The state of modern art is not exactly a pressing concern in a nation wracked with attempted assassination attempts and listless, anxious youths. At this point, I suspect most of my readers will realize that modern art is something of a joke played on the rich and gullible to separate them from their money. It’s also an attack on Beauty, one intended to demoralize us.
What I learned shamefully recently is that modern art was also a CIA psy-op. That’s not some wild-eyed conspiracy theory; it’s so well-documented and mainstream, even the BBC wrote about it—in 2016 (see, I’m late to the party)!
I’m actually not opposed to government funding for the arts, but whenever the government gets involved with anything, there is the risk that the government will pervert and distort what the art is supposed to be. One very real risk is that “art” will devolve into propaganda. That’s fine if we’re fighting the Second World War and need to inspire people to fight Hitler and the Japanese; if we’re trying to demoralize our own populace with nastiness, it’s not.
The other, related risk is that the government will fund art that we don’t like, personally or collectively. The government is ostensibly “of the people,” but when everyone allegedly is in charge, no one is. The functionaries responsible for handing out National Endowment for the Arts grants are likely doing so based on qualities of the artist—race, regime-approved ideology, gender, etc.—rather than any actual technical skill. So we end up with patronage not of skilled artists, but well-connected or demographically-approved artists. The results are predictably terrible, and we’re all flummoxed as to why we spent $2 million of taxpayer money on it.
A healthy government that actually cared about its people would fund art that promotes Beauty and Truth. If we had such a government, I’d be all for government funding of the arts. Indeed, we probably do have that at the local and State levels. I personally love that the City of Columbia, South Carolina subsidizes the South Carolina Philharmonic. Many Republicans and/or conservatives would balk at that, but it is a worthwhile investment to keep classical music alive in—let’s face it—the “Sahara of the Bozart,” as H. L. Mencken cruelly (and, I think at the time, unfairly) labeled the South.
I feel like I’m contradicting myself a bit here, so to distract from that—and to get on with the post—here is 27 July 2023’s “TBT^2: Modern Art and Influence“:
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The Portly Politico 