When I was growing up in Hartford, Connecticut, the state commissioned a creative artist for $100,000 to create a rock sculpture near the capitol building. Transporting 28 ordinary boulders, the contractor arranged them in a 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 pattern.
When people saw the creation, they were aghast. The ‘artist’ had been paid a small fortune to create a work of lasting beauty for the city and the state. Instead, he offered something that most people saw as no more imaginative than what a kindergarten student might do with a set of pebbles.
Money Out the Window
For many weeks there were scathing newspaper editorials about how taxpayers’ money had been misspent. People visited the rock garden for curiosity’s sake, but no one lingered. Having to live with their purchase, the city counsel held pat on their position. The garden is still there today, rarely visited, hardly noticed.
I shudder to think what would happen in today’s “enlightened times.” Someone would come along and say that this artist was expressing spatial relationships in a bold and clever way. Someone else would ask who we were to comment on his work. Groups would protest if anyone questioned the display’s status as art.
Organizations such as the ACLU would bring a major law suit if the “artist” happened to be a member of any identifiable minority group – in other words anyone other than a Christian or Jew. They would cite first amendment rights and seek to quell any criticism immediately.
Everything is Art?
Flash forward 40 years and yes, Virginia, we’ve reached the point where everything passes for art: from homophobic, misogynist, racist ‘rap music’ to carefully arranged feces, with little effective discourse occurs as to what, indeed, makes for art and art’s creation.
The political correctness police can’t fathom the thought of telling someone that he or she has done poorly or squandered public funds, that the creation lacks artistic merit, or that the general public feels offended, unless, of course, the art was inspired by Christianity or Judaism.
We find ourselves in a sad and sorry state, but, as with most other aspects of society, we haven’t even begun to approach the low point.
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