{"id":226,"date":"2006-08-06T11:34:04","date_gmt":"2006-08-06T16:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2006\/08\/06\/modern-art-balm-for-our-times\/"},"modified":"2006-08-06T21:48:02","modified_gmt":"2006-08-07T02:48:02","slug":"modern-art-balm-for-our-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/08\/modern-art-balm-for-our-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Modern Art, Balm for our Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fayetteville’s Walton Arts Center<\/a> has asked the state Highway Department about installing sculptures along Interstate 540 for the cultural enrichment of us all. Today’s Northwest Arkansas Times<\/em> wrote it up<\/a>, but its photos are not online. They’re palm trees, more or less, in bright colors. Wood, though made to look like metal. The subject comes up today because the paper has photos, finally.<\/p>\n

We on occasion read about modern artists working deliberately to provoke. It’s brought to our attention when they apply for government grants. The thing about nearly all modern art, aside from these very few obnoxious ones, is their blandness.<\/p>\n

They’re all squiggles or colors. In the manner of Jackson Pollock (no relation) or Franz Kline, whomever. On the grounds now of the Walton Arts Center are four-foot to six-foot metal sheets in gentle curves. Alexander Calder was there, first. These are 3-dimensional velvet sofa paintings.<\/p>\n

The proposal for median of I-540 is fine. They’re inoffensive at the least. At best they’re silly or have an art-school clued-in, in-joke irony. “A museum without walls,” the artist says in the article. There’s no need for walls. No one will feel trapped by these pieces. No one will want to steal them, either.<\/p>\n

Imagine if modern art hadn’t happened. A comparable proposal would have merited editorials and pickets for months: Mayor Coody<\/a> on a horse. Marble or bronze? Two times or three-times life size? Ohmygawd. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fayetteville’s Walton Arts Center has asked the state Highway Department about installing sculptures along Interstate 540 for the cultural enrichment of us all. Today’s Northwest Arkansas Times wrote it up, but its photos are not online. They’re palm trees, more or less, in bright colors. Wood, though made to look like metal. The subject comes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-body-home-street"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2039,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/07\/vuvuzela-monologues\/","url_meta":{"origin":226,"position":0},"title":"Vuvuzela Monologues","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"As long as soccer's World Cup has made the vuvuzela stadium noisemaker a common word in America, Brick wants to horn in on its ubiquity for a new series of short takes. Today, it's skin and drama. \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 Speaking of vuvuzela, one rash has come home to roost,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Loose Talk of the Town"","block_context":{"text":"Loose Talk of the Town","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/loose-talk-of-town\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2202,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/08\/cultural-muscle\/","url_meta":{"origin":226,"position":1},"title":"Cultural Muscle","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A month ago, the Walton Family Foundation offered money to Fayetteville's Walton Arts Center if it would build a second, larger auditorium 35 miles north in Bentonville, rather than enlarge itself into a complex a la Lincoln Center, with an accent. The idea had merit in some ways -- the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":256,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/12\/wal-mart-takes-liberty-bell-to-arkansas\/","url_meta":{"origin":226,"position":2},"title":"Wal-Mart takes Liberty Bell to Arkansas","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2006 Ben S. Pollock A DISSOCIATED PRESS PHILADELPHIA -- The Liberty Bell is moving to America's heartland, specifically Bentonville, Ark., the National Park Service has announced. The bell, one of the nation's most prominent treasures, will be a permanent exhibit in the sculpture garden of the planned Crystal Bridges\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"liberty bell 03 stress test","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/liberty-bell-03-stress-test-199x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":418,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/03\/turnips-to-squeeze\/","url_meta":{"origin":226,"position":3},"title":"Turnips to Squeeze","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 31, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Things are tough all over so what am I doing, about to criticize non-profits I favor? The endeavors -- literature, fine art, serious music -- are the sorts of things that keep me rooted here, but some of their staff members could use some free advice, for what it's worth.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":73,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/05\/half-empty-or-half-full\/","url_meta":{"origin":226,"position":4},"title":"Half empty or half full?","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock May 3, 2004. For weeks I've been wondering about the new logo for my hometown's Walton Arts Center; it can be viewed here. The newspaper articles quoted several laudatory remarks about it. It obviously was professionally designed -- a circle of W's that also configure\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1815,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/02\/cultural-indifferences\/","url_meta":{"origin":226,"position":5},"title":"Cultural Indifferences","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The wonderful thing about having a well-run auditorium in town is opportunities it provides. If you follow Paul Simon or were listening to pop music in the mid-1980s you know of his album Graceland, which introduced to the West the South African men's chorus that was in Fayetteville last weekend.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}