The Taubman Museum of Art, The Wall Street Journal, Mark Cline, Gamut Theatre
How are these four things connected?
Mark Cline poses with some of his creations.
First, an article in The Wall Street Journal appeared Thursday morning (click to read) about plans for the Taubman Museum of Art to commission a piece by Natural Bridge artist and master of kitsch Mark Cline for its atrium as a follow up to Charlie Brouwer’s temporary sculpture made of ladders, “Rise Up Roanoke,” that was installed in March.
The article has stirred some interesting comments, including a debate on Gamut Theatre’s Facebook page. Gamut’s artistic director, Miriam Frazier, objected to Roanoke artist Bill Rutherfoord’s quote in the WSJ story:
”Shakespeare sometimes played to the groundlings. I guess we have to do some of that too.”
Frazier commented:
I think a Mark Cline exhibit at the Taubman (masterminded by Brian Sieveking by the way, who has been a big supporter of Gamut) is GENIUS. Mark Cline is a regional artist (folk artist, outsider artist…whatever title the art crowd would like to tag him with) and his work is absolutely worthy of an exhibit locally.
Big Lick Conspiracy member Patrick Kelly weighed in:
The naturalist in me is not a fan of what has happened at Natural Bridge, but I love the principal that animates Cline’s work. I am a huge fan of folk/outsider art and think the Taubman should look there for a possible exhibit
And Rutherfoord responded, addressing art with “elitist” agendas vs. the “Philistine” tastes of the common man:
I have always felt that it’s possible to split the difference, and so did the Bard, who used “bed tricks” to draw people into intellectually demanding narratives about life and death issues.
What’s followed has not been a name-calling slapflight, but a fascinatingly complex debate about the nature of art.
September 23, 2011 - 11:35 AM
Gamut would welcome anyone to join our discussion. This conversation is very timely for us as we are working on Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author and similar themes are being explored in rehearsals. Please feel free to friend our page and debate with us: https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/GAMUT-THEATRE/100409105759 And thank you to Mike Allen for opening up further dialog here.
I find it interesting that aside from Bill Rutherfoord, the people who wanted to discuss this were theatre folks. It would seem to me that the visual arts community here in town have a vested interest in how opened or closed the Taubman is to 1) showing regional artists; and 2) widening it’s willingness to embrace various styles, etc. of visual arts.
Not to mention that it would benefit the visual arts community to have the outside world look with interest at Roanoke as a hub of activity.
But no. No one cared. No one posted on the WSJ comment section or here on this blog except for me and I don’t really care how the visual artists around Roanoke fare…but I’m darned surprised that they don’t care to ve more vocal. Lightweights. Unbelievable lack of involvement. Pretty astounding and short sighted. Just saying.
Furthermore, on the comment area of the WSJ article, here is an example of what is being said (that not a single person from Roanoke is disputing or debating): “The problem is that Roanoke is basically a mostly middle to lower middle class, blue collar t own with a modern art museum that looks like it belongs in San Fransisco, not Roanoke. And it does. So now they are trying to appeal to the local clientelle but you know, middle class blue collar folks realize they don’t have to go to a museum to see ‘roadside art’–they just have to go down the road. And btw the Nascar museum in Charlotte NC isn’t doing much better, so I hope they don’t get any ideas of more “lowest common denominator” exhibit marketing. Overall, this seems like another out-of-touch, failed BIG IDEA, like Explore Park (which also has a Taubmen Center–empty and the building rotting) thought up by clueless people.”
Spelling errors intentionally left in the quote.
Regarding Miriam’s justified lament about local artists’ lack of response to this article, I would say that is not confined to visual artists. Although I enjoy and appreciate the efforts of local theater and visual artists, I am a music and history enthusiast foremost, and apathy manifests in those areas too.
Perhaps it’s just segregation according to artistic discipline. But it may be a function of a sort of audience splintering. Indicative of the way splintering threatens to occur, even at the local level, are these blogs. With permission, I’d like to cross-post portions of something I posted on another RTWN blog today, appropos to the thread here:
I urge everyone to attend a talk at the Taubman this Saturday night (Oct. 1) that will touch on the topics of Roanoke’s history and cultural identity. It is by Rand Dotson, who wrote a fine history of early Roanoke, and Ralph Berrier, whose book incorporated Roanoke’s popular culture. Dotson’s book discusses the tensions between the working class people of Roanoke and those who came here as management from cities like Philadelphia and Richmond.
The ambivalence of Roanoke’s “endowment class” about our cultural identity is longstanding…the Taubman’s future might be one of overcoming an initial provincial confusion. Certainly, it has already helped bolster the area’s academic environment (Hollins, Roanoke College, public school arts, etc.). Because of the various percentages of types who comprise our area’s total audience, it might be too easy to underestimate the cuturally knowledgeable and creative portion of that audience.
Warren! Thanks so much for posting over here and crossing over…all the super cool people do it! (Ummm…that would be you and me)
Think about coming to see Gamut’s production that opens next week and we could shake hands on it.
Miriam