Reform art management in the USA

[Rebecca Willoughby]

What a great discussion!

Recently I received an invitation to a "Showing" of four artists from various parts of the south. It was at a regional art center and was funded by state art grant money. I found myself going from work to work and wondering how this work merited art grants when so many southern artists and Louisiana artists are being under served.

There was a prom dress from 1969 along with the picture taken prom night and an essay on the love and loss of the artist. Another featured work was a piece of 2x4 wood with holes drilled into it and five Barbie dolls and one Ken doll, mutilated in some form or the other, stuck into the holes. I could go on and on but I think you get the point. My husband walked around with me and after the second gallery representative approached us to see if we needed help "explaining" a piece he was ready to leave. When we were at the Biltmore in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago, we were once again looking at artwork and he looked at me and said, "See, I know this is good art and no one had to explain it to me!" I thought to myself that is so very true. The general public is just tired of funding art that has to be explained.

I spent seven years as an art major at the university level. I know what type of art is emphasized. Realism, portrait or otherwise, was ridiculed and graded poorly. That is just the way it was and as far as I can tell, still is.

There I go rambling again!
Rebecca

[SB Wang]

Money and sex, are major motif for many, their morale is discarded. The same trend contaminated today's art, treasure of super intelligence, coexists with garbage.

Aesthetic education is one of four basic education after moral, intelligent and physical education. Religion and art play important role for a healthy society. We may not like a boss to dictate, but we need a Ministry of Culture to serve.

We expect an appearance of a great person in America who leads a new era of culture and art. Catherine the Great is an example.

(In a common Chinese: wuo de hua wan le---my speach is over)

[SB Wang]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_the_Great

"Catherine subscribed to the Enlightenment and considered herself a "philosopher on the throne". She showed great awareness of her image abroad, and ever desired that Europe should perceive her as a civilized and enlightened monarch, despite the fact that in Russia she often played the part of the tyrant. Even as she proclaimed her love for the ideals of liberty and freedom, she did more to tie the Russian Serf to his land and his lord than any sovereign since Boris Godunov.

Catherine had a reputation as a patron of the arts, literature and education. The Hermitage Museum, which now occupies the whole of the Winter Palace, began as Catherine's personal collection. At the instigation of her factotum, Ivan Betskoi, she wrote a manual for the education of young children, drawing from the ideas of John Locke, and founded the famous Smolny Institute for noble young ladies. This school would become one of the best of its kind in Europe, and even went so far as to admit young girls born to wealthy merchants alongside the daughters of the nobility. She wrote comedies, fiction and memoirs, while cultivating Voltaire, Diderot and D'Alembert

[Anthony Emmolo]

At first read, Sharon's thoughts seemed a bit strong for me, but then I realised as a moderator, she's got a different responsibility than many of us do. Living here in China, I see the difference between American, and values, and those of China and the old Soviet Union. When I was a young child, and even in high school, art class was get out the crayons, and draw your favorite pop star. Mine were The Beatles and Jim Morrison. Here in China, I see ten year old kids learning to draw sitting in front of plaster busts of Voltaire, and the host of his buddies that we would only see in quality academies in the USA.

I am now studying with these great busts, regretting that my parent didn't have enough interest in the arts when I was a child to put me in such a rich atmosphere. Then again, while all of my friends were watching the Flintsones, would I have wanted to study seriously? NO!

20/20 hindsight can be painful.

Anthony

[Michele Rushworth]

When I was a young child, and even in high school, art class was get out the crayons, and draw your favorite pop star. Mine were The Beatles and Jim Morrison. Here in China, I see ten year old kids learning to draw sitting in front of plaster busts of Voltaire, and the host of his buddies that we would only see in quality academies in the USA.

I think we're seeing where the future of portraiture and representational painting will be centered.

[SB Wang]

The lesson is not in setting a "Homeland Security" Dept., but that the proper person is not in the position: like Mao who was deprived his power until the Red Army's fate was in "critical condition".