[lit-ideas] Re: Art and the Wall
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:54:10 -0400
> [Original Message]
> From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 8/30/2005 5:04:27 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Art and the Wall
>
> Andy wrote:
>
> >>> Diego Rivera's art was not beautiful to Rockefeller. I personally
> >>> think "art" on building walls looks like graffiti.
>
> Diego's Mural (which was in the lobby of Rockefeller Center) wasn't
> destroyed because it offended Rockefeller's aesthetic sensibilities but
> because it contained the figure of Lenin, leading a parade. Rockefeller
> did not act immediately to have the work destroyed, but asked that the
> figure of Lenin be removed and replaced simply by some unidentifiable
> person; Rivera refused, but offered to place a figure of Lincoln at one
> end of the mural ('Man at the Crossroads'); however, this did not
> satisfy Rockefeller. Rivera and his supporters tried to negotiate for
> the work to be moved to the Museum of Modern Art, but late one evening
> he was called down from his scaffold, handed a check for the remainder
> of his fee, and dismissed.
>
Isn't this recapping what I said earlier, that art is beautiful as long as
it agrees with our agenda? If it doesn't, it gets the old heave ho.
> Rivera later painted essentially the same mural in Mexico City, adding
> the figure of John D. Rockefeller, in a nightclub.
>
> I've seen the Detroit murals; they're moving enough, but I suspect that
> most people who see them no longer recognize most of the people depicted
> in them, so their former (attempted) didactic power is lost.
>
Like most works throughout the centuries.
> I wonder if Andy considers the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or ceiling
> s by e.g. Tiepolo,?not to mention the 'cave paintings' at such sites as
> Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc?'graffiti'
>
I said art on the outside of buildings looks like graffiti to me. The
Sistine Chapel is on the inside of one building. I also said that art
distinguishes itself from graffiti in that graffiti is everywhere, art is
not. Unless there are a whole bunch of Sistine Chapels and cave paintings
everywhere, then no, by definition (my definition) they are not graffiti.
I think an argument might be had that if art is rare, is it still art when
it's stamped onto umbrellas and tote bags and greeting cards. Sort of like
Xerox losing its right to the name Xerox when the word enters the public
domain to mean photocopy. I don't know.
Andy Amago
> Robert Paul
> Reed College
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