WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ARTS?
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it by going into the real-estate business all over the world. There is no
avant-garde. As for the return of beauty, I don't buy that, because among
many of the artists I most admire, there's never been an absence of
beauty. But the ability or the willingness of institutional opinion to rec–
ognize it has become faultier and faultier over time because of the mis–
taken idea that it isn't important, never mind beautiful, unless it is some
kind of so-called cutting edge, quasi-obscene expression.
Robert Brustein:
1 think we're forgetting about the artist. We talk about
groups like the avant-garde. This is simply a name that's given to people
who congregate around some really visionary artist and imitate him or
her. But it is the artist, ultimately, the visionary artist, the Picassos, the
]oyces, the Prousts, the Stravinskys, who push the art forward and tell us
what art is. We don't define art as critics. We wait for the artist, and then
jump after him or her and try to characterize or analyze what has hap–
pened. So to say that the avant-garde is dead is like saying that art is
dead. Art has to keep moving forward, it can't stay in place, it can't just
be beautiful. It has to be beautiful in a certain way. Therefore I still use
the phrase avant-garde, because I look at a group like the Wooster group,
for example, which I find to be doing genuinely new and interesting,
exciting and quite beautiful things. That to me represents an expression
of the avant-garde. Then I look at the Living Theater, and I think this is
a bunch of junk. But that too calls itself the avant-garde. So I think if we
were able to analyze the works of great artists and be more responsive to
and respectful of works that advance the art, we'd be in better shape.
Edith Kurzweil:
I agree with most of what you're saying, which is that
we are accepting that things are dumbed down. I remember some years
ago when Bob coined that term and it was something we were to think
about; by now we're living with it. When we talk about the Endow–
ment, we have forgotten about the guidelines-which are set by bureau–
crats. When applying, one has to think of what the panelists are going
to say, what the directors are going to say, so that this influences those
who are applying for grants. This holds true, of course, for literary mag–
azines. And we all know that there isn't a single literary magazine in this
country that has ever been able to support itself. We rely on Boston Uni–
versity and our Advisory Board; other magazines have similar kinds of
supporters. As Hilton and you say, Bob, we do need some government
support, but could it be set up to be really neutral and go for quality?
It
hasn't happened yet. In a way, democracy works against it. But we
wouldn't give up democracy. That, I think, is our quandary.
