[kisrael]

The funny thing is that 90% of NEA is this truly uncontroversial stuff, lots of support of folk arts and all the rest. And stuff along these lines and "Piss Christ" make it easy targets. But I don't want that kind of thinking to frame this debate.

Art has had big problems ever since photography entered the scene. Once it became easy to produce "realistic" images of life, art has had to figure out its own purpose.

I guess people are distrustful of art when it seems like it might be divorced from craft, or at least practiced skill. They doubt the sincerity of the artist and think it might all just be a big scam.

FWIW, this is the only place I've seen word of this exhibit, so it doesn't seem to be setting the world on fire anyway. And it's better than the other tact whcih brings us Thomas Kincaid galleries and maybe even these goddamn jittering smilies I get to chose from to make up the gap between informal written speech and the spoken word.


I mean hell, why do I have the option of this and anyway?