December 27, 2007
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ART WARS continued...
Chronicles
"Fullness... Multitude."-- The missing last words
of Inman in Cold Mountain,
added here on the
Feast of St. Luke, 2004
II Chronicles 1:
7: In that night did God appear unto Solomon, and said unto him, Ask what I shall give thee.
8: And Solomon said unto God, Thou hast shewed great mercy unto David my father, and hast made me to reign in his stead.
9:
Now, O LORD God, let thy promise unto David my father be established:
for thou hast made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in
multitude.
10: Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I
may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this thy
people, that is so great?"At 42-- a
professor with no museum experience-- he was named curator of painting
and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art. It was, and is, the most
influential job in the fluid, insular, fiercely contentious world of
modern art. Just two decades past his last Amherst game, the lineman
from Savannah was sitting in the chair where the most critical
decisions in his profession are made-- 'the conscientious, continuous,
resolute distinction of quality from mediocrity,' according to his
Olympian predecessor Alfred Barr. The Modern and its chief curator
serve the American art establishment as a kind of aesthetic Supreme
Court, and most of their rulings are beyond appeal."-- Hal Crowther
On Quality
Varnedoe, in his final
Mellon lecture at
the National Gallery,
quoted "Blade Runner"--
"I've seen things
you people wouldn't believe...."Frank Rich of The New York Times
on the United States of America:"A country where
entertainment is god."Rich's description may or may not
be true of the United States, but
it certainly seems true of
The New York Times:
Click on image to enlarge.
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