Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/09/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 05:41 PM 9/29/97 -0700, you wrote: >Gotta start somewhere, Eric. Because their spending is, in your eyes, >less offensive than other government agencies, is not reason to curtail >their largess? Sorry, but "Piss Christ" and a great deal of the rest of >his works are trash, pure and simple. And before you go accusing me of >being attached to the religious right, consider that I am agnostic. If >art, let alone, fine art, can't be defined any better, damned if I want >the tax coffers to be shelling out to his definition of art. Art must >survive on its own or perish. The fact that most of the European >countries subsidize their "art" doesn't make it right and just. You are correct, for the most part. But the NEA spends less than 1 per cent of its budget on such trash. It spends a LOT of it's money on educational projects in schools, much in inner cities. They help theater groups, and art teachers teach kids what art is about, and how it relates to life. And it supports many more good artists (or at least non-controversial artists). And Piss Christ was not directly supported, but it was a gallery that had received grants from the NEA, and not for that particular exhibit. It's kind of like saying Gordon Parks should not address a group of students at Benedictine College (Catholic) in Atchison, Kansas because he supports the United way, and one of the agencies that the United Way supports planned parenthood, which sometimes does abortion referrals. (Yep, it really happened!) >Correct, but those unconsensusable [sic] discussions are ON TOPIC! You are correct. >because the subscribers here are deeper thinking and more sensitive >photographers than elsewhere. Less discliplined, that's all. This >list is already "loose as a goose". I'd like to see it keep from >becoming any more so. Andrew Davidhazy's Photoforum is a list that >solicits such dialog. Use it! Shouldn't it be defined by its users, to some degree? I guess it's easy to over do it, so you're probably right. >So Mapplethorpe qualifies, eh? Some of his stuff does, yes. Like his flowers. Other of his stuff belongs in adult bookstores. There's worse than his out there. Larry Clark's teenage lust comes to mind. ============= Eric Welch St. Joseph, MO Borger King. Have it our way. Your way is irrelevant.