For my experience this quarter, I attended a lecture given by Amanda Dalla Villa Adams on Japanese aesthetics. There was a lot less art in this lecture than I thought, but I still thought it was interesting. I had never considered another philosophy to beauty. The idea of wabi, simple/unpretentious, imperfect/irregular, and austere/stark art paired with sabi, or lonely beauty, isn't going to be making an appearance in my work, but it's definitely a nice new perspective to consider. I think I'm too accustomed to western beauty standards to try something that out there. I think it's interesting how different philosophical understandings of beauty originate out of different historical origins, and it'll be a factor I'll consider in studying different art movements.
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There is not much to be said. I worked on this project, and it's terrible. I will need a consultation Monday. This is not the move, chief. I started outlining the face; terrible.
American society has long been deeply ambivalent about what constitutes as art, and government intervention in regulating this type of speech. Most recently, this can be seen in the arguments in Masterpiece, a recent SCOTUS case where one of the central tenets of debate was whether or not a wedding cake decorator created "art", and if that art can be denied to gay couples. While this specific case was decided extremely narrowly, to avoid answering this question, a lot of other SCOTUS decisions reveal contradictory decisions. For example, Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans make it seem like the government DOES have a right to free speech, and can coerce speech it doesn't like from being spread (specifically, Texas doesn't need to fund confederate license plates), while US v. American Library Association points in the opposite direction; the government has no right to free speech, and books can't be banned just because it's obscene. This is all to say, provocative and controversial art is one of the hardest tests to our commitment to free speech. I believe in a free society, every individual has the right to decide what art they want to consume (or create), and by allowing the government to censor art it doesn't like is a slippery slope to an authoritarian government. Using this logic, defunding art the government doesn't like is a form of censorship, even if it's not a direct black bar over a piece of work. I believe it would be most effective to use the ruling in Miller v. California as a basis as to what the government is allowed to regulate, which is when works are patently offensive and lack any artistic value. But who's to say what has artistic value? This test is broad and extremely to raise a challenge for because it is extremely difficult to prove something doesn't have artistic value for a reason, it's to ensure the health of our democracy. That's a lot of words (and governerd) to say, unequivocally, Giuliani's and Republican legislator's uncomfort does not outweigh the health of our democracy. To charge a museum director a crime for including Mapplethorpe's art is a remnant of our nation's Puritan heritage, as well as being extremely dangerous. Government funding to all art, regardless of its content, is essential. This means in Walker Texas should allow Confederate nameplates; this means in Masterpiece the cake shop owner should be allowed to deny his wedding cakes to gay couples. To commit to freedom of expression means to commit to expression we don't like. By allowing the last two examples have their way, we are protecting the art that we now, with hindsight, look to with admiration, whether this be Mapplethorpe's photographs or Sensation. |
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March 2019
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