Month: January 2024

I am not stupid enough to wade into the century’s long debate looking to answer the question, “What is Art?”. Philosophers and critics that have tried to address this are legion. Everyone from Emmanual Kant and Friederich Nietzsche through to post-modernist Jacques Derrida and the great 21^st century sage Homer Simpson (“That’s the great thing about art, everyone can have their opinion about why it sucks”) have tried to capture the essence of art. Why we create it. Why we view it.

Even if I wanted to undertake something so futile, I am the wrong person to do so. My knowledge of art is the proverbial mile wide and inch deep. Like a precocious 9^th grader, I can tell a Van Gogh from a Rembrandt and can probably bloviate as well as the next fellow as to the meaning of Dali’s melting watch. But the rush of concepts flowing above my head anytime I go into an art museum would be strong enough to knock Frida Kahlo over.

For all of that, I wonder why the paintings and sculptures I see are there and others are not. The people who make these choices certainly have criteria, but how much of it is based on reputation? In his novel Ferdydurke, Witold Gombrowicz asks, “[Are] we merely paying official homage…? Mankind…has need of myths; and it picks one out or the other of its numerous creative artists…and lo and behold! It elevates him above his fellows…. [I]f we set about exalting some other creative artist…I am sure we could make a similarly great genius out of him”.  

This question colors my own reaction to a “masterpiece”. Am I in awe of the Mona Lisa because it captures something enigmatic in humanity, or because it is cordoned off in the Louvre? Is Picasso’s Guernica really a powerful statement about the inhumanity of modern warfare, or have I just been conditioned to view it like that?

And yet, I can’t deny my response to certain artists. During a recent visit to the Barnes, I found myself continually being drawn to paintings by Charles Demuth and Jules Pascin. I couldn’t have identified them before that day. Still, it was their paintings that caught and held my attention. Was it just my mood? Was it their skill? I really cannot say.

A similar thing happened at a recent photography exhibit at the Soho Photo Gallery, where my friend Garen DiBartolomeo had a piece displayed. There were about 100 photos, and all were of great quality. Yet some really jumped out at me, while others left me cold. Was my reaction indicative of anything other than my personal preferences? Would it have been different if one of the photos was an Adams?

This is all a long way of getting to a concept I recently encountered in “At the Existentialist Café” by Sarah Bakewell. This book is “Philosophy Lite” (I hope I don’t get sued by Miller), which is my speed. According to Bakewell, Martin Heidegger (both impossible to read and an unrepentant Nazi) joined the long list addressing the nature of art. Per Heidegger, poets and artists let things come out and show themselves, which he termed Unverborgenheit (you gotta love the German language) or unconcealment (not much better in English).

Heidegger went so far as to say that enabling things to unhide themselves is a distinctively human contribution. Being somewhat poetic himself, Heidegger compared human activity, and especially art, to creating a clearing in a forest glade into which a deer can step forward to be seen. “We help things to emerge into the light by being conscious of them … which means we pay respectful attention and allow them to show themselves as they are rather than bending them to our will.” (You can tell that this is a quote from Bakewell, not Heidegger, because it’s comprehensible).

I find this a helpful way to think about the impact of art. Is the artist depicting something in a way that forces me, as viewer, to engage with whatever is represented? The most brilliant, or notorious, example, depending on how you look at it, is Duchamp’s “Fountain”, a urinal, first displayed in 1917. Duchamp did not provide any explanation as to his intent. Many rejected it out of hand as having nothing to do with art, while others developed elaborate theories about the “sculpture’s” meaning. Regardless, in 2004 British art world professionals anointed “Fountain” as the most influential artwork of the 20^th Century.

 Third on the list was Andy Warhol’s “Marilyn Diptych”. It’s hard not to look at Warhol’s silk screens, Brillo boxes and soup cans and wonder whether he was just putting us on, giggling at our naivete. Yet, if you go to see them at the wonderful Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, it’s impossible not to be struck by the need to re-engage with these recognizable images. Like Duchamp, Warhol leaves the interpretation to the viewer, but allows these familiar icons to emerge in such a way that they cannot be easily dismissed.

Abstract art stretches this concept, often to its breaking point. I like many abstract pieces, but if they are letting something show itself, I generally miss it. Yet, with a little explanation you can usually discover the intent of the artist, or how that intent has been interpreted, and find a deeper connection than more representational art. Still, my guess is that it is this type of art more than any other that Homer was referencing.

The other truth about art is that it is impossible to talk about it without sounding like a pretentious jerk. Reading what I wrote above, I cringe, not because I think it’s silly, but because it seems so snooty. I am not sure why this is. I’ve written plenty of gibberish over the last few years and rarely blanched. Yet, it’s all I can do not to delete this entry.

But I will let it stand for what it is. A reaction to something I read about a topic that I find interesting. Nothing deep. Nothing to change how people view art. But, hopefully, at least something I can use next time I stand before a Modigliani or Basquiat (shoot, there I go again). Really, there is not much more I can ask.

I had an illuminating travel experience recently. I had been driving all day. I dropped my niece off in Amherst, then my son and his girlfriend in Boston and was heading back toward Philadelphia. It was an ugly night, with light rain falling, and I was getting tired. Stopping goes against every grain in my nature, but even I realized how ridiculous carrying on would be.

Unfortunately, the highway I was on was not helpful. Most of the major thoroughfares I’ve driven identify hotels and food before each exit, so you know whether it makes sense to get off. This one did not. The exits had no indication what lay off the highway. Would you get onto another highway? Would it put you in the middle of nowhere? There was no way to tell, and that indecision fed my inclination to keep going as long as I could.

I should have pulled off into a rest area and searched out hotels nearby, or simply tried an exit that looked somewhat promising, even if I couldn’t be sure what I’d find. Instead, I squinted into the gloom at each egress, looking for some sign of respite. Inevitably, when I did see something, it was already too late.

Finally, I knew I could go no more. I spied a less than promising group of hotels right off an exit and decided enough was enough. These were not chain hotels, but independent operations. Think updated versions of the Bates Motel without the creepy proprietor, or at least without one I could see. I decided to take my chances.

The “lobby” featured a young man snoozing behind a thick slab of plexiglass, like something out of a bad gangster on the run movie. Yet, I didn’t see any untoward characters lurking about, or drug deals being transacted, so I decided to take my chances. Frankly, I was so beat, I didn’t have much choice.

My hackles went up a bit when the clerk sent me to the back of the hotel, even though there were seemingly plenty of rooms right out front. My biggest shock, however, was when I opened the door to my room and was hit with the stale smell of cigarette smoke. It had been so long since I had been in a hotel that even allowed smoking, it never even occurred to me to ask for a non-smoking room.

I had three options. First, I could go back to the lobby, get a refund and hit the road again, but I just didn’t have the energy. I could go to the lobby and see if they had non-smoking rooms, but by this time I had sized up the hotel enough to realize that was a waste of time. Or I could turn up the blower, try to clear the air as much as possible, and make the best of it.

Choosing option three was not pure laziness. After all, even though I had never smoked (except for a brief fling when I first got to college) I had been surrounded by smoke for the first 30 years of my life. I had a sister that smoked. I had roommates that smoked. How bad could one night be?

In fact, it wasn’t that bad. The blowing air never removed the smell of smoke, but it dissipated it at least somewhat. I slept soundly enough and didn’t wake up hacking. I knew that I would have to wash my clothes when I got home, but that was a lot better than peering through the rain on the highway.

This episode made me realize that the absence of indoor cigarette smoke is one of the biggest changes to my personal environment over my lifetime. I look back on those first 30 years and realize not only how prevalent tobacco smoke was, but how natural it seemed. It was only after it was gone that I realized how obnoxious the smoke had been. At the time, it was just the way it was.

I am sure anyone from my generation has memories of eating at a restaurant and having the people at the next table over light up for their after-dinner smoke just as your entrée arrived. Or requesting a non-smoking seat on a flight, only to find yourself in the first row before the smoking section. And forget about bars. Every saloon had an ever-present haze floating above the festivities.

The reality is that I only saw the tail end of the hey-day of smoking. Watch any television shows from the late 1050’s and early 1960’s and you’ll see all the characters light up sooner or later. Whether it be Perry Mason from my favorite middle of the night can’t sleep entertainment, or Andy Griffith. They all smoked. Heck, even Lucy and Desi were cigarette spokespersons.

And while I hate to admit it, smoking was cool. Tough guys like Humprhrey Bogart, and their foils, like Lauren Bacall, constantly smoked, and looked great doing so. The Marlboro Man silhouetted against a western sky was not only an unforgettable image, it was an icon of American manhood. It bespoke independence, strength, fortitude. (I think many American men still see themselves that way, as silly as that seems).

The backlash had begun before I became of age. Warning labels on cigarette packs were mandated by 1965. Congress banned tobacco ads on TV and radio in 1970. Throughout the 1970’s and 80’s cities and states implemented limited bans on smoking in certain public places, such as government buildings and healthcare facilities. The movement picked up throughout the 1980’s, with a total ban on smoking indoors coming in most places by the early 2000’s.

While I welcomed the ban when it occurred, I didn’t see it as a big deal. After all, I had lived ensconced in secondhand smoke my entire adult life. Even for me, it was hard to imagine a smokeless bar.

It was surprising how quickly after the ban indoor smoke became intolerable. In no time at all, the mere whiff of tobacco would set off internal alarms. Any prolonged exposure was unthinkable. Once I was no longer surrounded by smoke it became a bogeyman to be avoided at all costs.  

Being thrown once again into an atmosphere where tobacco smoke lingered brought back these memories. An assumed norm had been violated. But it was an assumed norm that hadn’t always been the norm. So, next time I go into my favorite bar I’m going to lean back and take a deep breath (ok, not too deep) and exclaim Fresh Air! Fresh Air! Fresh Air!

*Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, p.635, Modern Library