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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (259)	1/10/2001 10:59:39 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

You have only the rights government gives you, based on what your society will tolerate, and what it considers important. "Further, I believe that once the government gives an artist money, I have the right to say what that artist can express. After all, I paid for it. And if the government is using my money to fund artists, dammit, I want some paintings of dogs playing poker. For the moment, let's assume that you don't like paintings of dogs playing poker, if the NEA decides to offer me a grant to paint dogs playing poker, are you going to be supportive? (I do paint and I even had one show where I sold a couple of paintings). " This is just silly. No government on earth gives you, as an individual, the right to pick and choose what it, the government, spends your money on, or to impose conditions on what the government does with your money once it becomes the government's money. There are conditions on NEA grants- they probably wouldn't meet with your expectations- but tough luck. Nor could the government do this unwieldy ballet, of letting people impose their version of their "rights" to control the money they paid the government, in any country bigger than, perhaps, Monaco. So if government decides to support art it supports it in the bureaucratic way governments do things. And since I like art and artists- even good grant writing artists (a lot more than most other things my tax money gets spent on) I like that the government does this. Do I have a "right" to have the government spend my money or arts and artists? No. And you don't have any rights about how the government spends yours. Thems the breaks.

To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (259)	1/10/2001 11:06:28 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

My principal complaint about government subsidies for the arts is that I don't think they produce very good art. It's pretty clear that while we have more artists than ever before, we have less and less notable art. (A matter of taste, possibly, but who do we put up against a Carravaggio or a Rembrandt?) Why is this? My own explanation, probably no better than anybody else's: In the old days, if you wanted to be a painter, you apprenticed yourself to a master. You ground his pigments, swept his floor, endured his moods. You suffered. You mastered your craft. And if you weren't truly driven or truly committed, you quit. Artists in other media faced similar obstacles. When I look at today's art I just don't see that suffering, that mastery, or the maturity and depth that comes from overcoming great obstacles. I don't think those are things that government money can produce.

To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (259)	1/11/2001 5:43:13 AM
From: GROUND ZERO™	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

I would have to agree with Rogers' post about money and art... once an artist is told what to express, the product is no longer fine art but commercial art..... genuine artistic expression can't have any restrictions whatsoever, or it's simply not genuine..... If I gave you $250,000.00 to pursue your artistic expression and produce what comes from within you, but I also told you that I don't want you to paint any more dogs playing poker or any animal pictures, would you feel free to pursue your artistic goals? I think perhaps not... I know I wouldn't be able to express myself comfortably if there were such external constraints on my work..... GZ