When President Bush finally declares victory in Iraq, which artist will be called on to commemorate America’s military triumph? A recent NPR story about the Bayeux Tapestry got me thinking about art that celebrates war, which is in fact much more common than anti-war art. It’s found in all cultures, and there’s so much of it because the victors commission it and put it in prominent places.

The Bayeux Tapestry, which now has its own museum in France, is a chronicle of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The winner was William of Normandy, who went on to conquer all of Britain. It’s really not a tapestry at all, but an embroidered strip of fabric, 230 feet long, that was probably created at the behest of William’s half brother soon after the victory.

A couple of hundred years earlier, in central Mexico, the Eagle Clan was beaten by the Jaguar Clan, who hired fresco painters to commemorate the slaughter of the defeated warriors, life size and in gory detail, on the walls of the great pyramid at Cacaxtla, facing out so everyone could see it. Here are vivid pictures of what you can expect if you dare to challenge the winners’ authority. Go back another 2000 years to ancient Egypt, and you’ll find plenty of temple friezes, like the magnificent ones in Luxor, celebrating the Pharaoh’s triumphs in battle, whether or not he was actually there in person.

In the 18th century, when the Chinese emperor built himself a summer palace in Beijing, he had the building’s long corridor lined with big paintings of famous historical battles that show the rulers defeating the would-be usurpers. And when the fledgling United States erected a capitol building in the early 19th century, the government hired the painter John Trumbull to depict the surrender of Lord Cornwallis’s army at Yorktown, which ended the American revolution. This time the usurpers won, and they weren’t slow to realize the propaganda value of reminding everyone who passed through the rotunda that they owed their liberty to the brave officers and stalwart troops whom Trumbull tactfully cleaned up for the ceremony–where, incidentally, Cornwallis was a no-show.

So who will be our Trumbull for the twenty-first century? We don’t have anyone with experience, since we’ve been a bit short on military victories for the past sixty years. Felix de Weldon’s sculpture of Marines raising an American flag on Mount Suribachi, on February 23rd, 1945, marks the last time we could honor our warriors unequivocally. So when we finally declare ourselves the winners in Iraq, who can we turn to for an appropriate memorial?

I nominate Red Grooms [left], whose current exhibition at the Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor shows that he has all the right credentials. He could give us a great battle scene, full of action and incident, packed with colorful characters, and above all tinged with ironic wit. His sense of theatrical absurdity is just what we need to commemorate our current misadventure.

For “In the Morning,” I’m Helen Harrison.

Art Waves

Public Art

April 3, 2011 Helen Harrison

Art Waves commentaries, 2004-2009: A Selection

Public Art

Broadcast 3/2/06

After the mural or sculpture is unveiled, after the dignitaries make their speeches, after the donors are thanked and the ribbons are cut, who is responsible for taking care of the works of art that grace our public spaces? All too often, little thought is given to maintenance. Like the buildings and civic spaces they occupy, the artworks can deteriorate if they aren’t properly cared for. But they need a special kind of care, which their stewards, all too often, are not equipped to provide.

The point was brought home in a recent article in the New York Times Long Island section, which reported on condition problems with the murals in the auditorium of the Setauket Elementary School. Here is a case of well-meaning intervention gone wrong. After being removed, cleaned and restored, at a cost of $50,000, the murals were returned to the auditorium, which had been renovated and enlarged. But the improvements to the building were not good for the murals. Improper installation and unsuitable environmental conditions now threaten their long-term survival, and the cash-strapped school is not about to spend the money to create museum-quality climate control. Given its educational priorities, and a budget that doesn’t include a line for art conservation, how can the school be expected to deal with this problem?

This question is by no means unique to Setauket Elementary. In the 1930s, hundreds of public buildings around the country, from court houses and post offices to schools, libraries, hospitals, housing projects–even prisons and sewage treatment plants–acquired artwork commissioned by the various art programs of the New Deal. Technically, these pieces are still owned by the federal government, which financed their creation, but just try to get Uncle Sam to pay for their upkeep. Under the current administration, pious as they are, you haven’t got a prayer.

Even privately financed public art, like the imposing monument commemorating the founding of Smithtown, Long Island [right], is often the victim of benign neglect. Charles Rumney’s 14-foot bronze statue of “Whisper,” the bull that legend says was ridden by Richard Smith to establish his claim to the land that is now Smithtown, was commissioned by a Smith descendent in 1923, although the town didn’t have the will or the money to install it until 1941.

This is a true Long Island landmark, in my opinion the finest public sculpture in the region, but any casual observer can see that it’s badly in need of restoration. Decades of exposure to the weather, air pollution, and the lack of routine maintenance have left its surface pitted and stained. It probably suffers from bronze disease, which will eventually erode it beyond repair. Annual waxing could have prevented this destructive process, but what did Smithtown know about sculpture preservation?

When you buy a house, you know that sooner or later it’ll need a paint job and a new roof. You know that your car needs an oil change every so many miles, and that if you don’t have your teeth cleaned regularly they’ll fall out. In the public sphere, our parks, beaches and other amenities need constant care to keep them in good condition. So why would you assume that art needs no maintenance?

I’d like to suggest that whenever a public artwork is commissioned, the deal includes an endowment for its upkeep. It wouldn’t take much money to ensure the survival of our monuments–all it takes, in fact, is the realization that they can’t survive on their own.

For “In the Morning,” I’m Helen Harrison.

Art Waves

Art School Confidential

April 3, 2011 Helen Harrison

Art Waves commentaries, 2004-2009: A Selection

Art School Confidential

Broadcast 6/1/06

If you’re planning to see this movie, don’t listen to this review. One, because I’m going to give away the ending, and Two, because I may change your mind. On the other hand, you really should see it if you don’t know all the clichés about art-world wannabes, coulda-beens and has-beens. This film is a primer of stereotypes–not one fully developed character makes an appearance in the whole 102 minutes.

Our hero, Jerome, is a wimpy kid from the suburbs who gets bullied because he’s artistic. This poor loser doesn’t know how to capitalize on his only asset. What he does know is that artists get a lot of sex, so he wants to be one. Can you see where we’re going here? I thought you could.

The story isn’t very long, but it benefits from abbreviation. Jerome goes to an art school called Strathmore Institute and falls in love with the life class model, whose father happens to be a famous artist. She becomes his entrée into the professional art world, which as you might expect is populated by pompous, arrogant, venal manipulators. That also describes Jerome’s fellow students–all except one, who turns out to be an undercover cop.

What the heck is he doing at Strathmore? He’s investigating a series of stranglings on the Strathmore campus, an improbable ivied enclave modeled on Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute but transplanted to SoHo. If this feels phony, that’s because it is–the film was shot in and around Los Angeles, and looks like something cobbled together on the back lot. In class, the students trot out every known theoretical platitude, defensive put-down and jealous innuendo, while their professor–played with his trademark predatory cynicism by John Malkovich–struggles to salvage the wreckage of his own failed artistic ambitions.

The tedium is briefly relieved by Jerome’s visit to an even more pathetic failure, a former Strathmore student who is such a disgustingly abject role model that you wonder why Jerome doesn’t immediately drop out and join the Army. By a marvelous coincidence, this fellow just happens to be the strangler, and of course he paints pictures of his victims. Jerome steals the paintings and passes them off as his own, thereby becoming the chief suspect in the murders. And wouldn’t you know it, his subsequent notoriety makes him a hot property in the art market. Go directly to jail, and you get a waiting list of buyers. Well I’ll be darned–so that’s how you do it.

I think “Art School Confidential” is supposed to be a satire, but the screen writer, Daniel Cowles, is no Voltaire. The humor, what there is of it, is as broad and forced as vaudeville, and just as dated. Max Minghella does a workmanlike job of depicting Jerome as an ambitious but essentially spineless nebbish who never does get the sex he craves. Nor can he paint like the artist whose work he stole. So what will happen to him when he has to produce his own paintings? Well, as Andy Warhol might say, his fifteen minutes will be up.

For “In the Morning,” I’m Helen Harrison.