Hey guys!

Well, I spent yesterday looking through different articles to find a topic that was specific and important. Finally, I stumbled upon the New York Times article "For N.Y. Theaters and Museums, a Rapid Rebound" I thought that this article would help me form a good question about what happens to art during a time of crisis like September 11? Also, what makes people go and see art or not see it? Obviously, after September 11, many people were afraid to travel into New York and so the theaters and museums suffered from the lack of tourism. A crisis can cause people to stop looking at art because they are physically unable to go see it or they are too afraid.

However, now there is a huge boom in the arts industry in New York. Why? More people than ever are going to the museums and theatrical performances. The article mentions how attendence was down 60% after Sept 11 and now revenues are up 18% and attendance is up 6% from last years figures before the crisis.

Do you think this swell is due to the recent advertising done to get people back to NYC? Is this all economic? Or maybe people are trying to become more culturally aware in response to the Sept. 11 crisis; people may think that attending a museum exhibit or theatrical show might expand their culture. Or is NYC becoming an even larger tourist spot because everyne is fleeing there to see what has become of the city? Or are the Americans covering up the past crisis by trying to go back to their daily lives? Are they using the art as a temporary escape?

Why do you think that the arts in NYC are all of a sudden "popular" once again? Why do you go and see art? Why don't you see art? Are the last two responses the same as your response to NYC's "art rebound"?

Hey guys!

Well, I spent yesterday looking through different articles to find a topic that was specific and important. Finally, I stumbled upon the New York Times article "For N.Y. Theaters and Museums, a Rapid Rebound" I thought that this article would help me form a good question about what happens to art during a time of crisis like September 11? Also, what makes people go and see art or not see it? Obviously, after September 11, many people were afraid to travel into New York and so the theaters and museums suffered from the lack of tourism. A crisis can cause people to stop looking at art because they are physically unable to go see it or they are too afraid.

However, now there is a huge boom in the arts industry in New York. Why? More people than ever are going to the museums and theatrical performances. The article mentions how attendence was down 60% after Sept 11 and now revenues are up 18% and attendance is up 6% from last years figures before the crisis.

Do you think this swell is due to the recent advertising done to get people back to NYC? Is this all economic? Or maybe people are trying to become more culturally aware in response to the Sept. 11 crisis; people may think that attending a museum exhibit or theatrical show might expand their culture. Or is NYC becoming an even larger tourist spot because everyne is fleeing there to see what has become of the city? Or are the Americans covering up the past crisis by trying to go back to their daily lives? Are they using the art as a temporary escape?

Why do you think that the arts in NYC are all of a sudden "popular" once again? Why do you go and see art? Why don't you see art? Are the last two responses the same as your response to NYC's "art rebound"?

Good morning.  Let me start by introducing myself.  I'm Eric Davis, a political science professor here at Middlebury (I also serve in the administration as secretary of the college), and I'm on leave this year.  One of my leave projects is working on a new first-year seminar called September 11: Causes and Consequences, which I'll be teaching next fall.

I've worked a lot with Hector Vila on developing the Web site for my course, and have got lots of good ideas about teaching writing, and using weblogs in courses, from Barbara Ganley and from Catharine Wright. 

Heather Harris had heard that I was working on a course about September 11, so she invited me to participate in this discussion along with you.  I'm happy to do so.

I found the article from the Times on increased attendance at museums and performances in New York very interesting.  I think more and more Americans have been choosing to visit New York since late last year.  It's almost as if people feel that they have some sort of obligation to support the city by going there, perhaps seeing Ground Zero, but more importantly, to support NYC and its people.  (Just think how many people have bought caps or shirts with the FDNY or NYPD logos since September 11.)  It's really interesting to see how many Americans' attitudes toward NYC have changed since September - NY is no longer seen as an expensive place with rude fast-talking people.  In some way, many of us have come to identify with New Yorkers' loss.

One of the exhibitions mentioned in the article is at the Museum of Modern Art.  It's called "Life of the City."  If any of you will be in New York in the next couple of months, do go to MOMA and see it.  Part of this exhibition is a constantly changing set of images from the project called Here is New York. As noted on the Web site, this is "history unframed" - thousands of photos taken in New York since September 11, by both professional and amateur photographers, documenting the events of September 11 and their impact on the lives of people in the city.  The succession of thousands of images is very powerful.  There's a very interesting presentation of the purpose of the exhibit, and how photography can break down divisions in the community, and build greater democracy, here.

Heather asked in her posting why we go and see art, or why we don't.  For myself, I much prefer to go to a small museum, such as the Phillips Collection in Washington or the Wallace Collection in London, than a huge museum such as the Metropolitan.  The big museums - the Louvre is the worst in this regard - are just too crowded, and too much like malls.  In fact, the last time I was in Paris, it was hard to figure out where the subway station and the mall underneath the Louvre ended and where the museum began.  So when I don't go to see art, it has more to do with the circumstances of the "big museum" experience than with the art itself.

The exhibitions I like best are those that make connections, across time or across artistic disciplines.  I'll be spending the last few weeks of my leave, in April, in London, and just the other day I was looking at some of the Web sites for museums in London to find exhibitions I would be interested in attending.  A show at the Royal Academy that I would very much like to see is Paris: Capital of the Arts, 1900-1968, co-sponsored by the BBC.  What I find interesting about this exhibit is how it attempts to relate painting, sculpture, and the other arts to the historical and political events in Paris during the first two-thirds of the 20th century.  It's shows like this that attempt to put the arts in a larger context that I find most interesting.

I'll check back on this discussion next week to see what the students in the class are saying.

ELD

Hi Heather and Eric et al. -

I think that people go to museums and shows as a way to escape for a little while.  Does that make sense?  People use art the same way that they use shopping, or write in thier journals.  What I like about art, especially art  that isn't contemporary, is that it doesn't force me to think about what's going on in my day-to-day life, or that part of my city has fallen in.  I am free to think about other things.  When I was in the city a few weeks ago, it never even crossed my mind to go and visit the WTC site - I went to movies, I went to clubs, I went to see shows, but I stayed as far away as possible from thinking about the real world for the span of my break.  And this is typically what I expect from art - the ability to forget about the real world.  Degas' ballerinas have little bearing on whether I pass my midterms, but it's still nice to know that beautiful things exist in the world. 

I think also that the WTC collapse polarized a lot of people and reminded them of the things that make NY special in the first place - you can literally see an art show or a play or a movie at any hour of the day.  There's so much going on that people become jaded from the constant exposure, and maybe they are turning to art now as a way to embrace their city's unique culture. 

Even though I am from a city on the other side of the country, I have never felt like NY was a place where people were rude and sped around without regard to anyone else.  This is the way other people saw NY.  And perhaps that's why New Yorkers are going to back to their artistic roots - they are trying to revisit their collective (and often chosen) heritage.  Art reflects the way a culture sees the world, and there are fewer places with such a varied worldview than the city that never shuts up. I have a lot more on this not I'm not sure how to articulate it. It's an interesting question. I mean,as Eric asked, why do people ever patronize the arts? Why don't we all just sit in our rooms and write out the periodic table as a way of expressing ourselves?  Actually, why, instead of simply creating art , do we also go and view it?

I have to agree with Kpoene, the arts are a reflection of perspective and identity.  And after the trauma of September 11th, I think people in the United States, particularly those in New York City felt a need to reaffirm their identity.  This newly recorded "flourishing" of the arts is definitly not something new to NYC but I think this proves that the arts community plays an integral part in the larger culture of New York City.  It's a proclamation from the residents "yes! these things are important to us," and from the tourists "yes! these things are our main attraction." And so even outside of New York, there are new exhibitions revolving around the great city.  An example is the Teeny Harris exhibit at the Middlebury College Museum of Art.  I'm sure it was pure coincidence and that the exhibit was planned before the events of September 11th, but it just goes to show that everyone, those within and without the city-are in a New York state of mind. 

I think it's a natural phenomenon for a community to celebrate its culture after a grand tragedy.  It gives people a sense of security and renewal.  New York City has always been reknowned for theater, music, and fine arts, and now it provides an arena for response and reflection on the community's greatest loss.

Hello. I think what is happening in the NY art front and in the minds of the new-yorkers is pure psychology. Since 9/11 I've been in the city that never shuts up (great nickname!) 2 times, first in October, then just last weekend. And this is what I think about the city's psychological process.

In late October Manhattan was still penetrated by the smell of burning rubber and death and everyone was waiting for the winter to come. During the most depressing season of the year, Americans were still unsure of the strength of their protection. NYC - the proudest city in the world - simply became insecure. As such, temporarily it lost its charm. People driven by the American dream were refusing to see it crumble down on the streets of Manhattan. The famous pride of the new-yorkers was tamed.

Slowly, as in any process healthy psyche, the pain needed to be healed. People could not live with the fear of being bombed out of existence for much longer. Americans are famous for their optimism. To cope with this pain and loss, they started trying 3 times harder to "forgive and forget".

Art is a human production, thus it will infinitely depend on the feelings of human beings that not only create it, but view it. As the modern Black Death started losing its authority over people, they simply felt compelled to make an extra effort and get rid of it completely.

By this rational, I remember how I was more motivated to see the horror of ground zero than to participate in the subsided art culture. Last week-end, however, we did not only stay far from the site, but managed to crowd our week-end with several art experiences.

You might be interested in looking at this "Arts Healing America" website, links to a collection of responses to 9-11 from many arts organizations in NYC.  Note that there is a very wide range of materials collected here - from quilts, pictures, and poems by individual New Yorkers; to tributes to the victims in photos and in music; to calls for peace; to messages of hope.  It does seem, in many ways, that narrative verbal expression, by itself, was insufficient to convey the feelings, fears, and hopes of many New Yorkers after September 11.  The full range of responses to the tragedy required poetry, music, photography, dance, painting, and the other arts to be fully expressed.  Can any of you think of other historical situations in which the arts were fully engaged in this way as part of the response?

ELD

I think this sort of psychology or consciousness is really visible in the film industry.  For my Internationalizing Culture:Beyond the Borders of Modern Art and Film, Professor Anton Kaes from UC Berkeley came in to talk about his book on this film Das Kabinet des Dr. Caligari.  This was a German film that came out in 1920/21 right after WWI.  Kaes claims that this film was heavily influenced by the psychological trauma experienced after the war.  And that perhaps the filmmakers addressed this issue subconsciously-that's how deep the experience of war was in the social consciousness at that time and place.  The film is really crazy, people should check it out.  But the story is about this travelling showman that hypnotizes this man into murdering people.  The showman ends up being the warden of the insane asylum.  The twist is that at the end narrator of the story is revealed to be a mental patient and so the lines between reality and insanity are blurred.  Kaes parallels this somewhat bizarre story with the insecuriy and tragedy evoked by the war.

And I think that's not too far off from what's happened recently.  I agree with Sasha, it's in our psychology.  And there are very deliberate and obvious effects of the September 11th events but I think there are underlying effects as well.  There are sentiments, feelings, fears and perspectives that are sort of buried in our subconscious.  I mean has anybody noticed the abundance of war movies that have come out since September?  I don't follow the statistics of film genre releases, but there seem like an inordinate number of these type of movies. Black Hawk Down, Hart's War, When We Were Soldiers and perhaps there are more, these are all examples.  There is a intense patriotic spirit in the air.  I think the above mentioned movies are clear in their message but I think there are subversive messages in not-so obvious productions and works.  For example, the trends in t.v programming have shown that  audiences have been tuning into 'comfort shows' like Friends, E.R, and shows that remind them of pre-Sept. 11th consciousness.  I think we'll have to wait and see, get some distance until we can see the larger cultural effects of the tragic events.

in response to nancy and sasha, i would have to say that i am not really seeing a lot of art that spreads the subversive messages of war glory and knee-jerk patriotism.  there have been a rash of films with these themes, yes, but no one really defines hollywood films as 'art'.  that's why indie movies are called 'art films' and mel gibson epics are called 'blockbusters'.  actually i've been noticing that this seems to be the first time that art was not being produced which specifically responded to the urge (whether voluntary or not) to be patriotic.  there aren't really any 'rosie the riveter' or 'buy war bonds' type campaigns going on, and i think that's pretty interesting.  generally there would be a lot of propaganda-type art coming out, but i haven't seen much. 

 i mean, i understand that it is a luxury even in america to criticize the antics of the government as we do on college campuses, which is why i found nick vail's show 'julius' (which criticizes our current government) so daring.  a lot of people are confused and don't know who to support.  perhaps they are turning to art as a way to escape life in general.  i certainly turn on HBO a little faster every time Bush comes up with another 'operation anaconda'. 

nancy, you know what is a really great film along the lines of 'das kabinet'?  "The Manchurian Candidate".  it deals with american soldiers during the cold war being brainwashed to fight for the soviet union. 

Good point there. You are right, there isn't much patriotic messages sent by art (thank God). However, there is art reviving, or at least so it feels (maybe since we are taking this course, we just notice it more, who knows?). However, think how much art was produced during, let's say, WWII, especially in places where war went on? Almost none. I think it would be strange to expect artists to respond to something lacking a definite outcome. That's one. Two is back to psychology - any trauma needs time to be processed. Rarely artists dare to produce a work, dealing with a conflict that is not yet resolved. That just goes against human nature. One needs to process the information and then give a response.

This makes me want to bring up a question for you all. Should art bear responsibility (as critics do to the artist), and if so, is the artist being responsible by creating art in response to an event without a resolution? I hope that made sense.

Hey all.....

I'm glad at how well this discussion is turning out. To answer Sasha's posed question I feel that artists do owe responsibility to their art. I feel that art comes from experiences and emotions. How can one create an art form without respecting what is around them? If someone is reflecting on an experience, then that art should respect the actual experience and the people involved in it. If the art comes from a self-emotion, then the artist should respect himself or herself...I would hope. And if art is created from other art, then the artist owes respect to the other art form and its creator. It is funny how I am listing these things because I feel like these are the aspects we discussed in class about who you have to respect when you write art critiques.

So how would one go about creating art reflecting on September 11th? Obviously, one would want to respect the event. Do you think that art created reflecting the event would be different from an American artist compared to an Afganistan artist?

I feel art is all psychology. It is feelings and emotions. It is digging deep down inside to find the true meaning of things. It is a mix of your first instincts and the things you want to think long and hard about. Viewing art is also part psychology too. It is an escape. It is an enjoyment.

The people in New York have been hit with a tramatic event. September 11th has become the "event" of the 21st century. I have no doubt that art viewing will keep increasing especially with the creation of new art which will be a reflection of September 11th. Who knows maybe in a few years there will be a whole Sept 11 museum..... What do you think of these thoughts that I have posted???????