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Perhaps the most paradigmatic example of a critique of art based on
location was that of the twelfth-century Cistercian theologian, Bernard
of Clairvaux. He protested against the newly popular sculptural ornamentation
in the capitals of columns, like those lining the nave of churches such
as the Cathedral of Autun in southern France. The grotesque animals that
one can see there were, according to his argument, inconsistent with the
image one should have of God's work. Because the highest form of human
contemplation takes place in the church, only the highest form of representation
should be visible.
Why do the studious monks have to face such ridiculous
monstrosities? What is the point of this deformed beauty, this elegant
deformity? Those loutish apes? The savage lions? The monstrous centaurs?
The half men? The spotted tigers? You can see a head with many bodies,
or a body with many heads. Here we espy an animal with a serpent's tail,
there a fish with an animal's head. There we have a beast with a horse
in front and a shegoat behind; and here a horned animal followed with hind-quarters
like a horse. . . . In the name of God! If we are not ashamed at
its foolishness, why at least are we not angry at the expense?12
Bernard wanted to remind the monks that just because these images may be
in the physical space of a church, it doesn't mean that the church is their
real context. These grotesqueries belong to the demonic world outside the
boundaries of the church, and the only reason one can find them in churches
is because monks have lost the desire or perhaps the ability to maintain
a clear separation.
The importance Bernard gave to the equation of a physical and moral
boundary in critiquing art was also fundamental to the prosecution's case
against the Contemporary Arts Center; though the museum is not a place
for exalted moral contemplation, it can be viewed as a public space that
should be under the control of a higher moral authority. The museum was
a host body that had been contaminated by a disease. The lawsuit was simply
going to do what the museum should have done to itself. The Cincinnati
lawyers did not want to impose regulations on the museum, but claimed that
just as individuals under the guidance of religion suppress their baser
instincts, so too should society, and thus so too should the important
institutions, especially those with an educative mission. The prosecution
legitimated its call for self-discipline (or what someone else might call
censorship) by arguing that the museum has no right to act individualistically,
much less under the influence of a
"special interest group," but that it (like the bishop of the Cathedral
of Autun) has to answer to "community values." After all, it was a museum
in Cincinnati, not New York City. Left unstated but more than apparent
was that the term "community values" stood for conservative community
values. If Janet Kardon, who curated the show, was a censor in the liberal,
special interest cause, then what was wrong with the community wanting
to censor the show in the conservative cause? Defense attorney Marc Mezibov
was right to notice the drift of Prouty's argument and bring it to the
attention of the court.
Prouty: What came or did not come into the
local area was purely up to your [Mrs. Kardon's] discretion; is that
correct?
Mezibov: Objection. It is as if Mrs. Kardon
was the censor.
The Court: Sustained.
Prouty: Does the director or curator have
discretion as to what to bring or not bring into a particular area? . .
. What is more important, the art or the values of the community?13
Some would argue that far from being religious fanaticism, this call for
self-control is essential to the functioning of democracy. Certainly John
Dewey, the great philosopher and pedagogue, linked ethical actions and
moral responsibility to the growth of American democracy. In this context,
the museum should seek to make a positive contribution to society through
self-policing. We have become, whatever our political persuasion, quite
used to this in the United States, so much so that American visitors to
Denmark are shocked to discover that the Museum of Erotic Art not only
allows children in its doors, but gives special tours to high school students.
In the United States, visual propriety and moral propriety are thought
to be one and the same, especially when they are linked to ideas of social
orderliness. From this perspective, the demands by the Cincinnati moralists
were not out of keeping with our national tradition. And not too long ago,
when we lived in a simpler age perhaps, many museum professionals would
have agreed that the role of the museum was to uphold moral goals. Ananda
K. Coomaraswawy, from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, explained in a 1941
article entitled "Why Exhibit Works of Art?" that the museum "has to tell
them [the public] the painful truth, that most of these works of art are
about God, which we never mention in polite society. . . . If we offer
an education [in the museum] this will be an education in philosophy, i.e.
an ontology and theology and the map of life, and a wisdom to be applied
to everyday matters."14
Such ideals would be anachronistic today, but not for the conservative
right, which felt that the Contemporary Arts Center had gone public in
the bad sense—namely, that it was a place where good and evil were allowed
to mix indiscriminately. Mark Twain parodied just this interpretation of
the museum in his wonderful description of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence;
it was a place to see not high art but erotic nudity. This was the
flip side of Bernard's experiences in the church, for whereas the church
architects used the sanctity of the church to protect and disguise the
enemy, at the Uffizi the curators shamelessly exhibited works that would
have been better suited, so Twain comments, to a public bath house. If
the Cathedral of Autun was the crack that let in moral confusions, the
Uffizi was the floodgate.
You enter [the Uffizi in Florence]. . . and there you
may look your fill upon the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture
the world possesses—Titian's Venus . . . How should I describe her—just
to see what a holy indignation I could stir up on the world, yet the world
is willing to let its sons and its daughters and itself look at Titian's
beast, but won't stand a description of it in words . . . Without any question
it was painting for a bagno [public bath house] and it was probably
refused because it was a trifle too strong. In truth, it is a trifle too
strong for any place but a public art gallery.15
Just as Twain felt that the Uffizi was contributing to moral decline by
not adequately scrutinizing the content of the pictures, the prosecution
lawyers felt that the Contemporary Arts Center falsely contextualized Mapplethorpe's
photographs as "works of art" when they clearly were not. Whatever their
status was inside of the museum, they were not art on the outside
where, like Titian's Venus, they were "unspeakable" in their obscenity.
It would be clear to the jury, Prouty hoped, that Mapplethorpe's photographs
were more appropriate for the walls of a bath house (on Gay Street in New
York City, that is) than for the walls of a museum in Cincinnati. To prove
this, the prosecution brought in as "expert witnesses" members of the Cincinnati
Vice Squad. After all, they knew what life on the dark side really was.
Don Ruberg (Police Officer):It
is a picture of an individual, . . . bent over with what appears to be
a bullwhip stuck in his anal area.
Prouty:Have you ever heard of fisting?
Ruberg:It is a practice within the gay community
where a fist is inserted . . .
Prouty:What is the purpose of this activity?
Sirkin:Objection!Unless he is qualified as an expert
. . . (laughter in the courtroom)16
To fight these challenges, the defense lawyers relied heavily on the testimony
of the museum directors. It was the success of these directors in establishing
their arguments that led to the speedy conclusion of the trial and the
acquittal of Dennis Barrie. Martin Friedman (Director of the Walker Art
Center, Minneapolis), Evan Hopkins Turner (Director of the Cleveland Museum
of Art), John Walsh (director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu), and
others persuasively argued that the photographs could not be discussed
out of the context of an exhibition that was conceived as a retrospective
of the artist's life work. They showed how curatorial decisions were made
according to aesthetic and museum-professional reasons, which were tied
neither to personal notions of obscenity nor to community politics. They
discussed the role of the museum as an educative institution (as opposed
to an island of permissiveness à la the Uffizi), and explained that
the museum was not outside the boundaries of moral propriety and thus not
a conspirator in social demise (à la the Cathedral of Autun). The
museum directors also demonstrated that what could be seen in the negative
as permissiveness should be seen in the positive as tolerance. Tolerance
is a difficult issue to bring up in a legal proceeding, as it is not a
legal matter. Unlike freedom of speech, it is not protected or defined
by the Constitution, as it is assumed to be a matter of local custom. Nonetheless,
museums have played an important role in expanding our notions of tolerance.
We no longer spit at Expressionist paintings, and most of us think that
Picasso was a good artist and are no longer shocked by his own graphic
use of obscenities. Martin Friedman made just this point in his testimony
before the court.
[Mapplethorpe's work] is an art that challenges existing
norms. But we are used to that in the history of art. We're used to this
in the work of Picasso, who, virtually canonized at this point, created
images that absolutely affronted not just the public, but the art world,
by their distortions and aggressiveness. The same could be said for the
work of Goya, images of decapitation and mutilation, rape, right down the
line.17
By bringing the museum directors to the stand, the defense attorneys were
attempting to counteract the prosecution's attempt to interpret the works
in isolation, where, once stripped of their protection, they would be seen
for what they truly were. Danto, in
his ringing condemnation of the museum directors, failed not only to properly
explain the significance of the directors' testimony—which was to keep
the photographs conceptually in the museum—but failed to notice the paradox
in his own argument. If the museum directors were so terribly alienated
from art, why was it that his own experience of Mapplethorpe took place
in a museum? Danto made a point of describing his admiration of Mapplethorpe's
work, not as something he would put in his own house, or as works that
he had seen in the artist's studio, but as works that he had seen and admired
on the "brilliantly installed" white walls of the gallery space. Danto,
who wanted to have a museum—but without museum directors—saw its space
as paradigmatic of democracy, for it was rooted in the principle of enlightened,
respectful behavior.
One worked one's way past portraits, nudes, and still
lifes, some in shaped and classy frames, until one comes to a room, diagonally
across from the threshold, of difficult images. . . . It was brilliantly
installed. . . There was an absolutely appropriate reverential silence.
There were no snorts of outrage, no stifled giggles—simply murmurs. It
is a matter of some sadness to me that no one, ever again, will be able
to see Mapplethorpe's work in that way.18
[my emphasis]
The museum, of course, likes to think of itself very much in terms of its
own transparency. We are told, in fact, that art needs the museum,
not only to protect it from the outside world, but also in order for us
to better understand it; criticism, if it is to be conducted in a proper
educative manner, must separate the artwork from messy contingencies. Ervin
Panofsky, in his Meaning in the Visual Arts (1955), explained that
"It is possible to experience every object, naturally or manmade, aesthetically.
We do this, to express it as simply as possible, when we just look at it
(or listen to it) without relating it, intellectually or emotionally, to
anything outside of itself."19
And to do this, we need the museum. But the museum experience is never
neutral, and the prosecution's argument was built on this fact. In order
to "just look at it," Prouty argued, we have to take the works away
from the museum and establish a truly neutral context. But if Danto
recognized this maneuver on the part of the prosecution, he neglected to
notice that modern art has long accepted the artifice of the museum space
and taken it into consideration. We need think only of Duchamp's urinal,
a work that came to exemplify the self-consciousness of art that becomes
art only once it is installed on a gallery wall, as opposed to the bathroom
floor. In the case of Mapplethorpe, his studio photography both elicits
and reflects—all too uncomfortably for
many—the clean, studiolike environment of the museum space. His photographs
are not action shots taken outdoors from a moving car, but indoor shots
under highly controlled conditions that, when placed in a museum that itself
demands a highly controlled form of isolated viewing, confronts the museumgoer
not only with the subject matter of the photographs, but with an experience
of the museum as a site where one can be stripped bare and put on display,
like the models in the photographs. The museum in this sense was not a
passive space, but actively assisted in determining what constituted "art."
It did not remove context so as to provide a space for seeing art
in politically correct isolation, but to the contrary, provided a
context in which to see works in the problematic of that isolation.20  |
