ghijkmnop wrote:Personally I think Grandma Moses' paintings are both crappy AND a reminder of a horrible period of American history, but if somebody decided that they need to be burned, I would be quite against that as well. I'm really not a fan of mob rule.
As an artist, I completely disagree with the destruction of art--and regardless of the message it sends, this is art. If you disagree, you must at least concede that it's master craftsmanship.
Irishjava wrote:I grew up near Stone Mountain and have been back as an adult, and something not many people outside the state remember is that it's not JUST the monument sitting there all innocently. There's a lot of stuff there that glorifies the Confederacy in the surrounding park at large: battle flags, several plantations with actors in period costumes, a laser light show that makes the Civil War look like a tragic-but-heroic struggle between brothers, etc. It's a big racist theme park, basically.
If the relief stays up, the literal amusement park surrounding it needs to fucking go and be replaced with something to better re-frame it. You wouldn't ride a roller coaster and eat funnel cake at Auschwitz, you probably shouldn't be able to do that in the shadow of one of the biggest celebrations of racial oppression in the US.
ghijkmnop wrote:cmsellers wrote:ghijkmnop wrote:How did you feel when the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan? Should we destroy much of Helmut Newton's work because of its oppressive depiction of women? Should we ban Orson Scott Card's writing because he's a homophobe? The list is endless on this slippery slope, and I'm sure most of it is in that "separate the art from the artist" thread.
I directly addressed the Bamyan Buddhas, noting that while I am sure the Taliban saw them as offensive as I see the Stone Mountain carving, there is clearly no moral comparison, plus those statues were far older.
The other stuff is irrelevant. As I noted, I don't usually favor destroying Confederate monuments, even though I don't think most of them are worth displaying in museums either. But this is one I would display in a museum, yet the point here is what to do with a monument that cannot be moved, it is also a monument which deliberately defaced a natural feature of outstanding beauty as a symbol of white supremacy.
Would you argue that every building which has art painted on the side or was heralded as a cutting edge structure in its day needs to be preserved? If you agree, how do you expect cities to ever grow? If not, then you would agree that not all art needs to preserved.
Would you argue that graffiti which can qualify as "art" should never be removed? Because that's what this feels like to me. Vandalism of an already famous landmark in order to promote white supremacy. True, the Daughters of the Confederacy and then the State of Georgia owned the land as they built it, but in graffiti, the thrill of violation is part of the point, as is sending a message in a public space. Similarly, the relief on Stone Mountain was built big in a public space as a "fuck you" to the black population of Georgia, the federal government, and likely the relatively progressive City of Atlanta.
Fine. Blow it up. Regardless of your reasons and righteous indignation, you'll be no better than the conservative assholes who tried to destroy Mapplethorpe's and Serrano's deliberately offensive publicly funded art--or worse, constantly try to defund the NEA, NPR, and PBS. In your haste to destroy these symbols of hate, you run the risk of becoming what you despise.
I'm out.
ghijkmnop wrote:Firstly, I will admit that I was not addressing your post-- I was knee-jerk addressing the subject line. Along that same line, I have to admit that I often have to skim through posts here, because they are too long to hold my attention (you may notice that my posts tend to be less than 200 words). Additionally, you're not the only one I'm speaking to here-- and some of my responses were directed at posts referring to cherry-picked portions of what I said.
ghijkmnop wrote:I have clarified my position--I don't like the destruction of art for the sole purpose of it being offensive, because it is a massive slippery slope. I have stated my opinion on graffiti: if it is on private property, it is vandalism, and vandalism trumps art. I will admit that my position on that has changed dramatically since I got my MFA in 1986, but actually paying for things and valuing them does that to people-- so I guess that we agree on the immovable art point.
ghijkmnop wrote:Counter-question: If I find the cop-killing hip-hop or the cookie-monster-murder-everyone metal coming out of my neighbor's house an offensive assault on my ears, am I justified in gathering like-minded people together to destroy the neighbor's stereo, or should I just move to someplace where I don't have neighbors?
ghijkmnop wrote:Tesseracts wrote:ghijkmnop wrote:Firstly, I will admit that I was not addressing your post-- I was knee-jerk addressing the subject line. Along that same line, I have to admit that I often have to skim through posts here, because they are too long to hold my attention (you may notice that my posts tend to be less than 200 words). Additionally, you're not the only one I'm speaking to here-- and some of my responses were directed at posts referring to cherry-picked portions of what I said.
I often skim posts myself out of impatience, but I think it's best to make an effort to read the posts before you get involved in a debate. It takes time but it's the only way we can have an honest debate.
Given that I don't believe honest debate has existed here since before the election, I agree that I should have just stayed out.
ghijkmnop wrote:Counter-question: If I find the cop-killing hip-hop or the cookie-monster-murder-everyone metal coming out of my neighbor's house an offensive assault on my ears, am I justified in gathering like-minded people together to destroy the neighbor's stereo, or should I just move to someplace where I don't have neighbors?
A Combustible Lemon wrote:Death is an archaic concept for simpleminded commonfolk, not Victorian scientist whales.
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