Thursday, May 12, 2011

If it takes a sculpture lecture to point out our absurd national spending priorities, so be it.

Artist David Baker saw the word “peregrinations” in Snite Museum of Art Director Chuck Loving’s talk about Active Hybrid sculptor Richard Hunt and, like jazz improvisation, offered a unique 11-minute introduction.

Maybe Baker was mindful he had a tough act to follow — 18- year Visual Arts Committee Chair Thelda Mathews, who had just been surprised with a tribute by Dogwood President Brad Yazel.

Baker, who loves Hunt’s sculpture so much he did an oil painting of what in 1997 was Dowagiac’s second of 13 pieces, staunchly believes “public art is vitally important to our nation,” even when the nation seems willfully oblivious to such a notion.

“It can uplift and inspire even the most inexperienced viewer, but it cannot do it if works of art are not seen or heard by the public. In a nation as strong and enlightened as I would like our nation to be, it has a responsibility —  a duty — to share the creative genius of its most talented citizens with all of its citizens.”

To those who argue art is not a realm of government, but should subsist on private patronage, Baker says, “If only one person pays the piper, musically, we’re only going to hear one tune.”

That’s why the longtime SMC instructor advocates a combination of public and private support, of which “the sculpture collection here in Dowagiac is an outstanding example of private patronage guided by thoughtful professionals and aficionados within the world of art.”

Another frequently heard criticism where government and art converge is tax dollars subsidizing controversial works.

Baker responds with a history lesson, starting with the 1965 founding of the National Endowment for the Arts. One of its very first undertakings was the Alexander Calder in Grand Rapids.

People didn’t like the idea of federal funding erecting a big orange abstract. “The key point,” Baker said, “is when public art is good, slowly but surely, it wins an audience. Now Grand Rapids can’t imagine itself without La Grande Vitesse in the public square.” An even more evocative example is the initially reviled Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedicated in 1982.

Yale student Maya Lin won a national contest, her proposal selected from 1,400 by a panel of eight distinguished architects and artists, including Hunt. “She proposed a long gash into the earth lined with reflective black granite,” Baker said, “inscribed with all 58,000 names of men and women who died in the conflict.

“The public outcry was immense. It wasn’t heroic. It didn’t appropriately honor those who served. It was in the ground and not on top. But the National Park Service persevered, and because the piece was good, it won an audience. Now, even veterans groups who opposed (‘the black gash of shame’) take a scale model of the Vietnam wall around the country.” We know, because it visited the SMC campus for a movingly memorable Memorial Day 2002.

Five years ago on vacation in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Jackie, David “just watched people interact with the sculpture.”

“They came in ones and twos, slowly and quietly, almost reverently, looking at the reflection on the mirrored wall and reflecting on the names. Many stopped and did rubbings of their loved one’s name. Some brought flowers or small gifts they left at the base. They spent a long time before walking out of this incision. You could tell by their body language that healing had taken place.” To come full circle with the irony of it all, Baker noted that in 2000, Grand Rapids engaged Lin to create a three-part piece honoring water. Finally, Baker crescendoed to his finale, setting straight critics who complain public art costs too much.

Reading a 2009 breakdown for U.S. median family income, he recited a litany of taxes: $1,040, Social Security; $625, Medicare; $287, interest on the national debt; $229, combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; $74, veterans benefits; $63, federal highways; $38, education funding for low-income K-12 students; $32, military retirement benefits; $29, Pell Grants for low-income college students; $17.69, Internal Revenue Service; $11, FBI; $10, Head Start; $4.27, national parks; $3.14, Drug Enforcement Administration; $2.23, Amtrak; and $1.12, the Smithsonian.

The arts? “With embarrassment, I must tell you,” Baker said sadly, “I paid 24 cents. People who say we can’t afford public art because it’s too expensive are perhaps working a different agenda.” Loving was more than up to the challenge, but Baker’s boffo introduction gave him a tough act to follow, too.