Usefulness of Art (in America)

"Words may show a man's wit but actions his meaning." (Benjamin Franklin)

Having had over one year to ponder the request, John McCain finally issued a statement outlining his platform on Arts in America (at a whopping four sentences long). By contrast, Barack Obama issued a much more comprehensive platform about one year ago, outlining 8 areas he would address as president.

The results...

McCain's arts statement:

"John McCain believes that arts education can play a vital role fostering creativity and expression. He is a strong believer in empowering local school districts to establish priorities based on the needs of local schools and school districts. Schools receiving federal funds for education must be held accountable for providing a quality education in basic subjects critical to ensuring students are prepared to compete and succeed in the global economy. Where these local priorities allow, he believes investing in arts education can play a role in nurturing the creativity of expression so vital to the health of our cultural life and providing a means of creative expression for young people."

Obama platform:

"Reinvest in Arts Education: To remain competitive in the global economy, America needs to reinvigorate the kind of creativity and innovation that has made this country great. To do so, we must nourish our children's creative skills. In addition to giving our children the science and math skills they need to compete in the new global context, we should also encourage the ability to think creatively that comes from a meaningful arts education. Unfortunately, many school districts are cutting instructional time for art and music education. Barack Obama believes that the arts should be a central part of effective teaching and learning. The Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts recently said "The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society." To support greater arts education, Obama will: (read more)

John McCain's statement shows such a disregard for the arts as an entity worthy of governmental support, that it's futile to be shocked by it, or even react to it. It doesn't address arts funding, only a meager argument for the continuation of (state-level) arts education funding in schools. Obama's statement is something one can react to...

What concerns me most about Obama's statement is a need to talk about art in any other context than what it actual is, namely the act of painting pictures, organizing sounds, taking photographs, aestheticizing movements of the body, or writing words (something Obama deeply understands, as Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker said, "he's a lawyer by profession, but a writer by calling").

Many subjects are taboo in contemporary political discourse, one rarely hears either candidate mentioning the poor, Progressives are as taboo a subject in this election as transvestites, cheese-eaters, or former members of the Black Panthers, as they are all clumped into a conglomerate of the effete coastal liberals. Art as an entity unto itself is not a discussion in American politics. Only when it can be translated into economic terms:

According to the Americans for the Arts Action Fund, the organization that first requested the policy statements from both candidates, artists and art-related nonprofits generate about $166.2 billion in revenue per year and $12.6 billion in annual taxes. That makes those employed or interested in the creative economy a possibly powerful voting bloc with which which to reckon.

or into offering a supplement to childrens' education:

To remain competitive in the global economy, America needs to reinvigorate the kind of creativity and innovation that has made this country great. To do so, we must nourish our children's creative skills. In addition to giving our children the science and math skills they need to compete in the new global context, we should also encourage the ability to think creatively that comes from a meaningful arts education. (Obama Platform)

can artistic activity be politically worthy of discussion.

Historically speaking, Americans are a pragmatic people with a low level of tolerance for artistic fancies, for art that serves no definable purpose other than enlivening the recipient. Art in America has most often been associated with the emasculated and over-refined, a by-product of rotted-out and disintegrating European civilization. Art needs to be useful to be justifiable. "Art is man's expression of his joy in labor". (Henry Kissinger). "To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." (Henry David Thoreau)

A question among many of my artist friends and colleagues is whether art actually needs be discussed in a political context, or supported by governmental agencies. I say: "yes. Yes. YES. It does." Artists in America spend too much of their time justifying their very existence. That often takes the wind out of the sail for spending time on strengthening and deepening their messages, views, visions and techniques. I've lived long enough in a society that has a long history of and commitment to public funding for the arts (on a national level- Germany, as well as local- Berlin) , and think this model of state sponsorship of the arts, when not abused, is necessary in keeping arts on the radar-system of contemporary culture, and helping artists earn a societal respect and recognition for their work in relation to the energy, thought, reflection and sacrifice they put into it.

It comes back to a terribly unrelenting thought I inevitably encounter whenever I step foot in the US, namely "Am I doing something with my life that is contributing to society?" This thought mysteriously vanishes when I get back to Berlin. There are certain professions that I would count as essential to the livelihood of society- farmers, doctors, trash collectors, mid-wives, and undertakers among others. As for the rest of us, we belong to a not-absolutely-essential-to-the-functioning-of-society collective. Who's to say that a person who thrills us by a gripping use of the human body in urgently telling a story has less societal worth than a guy who sells ads for millions of dollars subliminally convincing people to buy stuff they don't actually need?



To end with, two fun quotes by the lovable but sometimes exasperating curmudgeon, Mark Twain, on Art:

Twain described JMW Turner's Slavers Throwing Overboard as a "a tortoiseshell cat having a fit in a plate of tomatoes."



"It is a gratification to me to know that I am ignorant of art, and ignorant also of surgery. Because people who understand art find nothing in pictures but blemishes, and surgeons and anatomists see no beautiful women in all their lives, but only a ghastly stack of bones with Latin names to them, and a network of nerves and muscles and tissues."

Whadda you know?! Yer just a piahnist."

Winter 1994 in Boston. I'm sitting in a classroom at the New England Conservatory of Music. I've taken an elective called Microtonal Singing with the legendary Joe Maneri, a wonderful improvisor, as well as an incredibly fascinating person. Joe Maneri, a generously sized man, brings several sandwiches into the class room which he eats, one by one, throughout the course of the class. The classes always go as follows: Joe takes a bite of his sandwich, and sings a tone, his voice wavering with microtonal inflections influenced by the consistency of whatever sandwich filling he's grappling with at that moment. We sing after him. He then sings the tone a microinterval higher or lower, which we then try to emulate. Inevitably after an hour of these exercises, a singer crashes his forehead on his desk and moans « I can't take it anymore ».

I loved this class. Joe would often intersperse stories into the singing exercises, like when he played at a nursing home for a man who was doubled over and couldn't sit up straight anymore. Joe lay on the floor and played into the man's face, looking up into his eyes. Afterwards, a nurse came over to Joe and said that she wanted to make sure he knew that the man he had played for had played with Benny Goodman's Orchestra, and how touched the man was, that Joe Maneri had played « just for him ». One day Joe got off on a tangent about the music of Milton Babbitt, a composer I've never quite been able to warm to. We got into an argument about the disputed merits of Babbitt's music, and then came an outburst in Brooklynese- "Whadda you know?! Yer just a piahnist. You just spend yer whole day practicing yer Rackmaaahninoff ". Feeling challenged, I opened up my satchel and dumped the contents on the floor, in order to prove that there weren't any Rachmaninoff scores in there, and that there was actually a lot of contemporary music that might inform my opinion about a composer such as Milton Babbitt. After this display, he calmly said with a smile « I like that, I like how you threw your books all over the floor and stuff. »

A long preamble to a larger topic... « Whadda you know?! Yer just a piahnist. » I just started this blog today. This is my second post. I've always wanted to be a political blogger, and I love reading the New York Times online. Is a concert pianist in any way qualified to offer any information of worth on a blog about politics? Isn't everyone talking about politics these days? The fact that too many of us know who the designer of Sarah Palin's glasses is might indicate that too many of us are too deep into the fringe elements of the 2008 US election.

I'm desperately hoping for Barack Obama. I've lived outside of the US since the fall of 2000 (with the exception of late 2001 to 2002), and watched US politics from the outside, at times fanatically, with a sinking feeling of not being able to do anything at all to change the course of things aside from sending in my absentee ballot, which I wasn't 100% certain would be counted anyway.

I need America to be healthy again. I caught the Obama bug via YouTube early this year, watching his 2004 Democratic convention speech, his speech about Race in America, and countless spots on David Lettermann and Jay Leno. My husband and I have had countless conversations about the multitude of his merits... « how graceful are his gesticulations with his hands ! » I say. « He would make an excellent cellist » he says. (On Facebook it does say that the Bach Cello Suites rank highly in his musical favorites). Or « How intelligent he is » he says. « It's just hard to believe that an American politician can get away with talking like that! » I say (time will tell). We stood in the 200,000-something crowd when Obama spoke in Berlin, not very close, but close enough to enjoy the atmosphere. I had to leave shortly after he began (the speech started later than expected) because I had a dress rehearsal across town, and I cursed my profession vehemently that would tear me from that golden summer evening listening to Barack present his vision of European-American cooperation and partnership. Do I need to clarify my reasons for hoping that Barack Obama wins ? In this divided world, I have the feeling that anyone who stumbles on this blog and reads it (perhaps through an errant google-search for Rackmaaahninoff) will probably know the reasons why I want to vote for Obama, and will probably share my convictions. Finding people who don’t vehemently wish for Obama to be president is getting harder and harder. It may be nearly 50% of the US population, but perhaps only .000003% of the world population (not a scientific figure). I recently spoke with a Berliner who said that if Obama doesn’t win the US election, he can always come to Berlin and be mayor here, or even chancellor ! He will always be welcome here.

I will not use this blog to contribute to the choir from Hell (singing Orff's Carmina Burana, and Ligeti's Requiem simultaneously (although I love the Ligeti!)) of talking head politicos that are flooding the net with dizzyingly abstruse commentary. This will be my first and last political blog entry, promised. I will not write more about this subject, because I will be much too busy in the coming weeks reading other people's blogs, as well as my beloved twice-weekly Maureen Dowd in the New York Times. This one's hillarious.

I would like to end this entry with a guide to music mentioned in the previous paragraphs.

Ligeti's Lux aeterna (not the Requiem, but close)

Rostropovich playing the Prelude of the G-major Bach Cello Suite

Rachmaninoff's 3rd Concerto (Rachmaninoff, pianist)

Lagniappe by Milton Babbitt, Robert Taub, pianist

and last but not least, the Joe Maneri Quartet at Barbes Brooklyn