Eleanor on mon 30 dec 02
At 12:00 AM -0500 12/30/02, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> I find the piece to be sophomoric at best -Craig Dunn Clark
I was a child in Brooklyn, NY during WW2. In school there were Air
Raid Drills and every kid was issued an (Bakelite?) ID tag to be worn
every day. My brother was in the army; we had a little pennant with a
star on it hanging in the window. Every day my mother would lock
herself in the bathroom and cry.
After the War, I could get on the subway and go to MOMA (Museum of
Modern Art), something I did frequently. There I saw Picasso's
Guernica. The jumble of torn and distorted bodies in the painting
depict war with all its bloodshed, maiming, horror. No matter what
exhibition MOMA was having, I went back to that painting every time I
was in that museum until the last time, before it was shipped to
Spain. I also got to see the preliminary sketches Picasso made for
the work.
Even within the warm, secure, post-war walls of MOMA, Guernica
evoked, among many emotions, that of FEAR.
Picasso was an Artist. He had spent years learning and practicing his
craft and Guernica is a Work of ART.
What about the kid who painted the Boxes? He is an Art Student and
was doing a homework assignment. He schlopped some paint on some
boxes, pasted signs with four-letter words on them and displayed this
Work to the world. A Kindergarten kid who knew how to spell "fear"
could have done the same.
He is an Art Student. What is he learning in Art School? Can he draw?
Does he know how to use oils, pastels, crayons, watercolors...? Can
he paint a landscape, a still life, a portrait...? Does he know how
to clean his brushes? Is he learning the Craft of his Art? Who's
paying his tuition?
What about the kid's Art Teacher? Is he teaching this kid the craft
of his Art? Is he helping the kid to make the best use of his
materials? Does he critique the kid's Art in terms of the kid's
progress and needs? Who's paying his salary?
Not everyone in the world is an Artist. Some people are Mechanics,
like the genius who fixes my car or like the perceptive Cardiologist
who figured out that my heart palpitations were caused by an
over-the-counter nasal spray.
To be an Artist you need to have Talent and you need to have a
vocation, a calling. Then you need to learn how to go about being an
Artist. And you need to practice. Then if you have something to say,
you will have the tools with which to say it, as Picasso did with
Guernica.
Are the Boxes Art? As the Emperor was bereft of clothing so the boxes
are bereft of Art.
Eleanor Kohler
Centerport, NY
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