Voices South—an expensively glossy magazine dedicated to praise of Southern artists—who got to his feet in the audience to say that the magazine covers twenty-two Southern states and is trying to attract an audience not accustomed to going to galleries. The panel responded very warmly to this and the subject of regional art came up—whether the South was producing any, whether any Southern state had ever produced any. Washington, DC, got some credit here, specifically the Washington Color School, but that was quickly dismissed by a panelist—Canaday perhaps—as a “suburban” expression of New York Abstract Expressionism.

    Well, things just moved along. Soon Alexander spoke in recognition of the people of Iran—he felt they should be honored for “standing up and getting rid of a cancerous tyrant.” (This was the week of street riots in Iran.) Dunlap even managed an insulting joke on the subject. Then Margaret Gorove, chairperson of the art department at the University of Mississippi—and former teacher of moderator Dunlap—got to her feet to say, first, that a proper grad of Ole Miss would have kept the bottle in a paper bag, and second, to describe the very real problems of women artists in the South. She pointed out that, as is well known, women do well in blind-juried shows but aren’t included in invitationals, not having had the exposure or experience.

    Moderator Dunlap’s response to this serious and impassioned statement was, “Let me say, I love your hair, and the color of your dress.” Gorove, resigned, even gentle, replied, “You haven’t changed a bit.” Dunlap then felt it necessary to go on record with, “I make no apology for the sexual make-up of this panel.”

    Alexander added quickly that he himself is concerned with the problems of women artists and is aware of prejudice against them and minorities. But, he claimed, the previous night’s panel. “Modern Art and Economics,” had been “all big names, all men, and no one brought the issue up there.” Aggrieved at what he saw as discrimination against the Southern panel, Alexander wanted to pursue the topic. “I recommend we continue and go for the throat” (which throat he didn’t say).

    Surls mentioned that, having found the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston without a director, curator, or scheduled exhibition, he had grabbed the free slot to do a show of one hundred Texas artists (Fire!). He may have intended to say women as well as men were included, but never got to it, because next came Robert Pincus-Witten from the audience.

    Bitingly sarcastic about Art Voices South’s self-congratulatory tone and self-serving ways, Pincus-Witten said that “without a critical voice for the Southern Rim you’ll be back on this panel continuing this conversation for the rest of your lives.” Only the development of a critical voice can bring Southern artists recognition from the rest of the country, he said.

    Canaday didn’t see it that way. “American art would have been better off without all the known critics,” said the former known critic. He quoted from an essay by Harold Rosenberg: “Artists are faced with a wall of opinion—a formulated taste dictating the direction of art.” Canaday advised us that “what is really needed is a buying public for the arts.” (An exemplary opinion, certainly.)

    Next it was Irving Sandler’s turn. Sandler said from the audience that there was “more energy, more wit in this panel” than any he had heard in New York. That seemed like a good time to leave.

    In Terms Of count: unknown.

    Source

    Written by Cynthia Navaretta, “Good Ol’ Boys of the Appalachian Connection” was originally published in Women Artists News 5, no. 1 (May 1979): 11; and reprinted in Judy Seigel, ed., Mutiny and the Mainstream: Talk That Changed Art, 1975–1990 (New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1992), 120–21. In Terms Of thanks Midmarch Arts Press for permission to republish this review.

     

  • Real People as Art

    This week the College Art Association is holding its 104th Annual Conference in Washington, DC. In recognition of the event, In Terms Of is republishing four reviews of sessions from CAA’s 1979 conference, which also took place in the nation’s capital, on topics still relevant to the art world today.

    Artists and Community in the Context of Social Change
    Friday, February 2, 1979
    Caucus for Marxism and Art
    67th Annual Conference, College Art Association, Washington Hilton Hotel, Lincoln Room, Washington, DC

    Moderators: Martha Rosler and Allan Sekula
    Panelists: Mel Rosenthal, Suzanne Lacy, and Fred Lonidier

    Leslie Satin, “Artists and Community in the Context of Social Change,” Women Artists News 4, no. 9 (March 1979): 8

    Because the Caucus [for Marxism and Art] had been granted a very brief time slot, only three artists were scheduled to speak, each to discuss her/his work in the context of social change. Martha Rosler noted in her introduction that each of them dealt with violence—physical or social. Later she addressed the need of political artists to gain control of language, to move away from the media definition of “violence.”

    Photographer Mel Rosenthal described his discomfort when audiences skim over the political content of his photographs, responding only to the form of the work. In his photographs of the South Bronx he has insisted, not only on political meanings of the subject, but on the relationship between the art and the subject—the people of the area. His original idea was to make portraits of everyone living on the street where he works at a health center. It became apparent that many of these people, with whom Rosenthal became very involved over the course of a year, had never seen accurate photos of themselves. The photographs show them as real people in real poverty—not just another burned-out South Bronx scene from media.

    Suzanne Lacy presented material she’d covered in a previous panel on performance and environmental art from a somewhat different perspective. She and Leslie Labowitz cofounded Ariadne to work against violence against women.1 Discussing several projects on rape, murder, and violence in the record industry, Lacy explained their approach, which involves, not just getting the personal cooperation of local government officials and journalists, but actually setting up performances and exhibits for media. This follows Ariadne’s analysis of the role played by media in preventing or allowing political change.

    Fred Lonidier spoke about reaching a labor-union audience. Believing that the structure of the workplace must be changed to affect occupational health problems in a major way, he created an exhibit of photographs showing results of work-related diseases and added a text giving the historical context. The exhibit did attract many union members. At the panel, he spoke of the difficulties of reaching such “nonart” audiences.

    When our time in the Lincoln Room ran out, we were in mid-discussion, but discovered another spot available unofficially. Perhaps forty of us sat in a circle there and continued to talk and talk about the role media play for the political artist, the difference between performance art and political activism (is Phyllis Schlafly a performance artist?), political art as a process of self-identification, definitions of “cultural worker,” the exhibit of shopping bag ladies’ art at the Met[ropolitan Museum of Art] organized by Ann Marie Rousseau.

    In Terms Of count: unknown.

    1 Ariadne, a California woman’s network, produced public art on political issues from 1977 to 1980.

    Source

    Written by Leslie Satin, “Real People as Art” was originally published in Women Artists News 4, no. 9 (March 1979): 8; and reprinted in Judy Seigel, ed., Mutiny and the Mainstream: Talk That Changed Art, 1975–1990 (New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1992), 117. In Terms Of thanks Midmarch Arts Press for permission to republish this review.

  • New Realism at Museums

    This week the College Art Association is holding its 104th Annual Conference in Washington, DC. In recognition of the event, In Terms Of is republishing four reviews of sessions from CAA’s 1979 conference, which also took place in the nation’s capital, on topics still relevant to the art world today.

    Museums and Present-Day Art
    Friday, February 2, 1979
    67th Annual Conference, College Art Association, Washington Hilton Hotel, International Center, Washington, DC

    Moderator: Hilton Kramer, Art Critic, New York Times
    Panelists: William Lieberman, Museum of Modern Art; and Martin Friedman, Director, Walker Art Center

    Abby Goell, “Museums and Present-Day Art,” Women Artists News 4, no. 10 (April 1979): 2

    Since the original title of this panel was “Museums and the Reality Principle,” the artist-listener might have expected an adrenal in-rousing discourse on exhibition politics, how artists are chosen or ignored, the manipulations of trustees, the perfidy of curators and their lovers, etc. Instead, the Reality Principle at issue quite reasonably concerned the costs of running a museum, the problems of attracting a broad public, and how, having done so, not to go broke being popular. Hilton Kramer described the task of a museum over the past thirty years as changed, from an agency showing classics of modern art to an institution whose function is also to introduce new and emerging artists and movements.

    Martin Friedman said the total exhibition program must be constructed to build a pattern of shows that are “ongoing reportages of art.” A museum must never schedule a series of one-artist shows, he maintained, but alternate single artists with classical modernism and diverse media. He sees “crucial examples” from the past as essential to intelligent shows of classical modernism (such as Cubism, Futurism, or the Cézanne show); these examples are then reinterpreted in the light of today’s taste.

    Friedman noted that there are several museum audiences: first, the continuing audience in the habit of museum-going; second, the specialized audience drawn to certain media such as photography, design, or architecture; and third, the first-time audience, brought by the publicity for a special show, such as King Tut. Even though museums plan shows they think have ongoing significance, he said, the Reality Principle does not allow them to ignore the fact of these separate audiences.

    Kramer asked the others how seriously “box office” considerations affect choice of museum shows. William Lieberman (the most soigné, detached, and ironic of the three) said box office has become more important, “because more corporations are funding the shows and they see popularity as the yardstick of success.” MoMA doesn’t have the money today to do shows without large-audience appeal. And, “titles are important for shows.” Friedman, who was conscious of speaking to an audience of, after all, CAA members, insisted, “We cannot limit programming to the popular.”

    A member of the audience, referring to Kramer’s article about art museums run as businesses, asked him, “What about the businessman as top director, over the curator?” Kramer responded by paraphrasing Alan Shestack of Yale’s statement that every decision made in a museum, including the collection of garbage, is an aesthetic decision.1

    Lieberman thought the divided leadership running the Metropolitan Museum seemed to be working, but Friedman objected, declaring that the chief officer of a museum must absolutely be a scholar and art historian, and that the core of a museum must be “artistic.” Artists and art historians, he said, “are not necessarily financial morons.” However, Friedman conceded that very large museums involved in big investment funds and city politics would be exceptions to the rule of scholars.

    Kramer finds museum trustees failing in their responsibilities today. They ought to worry more, not less, he said. He also suggested that trustees prefer financial types at the helm because it’s less work for them when the administration belongs to the “world of money” rather than scholarship. He pointed out drily that we should view with alarm the fact that America’s leading universities, publishing houses, and newspapers are now run by “administrators,” not scholars, men of letters [sic], or journalists. We should not let museums go the same way, he said.

    The panel then took up the question of corporate support, and what that means to new artists. Lieberman conceded that it’s very hard to raise funds to show contemporary work. Most corporations prefer art of the past. It’s safer, attracts a larger audience, and causes less controversy. The British Council, he pointed out, gives MoMA funds to show, not just any artists, but British artists, and the few private donors left are nervous about the new and unknown.

    All three panelists pointed out several times that art is a commodity, vying for the leisure time of audiences in competition with movies, theater, and sports, and that the need to attract mass audiences brings unending new problems.

    To a question from the floor about the profitability of MoMA’s Cézanne show, Lieberman said MoMA loses $2 for each person who walks in and buys a ticket. The extra attendance at a show like Cézanne is offset by the expense of extra guards and other personnel. In fact, MoMA closes one day a week to save money. He agreed that boards of trustees today still view themselves as a “club” of art sponsors, but that museums get public money and must justify their activities to the community at large.

    Kramer asked to what extent this affects aesthetic decisions. Or, as one audience member put it, “Isn’t this concern for the mass audience making the art museum a media event, rather than an art event?” Friedman conceded that this was largely so, but said he hoped to find ways to solve the problem. One answer might be to schedule a “younger artist” show at the same time as a Cézanne blockbuster to catch the larger audience.

    The panel also addressed questions of catalogue expenses [and] the trend toward elaborate labeling, extended graphics, and long cassettes, and acknowledged the difficulty of looking at art along with so many other people at the popular hours—in short, educational “overkill.” Popularity of the museum experience could carry the seeds of its own destruction, and newer artists might one day have no place to show. Friedman saw university museums and alternative spaces as a possible answer for lesser-known artists.

    The panel ended all too briskly just as this last topic ripened for discussion, participants having to catch their planes to continue their appointed rounds. One thing is certain: artists may rise and fall and rise again, but the institutionalization of art is here to stay.

    In Terms Of count: unknown.

    1 Alan Shestack was director of the Yale University Gallery of Art from 1971 to 1985, after starting work there as a curator in 1967.

    Source

    Written by Abby Goell, “New Realism at Museums” was originally published in Women Artists News 4, no. 10 (April 1979): 2; and reprinted in Judy Seigel, ed., Mutiny and the Mainstream: Talk That Changed Art, 1975–1990 (New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1992), 119–20. In Terms Of thanks Midmarch Arts Press for permission to republish this review.