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The Work of Art in an Age of Civil Repression
The Work of Art in an Age of Civil Repression
by Geoff Wichert
I do not endorse casual use of the term “Fascist” in civil discourse. In spite of Abu Graib, in spite of Gitmo, in spite of racial and economic profiling, and in spite of efforts by the Bush Administration, the McCain campaign, and right-wing blogs to convince Americans that habeus corpus is a threat to us, rather than what protects all of us from abuse of its power by our government, most of us still enjoy a level of personal liberty that cannot seriously be compared to what three-quarters of the world’s population suffer at the hands of their governments. And while I hate it as much as anyone when misdirected efforts at security cause me to miss my plane, I am happy to cooperate with legitimate efforts to keep me, and my loved ones, safe. That’s what I told the uniformed officer who refused to let me look at one of Salt Lake’s substantial works of public art.
At the end of the Second World War, many combatant countries found themselves amid the rubble of what had been both their infrastructure and their cultural heritage. Ironically, replacing what was destroyed revitalized their economies and their arts. In Germany, the Baltic States, England, and elsewhere, literal acres of artistically novel stained glass rose to meet the new day. Architectural engineering, glass-making technology, and post–apocalyptic vision combined to produce some of the most wonderfully articulate ornamented spaces since the Middle Ages. In these windows, characterized by sensitivity to architectural setting and a strong feeling for graphic design, glass and lead serve closely coordinated roles in mechanical support and aesthetic expression. They work magic with figure-ground relationships while weaving a sensual link between pure marks and intelligible signs. Eventually, a few such windows were created in the United States, where a materialist culture in love with happy endings and with no experience of devastation found little resonance or appeal in them. Having gone to great lengths to see the originals, I was genuinely surprised when, while walking through downtown Salt Lake, I spotted a bold example of European-style stained glass prominently mounted in the façade of a public building. Although meant to be seen from outside as well as from within, I knew I had to see it in all three proper views: from outside in the day, when lit from within at night, and primary among them, from inside in daylight.
I’d like to say more about that impressive window, but I can’t. In spite of my bona fides as a citizen and my professional interest in this theoretically public space, I could not get ten feet into the building to turn around and examine its front window. A sign outside the door warned that anyone entering was subject to being searched. I have no quarrel with that: it’s been years since I carried any contraband on my person. A second sign, recent and hastily made, said that based on “recent events” security had been tightened. I wonder about the social amnesia that makes this sign possible. Far from recent, it was in 1970, just shy of 40 years ago, that Jonathan Jackson entered the Marin County Courthouse (Frank Lloyd Wright’s last major commission) armed with guns and explosives and precipitated a shootout that left the judge and three trial principals dead. Surely no “recent” event involving a pedestrian entering a courthouse has added any urgency to the overhaul of courthouse management initiated by that fiasco.
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Earl Denet was in an automobile accident earlier today in South Jordan and did not survive. A Hopi and resident of Riverton, was well-known for his kachina dolls, figures carved from the roots of the cottonwood tree and given as gifts to young Hopi girls so they too can learn of the many different kachinas known to the Hopi people. Kachinas in the Hopi society represent the spirits of all aspects of nature. Traditional "Old Style' kachina dolls closely resemble those made around the turn of the century.
Local artist 
Behaviourables and Futuribles
