Responding to the critic's critics

Hi Bloglodytes,

I have gone through and read the comments from my first three posts. Lisa of New York left comments for me for both "Don't believe this post" and "The difference between ambling and sauntering." Read her comments yourselves, but apropos of the journalistic-ethics post, Lisa opines that I should not be permitted to edit my posts after initial publication, and she invites other readers to pipe up to petition against my committing this fraud. I am waiting to hear more opinions. At this point, it seems to me that my proposal--that is, to indicate any changes I make to my posts--to be a reasonable one, as long as I'm disclosing what was there before. I propose to do this by placing an editor's note in brackets to indicate where I've made a change. I may, from time to time, also post an "Errata" message to acknowledge bigger errors. In the interest of disclosure, in that Gates post, here are the changes I made: I erased a repeated reference to Olmsted and Vaux; I changed "very" to "VERY"; and I added the word "(especially)." There might have been one other change of a single word or a short phrase, but I can't remember what it was.

Lisa also had a couple things to say about my slamming of The Gates. My post was not intended primarily as a comment on the aesthetics of The Gates, as I indicated toward the end of the post. It was more about conservative Newspeak, wherein words like "populist" and "socialist realism" are made to tell lies. Also, it was a reaction against the notion that art is more truly public if it's privately financed. Can art exist outside of social and historical context (Lisa asks)? Lisa says yes, unequivocally. I think that would make a nice college debate-team question. It seems to me that that the social and historical (and political-economic) context is what allows art to exist, and by this I mean several things: context informs the artist's vision, colors the viewers' reception, and provides (or denies) the material basis for the production and presentation of the work. Kimmelman celebrates not only the work but the process by which it came into being, so I think it's fair for me to comment on that.

What Kimmelman is celebrating, and part of what I'm critiquing, is this process by which millionaire artistes put a project on offer to the public and allow the common folk to give some sort of thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Kimmelman counterposes this system to Soviet socialism, where (admittedly tacky) art was evilly foisted upon the public without their say-so. (Kind of like the NEA.) What degree of consultative power was conceded to the public, Kimmelman doesn't say, nor does he tell us exactly who this public is. Lisa, were you consulted? Did you get to pick the color? Is this majority-rule art, or are we dealing here with the hollow kind of consultation that the World Bank conducts with indigenous communities just before flooding them with a massive hydroelectric project? It seems to me it doesn't matter much either way, because Kimmelman is subscribing to, if you'll forgive the pun, a watered-down definition of democracy: one that confuses consumer choice with more substantive rights of self-expression, human dignity, and survival. Kimmelman's within his rights to express his appreciation for the Gates project, but I bridle when he couches his praise in terms that are antithetical to what he's actually promoting. It's Orwellian, and it's way too common these days.

Also on the topic of The Gates, Jenny makes an interesting point, I think, in offering a perspective on Christo's intent in dreaming up The Gates 26 years ago. Maybe he wanted to build The Gates in part for people who were later deemed unwelcome in the park. That's part of why I went back to the final sentence of my post and added the word "especially" before Kimmelman's name to indicate he was the principal target of my diatribe.

As for Andrew's remarks about my prospects for getting filthy rich (re: "Next stop, Cave Junction"), he's absolutely right. He should buy me a beer.