COVER STORY : . . . What is art? What’s good taste?

DENNIS BARRIE

In October, Barrie and the museum he directs--the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center--were acquitted of obscenity charges resulting from an exhibition of works by Robert Mapplethorpe that included homoerotic images and suggestive pictures of nude children.

What is art?

I don’t have a definition of what art is, but after what I went through in the trial I know that art can be many things . . . It can be unpleasant, difficult and ugly as well as uplifting, spiritual, beautiful and all the other things people expect it to be.

Who decides?

Not just individuals. Society decides. In any complex society you eventually have to defer to people who have some expertise--to those who have the training, experience and background to make sound judgments. But a whole network composed of art museums, galleries, art schools, critics and the artists themselves make decisions based on history and art history.”

JEFF AYEROFF and JORDAN HARRIS

Co-managing directors of Virgin Records America, and leaders in the Rock the Vote anti-censorship movement.

What’s good taste?

Ayeroff: I think it’s all contextual. When you deal with the backdrop of Robert Mapplethorpe and 2 Live Crew and the lifestyles of the poor and infamous, it’s like good taste and bad taste are defined by what groups they appeal to. We have clashes between these pockets, like when Jesse Helms and Jack Thompson don’t like what kids are doing in the ghetto, or gays in New York, and it blurs distinctions. I don’t like what Luther Campbell is doing, but I don’t like the people who don’t like him even more. It’s like a Dr. Seuss word game: What’s worse, repression or the things that need to be represses? And I think repression is worse. Intolerance speaks of ignorance. I find Jesse Helms in bad taste. The people who are prosecuting, the politicians who use emotional issues to instill fear, I find that bad taste.

Harris: Through history things people were critical of as being in bad taste are now seen as breakthrough works of art. There’s sort of a Victorian ethic that so many Americans seem to hold and in the rest of the world you see a much more open mind than here. It’s sad to see so much art repressed here.

BRANFORD MARSALIS

Jazz musician

What is art?

Art is like a little something that nobody ever notices until you’re dead.

Who decides?

Whoever has money. Who decided Van Gogh’s pictures were worth more when he was dead than when he was alive?

Who pays?

Suckers.

KAREN FINLEY

One of four performance artists who had fellowships denied by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Who owns America?

It’s a fight right now, but I don’t look at it as owning, I look at it as sharing. Artists of diverse voices around the country want a share of the pie. We too do own (America), and that’s why the far right is so active.

Why worry?

Apathy is the obstacle. I have been surprised this year at the liberal, educated people who are baby boomer age that have an attitude like, ‘Oh, weren’t you expecting this?’ and a sense of powerlesssness. We’re made to feel powerless by the economy and certain social conditions that make it as hard as possible for us to revolt.

There isn’t time left before our rights are taken away--a woman’s right to choose, to better health services for people living with AIDS, and for AIDS services in general.

1990 was the year where a lot of things did come up in terms of censorship and women’s rights. Now in 1991, we have to be fighting these in the spirit of ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), meaning with direct action. People have to stop worrying and get off their butts and start doing things.

Why not?

Because of the positive signs that happened with the visual art community getting together and becoming politically active as a group.

Our aesthetic history is to be responsible to current history. Compared to the 1950s, I feel good about this sense of community. We’re starting to work together.

JOSEPH PAPP

Producer of the New York Shakespeare Festival who turned down 1990 NEA grants in protest of restrictions against producing obscene art.

What is art?

There are always pressure groups imposing censorship on what they don’t find acceptable in a society. They are describing morality, and art is just the vehicle they use to make headway with their own exclusive religious reasons and political aspirations. Art is always a good hot subject, but art isn’t the issue there at all. Art gets caught up in the middle.

As Brecht said, ‘Art is not nice.’ It has to have teeth in it to justify people paying attention. It doesn’t go along with the status quo . . . When artists who are innovators break the rules, they are immediately subject to the criticisms of people who become angry, frustrated and feel they are being called ignorant.

But people can always surprise you. In Cincinnati, when that jury voted to (acquit) the director of the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center and to hold it free of (obscenity) charges, it was the most revealing indication of what ordinary people think about art. They showed a tremendous respect for educated opinion. They had to make a decision, and they saw things you would think they would deny and negate. More than anything that has happened in this country, that has given me a great deal of hope.