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Conservative Tastes
Legislating the Art World
What passes for artistic work these days.
In art news this month, a Brazilian artist named Gil Vicente has rocketed to international fame by exhibiting, as part of the Sao Paulo Art Biennial, a series of drawings depicting himself in the act of assassinating various world leaders and ex-world leaders, including the pope, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, and (inevitably, I suppose) former president George W. Bush. According to the London Daily Telegraph, “The series, called Inimigos (Enemies), is meant to highlight alleged crimes for which the leaders have been directly or indirectly responsible by imagining that they are being made to pay the price.” Or, as Mr. Vicente himself puts it, “Because they kill so many other people, it would be a favor to kill them, understand? Why don’t people in power and in the elite die?” The answer, if we pretend for a moment that he really wants an answer, is of course that Mr. Vicente is not an actual assassin but only an artist, which is to say (these days) a fantasist whose job it is to produce the sort of fantasy which will resonate sufficiently with the world’s media culture to win him fame and fortune. With the carefully calculated shock of his assassination drawings he has clearly found such a fantasy — though Nicholson Baker beat him to it by six years in the case of President Bush, with his novel Checkpoint.
Ho hum. There is a manufactured quality to the “outrage” of such essentially conceptual art — increasingly the only art we have. Like Martin Kippenberger’s crucified frog in Zuerst die Fuesse (Feet First) or Jesus receiving oral sex in “Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals” by Enrique Chagoya (no relation to Francisco Goya) which, together with similar rubbish, I keep up with through the regular bulletins of Bill Donohue’s Catholic League — an organization almost Christ-like in its willingness to take upon itself a perpetual state of outrage on our behalf — this is so obviously created only to provoke that you’ve got to wonder at the gullibility (if that’s what it is) of those who continue to enrich both the provokers and the media’s messengers of their provocation by insisting on being provoked by it. It’s almost enough to make you sympathize with the Muslims whose violent ways — for all the tragic harm they cause to the innocent and artists like Molly Norris, the cartoonist for the Seattle Weekly whose bright idea for an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” has ended with her disappearance (she has “gone ghost”) for security reasons — at least must prevent a great many talentless and pipsqueak “artists” from making a living out of becoming professional blasphemers.
One interesting thing about Mr. Vicente’s assassination art is its residual connection, however tenuous, to reality. It would not exist at all if the figures of the fantasy assassin’s victims were not recognizable as real people, and people whose actual assassination would be even more sensational news than that of an otherwise obscure Brazilian artist’s simply fantasizing about it. The recognizable part of the drawings must also stand in for such reality as their political fantasy can claim. We know that there are such people as the queen and the pope and President Bush — Mr. Vicente’s other imaginary victims include President Lula da Silva of Brazil and former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan — even though the idea of them as mass murderers is ridiculous to anyone with an even slightly firmer tether to reality. So to characterize them, however, identifies the artist as a worker in two different kinds of fantasy simultaneously: both the artistic kind and the political kind. The two depend on one another. Without pundits who have already found their own path to a mostly limited sort of fame through calling, or coming close to calling, the former president a murderer, the artist who did so would merely be a lunatic of no news value to the media.
When Shelley (following Dr. Samuel Johnson) called his fellow poets “the unacknowledged legislators of the world” he was pointing to what we would call, in present-day terms, the phenomenon of high culture leading low culture. It was the poets, artists, and philosophers of the Enlightenment and the Romantic movement who were pointing the way — and a narrow and difficult way it often was — for the progressives of their day engaged in the humbler arts of journalism and political propaganda. Nowadays, the relationship between politicians and publicists on the one hand and the more prestigious kind of arts on the other has been reversed. It is not the high end of artistic production that gets converted into politics but the low end of politics that gets converted into such artistic production as we still have. Crude as the leftism of the Nation or the New York Review of Books often is, it has so far stopped short of assassination fantasies and other such monkeyshines, so far as I know. That kind of thing is left to the artists, like Mr. Vicente, or novelists, like Nicholson Baker, or filmmakers like Michael Moore, who have hoovered up the leavings of their thought along with other pop cultural odds and ends and so found a great way to recycle them as allegedly artistic gestures to titillate, frighten, or shock their more sober fellow citizens.
We must have known this was happening, I guess, when “outrageous,” “insane,” “sick,” and (of course) “bad” became synonyms for “good.” But such shocking reversals couldn’t have happened if art had not already been reduced to gestures that nobody expected to express anything but raw feeling, if that. A few spoke out against Mr. Baker’s assassination fantasy back in 2004, but I doubt that many will bother protesting against Mr. Vicente’s — except maybe in Brazil, where the outgoing President Lula is still said to be immensely popular. For the same reason, Tipper Gore’s now long-ago crusade against raunchy pop and rap lyrics seems like a quaint relic of the 1980s — even to most conservatives, I imagine. The lyrics are no less raunchy, but people have grown used to them and now take them seriously only as art, insofar as art can be taken seriously anymore, and not as outrage.
SPEAKING OF TAKING THEM seriously as art, a year or so ago I wrote — following some protests from readers about my censure of the New York Times for treating the video game Grand Theft Auto as a work of art (see “Grand Larceny” in The American Spectator of June 2008) — asking if anyone could show me a case for treating rap or hip hop “poetry” on a level with, well, real poetry. I was reacting to a negative and typically unhelpful review in the New York Times Book Review of a book by an English professor called Adam Bradley titled Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, and none other than Professor Bradley himself wrote to me, sending me a copy of his book. As he is obviously a charming and intelligent as well as a generous man, I wish I could say I had been persuaded by him that the rappers he admires — including Rakim, Jay-Z, and Tupac Shakur, for instance, who (he says) “deserve consideration alongside the giants of American poetry” — were the unacknowledged legislators of our own era. Or even that they were as witty, profound, or linguistically inventive as your average giant of American poetry. But although the professor makes an interesting if not inarguable case that the rhythms, rhymes, and other formal features of the hip hoppers’ verse are not utterly discontinuous with the traditions of English poetry, he has hardly a word to say about its content which, judging from his own examples, is never anything other than boastful accounts of the rappers’ own auto-inebriation or intoxication, their sexual exploits, their (mostly fanciful) violent acts, their cars, and their jewelry.
That’s good enough for artistic work these days, I guess. Andy Warhol was in this, as in so many other ways, the pioneer, the first to see how art could become parasitic on the publicity industry and the trashiest sort of popular culture to the benefit of both. Art continued to enjoy the cachet it had retained from the days when it actually had something of importance to say while shedding some of its own derivative glory upon the Campbell’s soup tins and the repeated silk-screen images of Marilyn or Liz. Without Warhol, there would never have been a Mad Men to enliven our Sunday evenings with the conceit, which even he might have found shocking, of advertising (N.B., not rap) as the great American art form. Now it’s the spin doctors and publicists and their media offshoots who are the unofficial, though hardly unacknowledged, legislators of the world. They lead the way that both the titular legislators — and magistrates — and artists like Matthew Weiner, inventor of Mad Men, are content to follow, ever in awe of their monkey-tricks. Well, why not? These are the nearest things we have to contemporaneously produced artistic beauty anymore.
About the Author
James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (32) | Leave a comment
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Alan Brooks| 11.29.10 @ 5:41PM
Mr. Bowman, if Gil Vicente depicted himself assassinating Obama, half the wild-eyed Rightists at AS would want to give the Brazilian-nut "artist" an award.
Always depends whose ox is gored.
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 11.30.10 @ 6:47AM
I contacted Gil Vicente and asked if he'd do a piece depicting Alan Brooks getting shot in the head, but he said, "Yo no malgastaría el bullett." I was going to send it to you, as a surprise Birthday gift, but oh well, back to the drawing board!!
Alan Brooks| 11.30.10 @ 7:50PM
" but oh well, back to the drawing board!!"
Yes, exactly, keep drawing and dreaming. Back to the GOP fantasy drawing board.
David W| 11.30.10 @ 8:29AM
And three-quarters of the wild-eyed Leftists would be demanding that his disgusting depiction of a terrifying act be removed by the authorities and burned. Michael Moore would create a movie that would depict the artist as an evil nazi-like nut (who probably owns a gun and smokes). Hollywood celebrities would probably have a telethon to raise money to help the traumatized citizens of Brazil to overcome the horror of having seen that display of pure evil..... You are right - always depends upon whose ox is gored.
David W| 11.30.10 @ 8:31AM
I wonder if the artist will include in his portfolio pictures of him shooting the leader of Iran, Osama bin Laden, the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, and a representation of Mohammed. I bet he won't.
Harry the Horrible| 11.30.10 @ 8:37AM
I sincerely doubt it.
The last thing us "wild-eyed Rightists" want is a JFK- style martyr you lefties can invoke to win elections and pass legislation for next decade. Personally, I think Pres. Obama has more to fear from Left-wingers than he does from us. They have more to gain from his death.
DodAederen| 11.30.10 @ 10:35AM
Why in hell would we want to upset that perfect triptych of stupidity; Obama, Reid and Pelosi. That is the gift that keeps on giving. Thank you Democrats!
Edward White| 11.30.10 @ 10:38AM
I have lost patience with the performance and conceptual art movement which parades its lack of inhibition before the public by announcing that it is 'above shock' - then sneers at the public for not liking the shock tactics.
Actually, I am bored by the shock art, for the tactics are all too predictable:
1. scatology: study and analysis of feces, as for diagnosis.
2. a preoccupation with obscenities, swear words, sex and genitalia, or the desecration of religious images, especially Jesus Christ and Mary (but never Mohammed! Too dangerous!).
What angers the public most is its belief that these conceptual artists do not produce art at all. I believe, as do millions, that 'art' must embody 'skill' to rise above mere craft.
Consider the contempt of many of these artists for the skills of Rembrandt and Raphael and Picasso. They have only disdain for the historic achievements of European painting, for the ancient art school skills of line, colour and composition.
They can't draw, can't paint, can't sculpt. All they can do is call attention to themselves by shocking the public.
They are art fashionistas with little intelligence and practically no talent.
DodAederen| 11.30.10 @ 11:10AM
If you won't hang it in your living room, it's garbage.
Eric| 11.30.10 @ 12:39PM
I'd like to hang that snotty RINO , Edward White, (see above)vnot on my wall, but from a tree limb.
Yoko Hussein Ono| 11.30.10 @ 4:17PM
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for that very timely and very up-t0-date insight. What makes you think every AS reader is a wild-eyed-rightist? That is just as ignorant as saying every PBS viewer is a pot-smoking marxist. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go use my NEA grant to depict Tiny Tim and Andy Warhol re-enacting the cocktail party scene from "Laugh-In" in shadow puppets entirely in macrame, while Lizzie Borden reads from "Howl."
Toto| 11.30.10 @ 5:18PM
Yoko, I will answer the question you posed to Mr. Brooks:
Question: What makes you think every AS reader is a wild-eyed rightist? (No hyphen is required between eyed and rightist.)
Answer: Anyone perusing the comments on AmSpec can readily see that the majority of posters are "wild-eyed rightists" because that's how they come across to any reasonable person.
Dorothy| 12.1.10 @ 8:57AM
Thanks for the tip. Enjoy the PBS series on tolerance for other points of view, as long as they agree with Bill Moyers on everything.
Appleby| 11.30.10 @ 6:55AM
PJ O Rourke describes this as *Toddler Liberation* -- the desire to call everybody Poo Poo Head, pull down your pants in public, and shove everything in your mouth.
Wise parents correct this course before Junior and Susie reach school age; the rest of them morph into Artists, generally supported by tax dollars, run up huge college loans, and annoy the people who still think such behaviour is too low class for preschool, much less the public square.
To my mind its just one more way for brats to attempt to annoy their parents.
Melvin| 11.30.10 @ 7:49AM
It is not about being an artist and creating marvels of work to be admired for generations. It's about the money, fame, and being invited to Oprah or the View.
A person can don a beret and wear a Che Guevara T-Shirt bronze a pile of dog excrement, and call it, "The Ascent of Man," and next thing you know he or she is the darling of the art world.
Artists no longer want to spend their entire lives creating masterpieces. They want the stuff and fame and eventually plan to creating something after the next drug, sex induced binge. Just look at Angelina Jolie. Sex toys and rubber sheets, are her Modus operandi. Look at what happened to her. The UN bestowed upon her some official title of something or another. Inject your lips so much Collagen that you'll look like a Carp and viola your an instant artist.
Jeremiah| 11.30.10 @ 9:04AM
Alan Brooks, you're projecting liberal behavior on conservatives, as usual. We're mostly Christians or Jews at TAS. We do not wish the Obamessiah to be murdered, we do even wish him to fail, we just wish him to lose the next election.
If you really believe we're insane or wild eyed, how come you spend so much time with us?
Alan Brooks| 12.1.10 @ 12:05AM
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail. No, no- of course not... what makes you even THINK such a thing? Banish the thought! oh, no, please.. do not even say that, don't think it"...
Write a hundred times on the blackboard:
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
REPEAT AFTER JEREMIAH:
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
Jeremiah| 11.30.10 @ 9:06AM
Correction: we DO NOT even wish him to fail.
Dumb tiny window.
Alan Brooks| 11.30.10 @ 11:54PM
"we do even wish him to fail"
An subconscious slip, Jeremiah! And aren't you the same Jeremiah who called me a "lozel" (sic) for suggesting on election day that Obama might be the last president? because IMO the next POTUS will be Latino or white female... yes, yes, Palin might be president someday-- though no
one knows when.
BTW, Rush even said he DID (and probably still does) want Obama to fail. Newt replied, "that's irrational".
Rush replied something about Newt loving Rush.
Alan Brooks| 12.1.10 @ 12:01AM
"Correction: we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
You protest too much.
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
"we DO NOT even wish him to fail."
-- Jeremiah
Bill| 11.30.10 @ 9:37AM
When high art becomes only "epater le bourgeoisie," artists can expect the inevitable bourgeois response (which has happened before): lack of funding either from individual patrons or nationalized patronage.
Stoddard| 11.30.10 @ 2:00PM
These days, shocking the bourgeoisie IS bourgeois.
Louis Jenkins| 11.30.10 @ 9:51AM
Assassination as art? Why people take this man for an artist I'll never know. It is puke, plain and simple.
Thomas| 11.30.10 @ 10:09AM
Gil who?
Alan Brooks| 11.30.10 @ 11:58PM
Gil O'Teen, you mean?
Damien | 11.30.10 @ 10:14AM
Unlimited International calling to over 1000 global destinations with the Global Unlimited Plan from any landline phone across the United States & Canada via www.callmyworld.com
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Petronius| 11.30.10 @ 11:12AM
This one is as always in the "Art World", on the promoters and the media. The NEA will tour Vicente's junk around our country on our dime so they can all swill champagne in admiration while cursing Us. Where's Lazlo Toth when we need him?
MAJ Mike| 11.30.10 @ 11:52AM
Toth is probably still incarcerated for his attack on Michelangelo's Pieta. We only remember him because he was a deranged vandal, but had he waited a few years and claimed that his attack was a performance piece, he'd have been lauded as a genius by the arts establishment.
Margie| 11.30.10 @ 8:28PM
What we truly need is a Republican President with some courage. The courage to ban the NEA from public funding.
That'll take care of 'em.
CalMark| 12.1.10 @ 7:13PM
So-called "artists," many of them Americans, make "artistic representations" of assassinating Republicans. That is "inspired" and "Art" (note the capital "A.")
But saying anything even remotely critical ("I want him to fail," comes to mind) and you should be arrested, ruined financaally, destroyed personally. Libs are now calling on the FCC to destroy Rush Limbaugh for poking fun at their racial hypocrisy in Congressional leadership allocation.
Enough of this double standard. But this may be a clarion call for the endgame of the Republic.
The "Me" generation consisted of two kinds of people: radicals like Nancy Pelosi, and complacent so-called decent people who never stood up to them (*YAWN* they said, "this too shall pass. What's on TV?") That's why we have this mess.
Jeremiah| 12.2.10 @ 2:44PM
Alan Brooks you're either a dumb liberal or a clone of Captain Klutz. I suspect you're both. I never saw a conservative behave in such a childish way. Got too much time on your hands, are you a t.e.a.c.h.e.r.? Who's wild eyed here? Should there be a way to edit posts on TAS, I suspect you would be the main user of that feature. Keep molesting kids, klutzo.
Jeremiah| 12.2.10 @ 5:52PM
And you didn't answer my question:"how come you spend so much time with us?". But never mind, the reason is for all to see, you're an obnoxious liberal troll.