From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

Daily Duck readers should be well acquainted with my overwhelming sense of dismay over the sorry state of the arts in contemporary society. This weekend I got a chance to experience one of the highest artistic achievements of Western Civilization amidst a setting that juxtaposed that achievement with the aforementioned sorry state that the artistic urge has led our society.

Adjoining the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, the very same institution that houses the infamous "Sugar Packet art" of the late notorious committer of artistic crimes Joseph Beuys, is the soon to be demolished and relocated Guthrie Theater. The Guthrie, the brainchild of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, who, being disenchanted with the deleterious effects that the profit motive wreaked upon the artistic integrity of theatrical productions on Broadway, sought to build "a theater with a resident acting company that would perform the classics in rotating repertory with the highest professional standards."

The Guthrie became a prototype for an important new kind of theater in contrast to the commercial environment of Broadway. There, the high costs associated with mounting a production increasingly mandated that shows must be immediately successful at high ticket prices. The Broadway atmosphere was conducive neither to producing the great works of literature, nor to cultivating the artists' talents, nor to nourishing the audience.

The idea of a major resident theater was introduced to the American public in a small paragraph on the drama page of The New York Times on September 30, 1959, which invited cities to indicate interest in Tyrone Guthrie's idea. Seven cities responded: Waltham, MA, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, San Francisco and Minneapolis/St. Paul (which was not only interested but eager). Guthrie, Rea and Zeisler visited the seven cities, but were drawn to Minneapolis/St. Paul because of its location in the heartland of America, the vitality of the cultural community, the presence of a large state university and many small colleges, and the enthusiasm shown by the Upper Midwest for the new theater project.

I had seen two earlier performances of Shakespeare at the Guthrie, "Macbeth" and "King Lear". Both performances were absolutely riveting and inspiring, both for the quality of the acting and production, and, of course, for the artistic brilliance that is the hallmark of Shakespeare, the most sublime artistic genius of our civilization. I had been up to then, like most Americans, rather off-put by Shakespeare, finding his rich, intricate prose inaccessible and unpenetrable. Having learned what I had about his plays from readings in high school English class, which made the experience more a chore than a delight, I had left the Bard to the serious theater enthusiast, and contented myself with the more accessible contemporary fare of movies, novels and television.

But Shakespeare's plays were not intended to be read, but performed. One misses in a reading the pace, the inflection, and the context of the words. In a good performance the viewer gains so much additional context from the emotion, the body language, the interaction of the players, that the words spring to life, and the full brilliance of Shakespeare's vision shines forth.

Yesterday my 18 year old daughter Chantal and I attended the Guthrie's production of "Hamlet". It was a marvelous performance. It was the first starring role for the young actor who played Hamlet, 23 year old Santino Fontana. It was refreshing to see a touch of humor injected into the production, and Fontana was very good at playing the mad Prince as alternately clownish and seriously deranged. It was amazing to see how many laughs they were able to wring out of the audience while holding true to the tragic nature of the play.

On the way out of the theater we passed by a work from one of the Walker Art Center's current exhibitions, "Kiki Smith: A Gathering". It was the sculpure entitled "Born", of a fully adult naked woman being born from the womb of a deer. The sculpture showed very little in the way of expression on the part of the woman or the deer, which seemed to take no more notice of the event than as if it had been passing gas. There is probably some sort of feminist consciousness raising message being expressed that goes straight over my head, but I have to say that such works present an inaccessibility of a much different sort than Shakespeare does, a kind that I don't think can be remedied by repeated contemplation.

Here is the obligatory theoretical justification for Smith's art, from the Walker web site:

Best known for her provocative depictions of the human form, Kiki Smith has explored a range of subjects, from natural science to mythology. By turns intimate, universal, earthy, and fragile, her art renders the figure in frank, nonheroic terms, expressing its dual aspects of vulnerability and strength. Comprising more than 125 works, this Walker-organized 25-year survey reveals the startling symbolic potential in Smith’s choice of both traditional and unexpected materials in sculpture and also features prints, drawings, photographs, editioned objects, films, and installations.

The human body—both in anatomical fragments and in full figure—is at the heart of Smith’s art. “I think I chose it as a subject because it is the one form that we all share,” she says. “It’s something that everybody has their own authentic experience with.” Her earliest works investigated its form and functions, which she articulated through individual parts, suggesting flesh with delicate handmade papers and fashioning internal organs and systems from fragile materials such as glass, papier-mâché, terra-cotta, and plaster. In the early nineties, she gained widespread attention for her life-size figures in wax and bronze depicting naked female bodies in disturbing, visceral poses.

Smith’s work has long addressed the ambiguous and difficult relationship between female artists and feminist issues. In the mid-nineties, she began to engage with themes from literature, history, and folklore, reinterpreting biblical and mythological women as inhabitants of resolutely physical bodies. More recently, her vocabulary has expanded to include animals, the cosmos, and the natural world: “My work has evolved from minute particles within the body, up through the body, and landed outside the body. Now I want to roam around the landscape.” In pieces that merge human and animal, she creates new mythologies, finding in the mortality that has pervaded so much of her process the possibility of rebirth.

Though I am not bright or articulate enough to truly understand and describe the exact nature of the gulf that separates the acievements of William Shakespeare and the products of the Kiki Smiths and Joseph Beuys of this era, it doesn't take much brainpower to recognize that the gulf is indeed vast and unbridgeable. Shakespeare captured the essence of the human psyche in its timeless universality and variety, and reflected it back to us in works of great power, beauty, disturbing brutality and undeniable compassion. One can only gawk at the works of the contemporary artist and scratch one's head in bewilderment. One senses in them not a quest for universals, an attempt to represent and elevate the recognizable experiences of humanity, but a meandering jaunt through bored and alienated psyches in an attempt to lay claim to some distant and unique experience not yet reflected in humanity.