[pdiddy]

I would find this article hilarious if I weren't horrified that people may take it seriously.

In the 50s, people could identify Buckminster Fuller, Saul Bellow, or Jackson Pollock. Many educated people now could identify Frank Gehry, Toni Morrison, or Jeff Koons. But having a cadre of public artists who "shape in meaningful ways our image of ourselves or define our collective values" is a very narrow way framing the issue and has not been the trajectory of art for decades, if ever.

Look at that reception to Marina Abramović's The Artist is Present. People stood in line for hours. I saw a segment about it on CBS Sunday Friggin' Morning. The public is engaged with art, it's just not the art that the writer wants them to be engaged with.

[_wp3r]

Social and political commentary by its nature, will alienate a large portion of its consumers. The strange morphing of the definition of Art into only High Art, I think leads to the opinion of the author, and the disproportionate amount of High Art that is exclusively commentary leads to an obvious disengagement by big chunks of the population.

Through out history the majority of artist have been craftsman that create for the sake a client, state, or church. Sometime in the last couple centuries working artist have become taboo, and that meaningful creation for a purpose other than that of the "pure" artistic value has been pushed out of High Art.

The fact that art the Author classifies as art, is not modern media form(TV, CINEMA, DIGITAL) seems to ensure that the prophesy should be self fulfilling.

I do not know of any contemporary ceiling painters.

[ruraljuror]

I wrote the original comment (but logged into the wrong account, woops).

You make a good point about commentary, and it seems like the NEA Four would like to cast art specifically in that light, but of course any narrow pigeonholing of art is bound to fail.

I would quibble with your statement that artist would create art for the sake of the client, state, or church. Certainly they were patronized but that influence while significant doesn't tell the whole story. The contemporary concept of the working artist and the relationship to the public was revolutionized by Warhol. This article only mentions him twice in passing, so again I don't really take it that seriously.

I would suggest Sol Lewitt as a ceiling painter, but not sure where that rabbit hole would take us.

[VLM]

"it's just not the art that the writer wants them to be engaged with."

Its a classic holiness spiral. How do you denigrate the average american slightly more than the last guy without offending, or being ignored, by the average american? Its the confusion of art with political propaganda.