Skunk - Democracy Redux Again
Markand Thakar
At a recent meeting of the Art Students League of New York, the second of two SKUNKS was circulated. It advised the membership that an extraordinary expenditure of three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000.00) had been approved and made by the Board and the current administration. And that, it occurred during the same past year that the League had lost millions. In addition, the membership was advised that all the League's expenditures were subject to the scrutiny of any and all interested parties - which, of course, includes all League members, as well as non-members. Apparently, a former president: (now a current Board member) was so incensed by these disclosures, that he blurted out that SKUNK stinks, and inferred that it was a muckraking publication. Since this meant that he, and his fellow Board members were now aware, if they hadn't been in the past, that they and all those responsible for the administration and running of the League (a not-for-profit organization), are responsible as fiduciaries, Skunk was happy to hear his response..
[All not-for-profit organizations, which the League and the American Fine Arts Society (which the League owns, and was involved in the sale of the League's air-rights) do rightfully claim to be -- must file an IRS Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service. And, it must be made available, upon request, to the public - which includes the entire membership. That is the law!]
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Despite the greed-is-good, Bush-cum-Republican decade-long immersion in delusionary, Ponzi-schemes (and mind you, Bloomberg has the Republicans' support) - which wrought havoc on the American and world economies - our democracy and free-enterprise system will prevail. And, SKUNK believes, that despite the League's Board and its administration appearing to have succumbed to that Creed of Greed, the school and the organization can regain its position as the foremost democratically-run, easel-art-focused, fine-art institution.
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SKUNK, having been denounced as a muck-raking publication, requires a rebuttal. SKUNK is an investigative publication - and its only goal is to cause the League to be run as the unequivocally democratic institution it is constituted to be. By doing so, SKUNK believes that it will have a chance to regain its former status as a respected major art organization - with an international reputation as such. It boggles the mind to think that anyone involved with the League, including the instructor-artists, would not concur with SKUNK's objectives.
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Muck-raking is what I came across while researching for my book [KILL-KILL-KILL], based on the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh. It was then that I stumbled upon a New York Times review of the sponsored-by-the-Brits, claiming-to-be-nonfiction book, Mother India (1927), by Katherine Mayo. The book was an attempt to besmirch Mahatma Gandhi and all Indians - this, to deny those people the right of a self-rule similar to that which had been previously obtained by the Brit-inhabited colonies. The promise of self-rule had been made to Indians in return for India's support during WWI - in which 70,000 gave their lives. The reviewer for the always pro-empire, pro-colonialism Times liked it. It was decried as a muck-raking distortion of fact by that era's noteworthy American papers.
As an artist who, when in the mood, has painted and drawn many, many hundreds of portraits (virtually none commissioned), it dawned on the writer, that not only do most art critics and commercial portrait painters earn the opprobrium of discerning individuals, but, after reading the Times' review of 'Mother India' - so do many book reviewers. Harlots - all too many!
Everyone knows that you have biographers, pseudo historians and such - like Katherine Mayo, who sell their pleasure-giving abilities for a price. As a consequence, the majority of their creations are no different than those of commercial portrait painters. To earn a living, they too must, like the needy lady (or man) who turns to prostitution, cater to the selfish desires of a client. Ergo, many painters of commissioned portraits are considered nothing more than hookers and the agents of both the artist and author of such works: panderers.
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[A commissioned portrait, if accomplished by a major artist, is, as a rule, accepted - as law suits have proven. And this holds true even when the portrait appears to be nothing more than an insulting-to-the-sitter near-caricature. However, as all non-superstars, commercially-oriented portrait painters know, they had better please the vanity of their sitters (as well as the judgment of their sitters' claiming-to-be all-knowing friends) or risk having their paintings rejected. And many professional book reviewers don't seem to differ much from their professional, portrait-painter counterparts; they'd soon be out of a job if they didn't consider their employer's wants.]
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Much as the nation's nay-sayers have fretted, due to a pessimistic view of America's future: that our country is on the verge of losing her position as a dominant, major world power, there are knee-jerk pessimists who have declared the end of easel painting - along with its diversity of some thirty thousand year-old, evolving, aesthetic counterparts.
Mind you, homo-Sapiens have not been subjected to the sort of tumultuous mutations that would have altered our basic human needs. And, although to consume and procreate are, without question, very basic ones, as humans we also have the need to dance, to make music, to tell stories - and as the ancient cave paintings of Lascaux confirm: the need to make art - albeit, for the caveman, it was near-realistic, mini-mural-like renderings.
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