Saturday, November 12, 2011
Arkansas Culture and Characters Antidote to Crystal Bridges snobbery
Posted by Max Brantley on Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 1:05 PM
Now here's Warwick Sabin, publisher of the Oxford American, writing in the Washington Post about why a smallish city in Arkansas is a great spot for Crystal Bridges. He takes on the elitists.
With a mix of bemusement, condescension and occasional disgust, outside observers remarked on the treasure trove of fine art that would be far away from the country’s major metropolitan areas. Even when the concept received a nice pat on the head (“After all, people in the middle of the country should get to see some good art too,” Rebecca Solnit wrote for the Nation), there was an underlying sense that this great cultural resource somehow doesn’t belong here — that it is being wasted on hicks who won’t appreciate it and therefore don’t deserve it.But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Crystal Bridges resides in the region that has come to define American culture, and the South is exactly where our nation’s most ambitious new cultural institution belongs.
... In fact, Bentonville is almost exactly the right place for a new institution dedicated to showcasing the history and range of American art, not only because it sits in a breathtaking natural setting in the middle of the country, but particularly because it is in the South.
This region has provided much of what the rest of the world thinks of as American culture. From music to literature to cuisine and other forms of artistic expression, the South has played a unique role in defining our national identity. Ask someone from another country to name “American” foods, and they will most likely begin with fried chicken and barbecue. Or ask them to name “American” music, and they will probably say jazz, blues and rock-and-roll. The short list of essential American writers always includes William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams.
To this day, Southerners experience and perpetuate their culture in ways that most of us take for granted, because it is a part of our day-to-day existence. We are surrounded by it, actually. But we don’t often recognize it for what it is.
New York and California are where art goes to be feted and marketed. In the South, it is simply part of who we are.
Speaking of...
-
Pink snails in Bentonville
May 23, 201221c Museum Hotel's snail trail moving through in June. /more/
-
Looking for an exhaustive account of Toad Suck Daze's 'Stuck on a Truck' contest?
May 10, 2012Stuck on a Truck contestants at last weekend's Toad Suck Daze tried to win this Ford F150. /more/
-
New exhibit at CBMAA: The Hudson River School
May 4, 2012Exhibit on tour from the New-York Historical Society. /more/
-
We endorse
May 2, 2012Yes, it appears that state SEN. JOYCE ELLIOTT has missed some tax payments, a serious offense for a lawmaker, and yes, she erred in accepting an $80,000 job on the public payroll that should never have been offered to a member of the legislature, a job she has now relinquished. And yes, if this were someone else, we might be more disapproving. /more/
-
Ruling on Fisk: Share with CBMAA OK
April 24, 2012Tennessee Supreme Court has rejected an attempt to keep Fisk University from sharing its Stieglitz Collection. /more/
-
Alice for Alice?
April 10, 2012Wondering about a painting sold at auction last week in New York. /more/
-
'Cosmopolitan' Bentonville featured in Times magazine
April 2, 2012Greetings from Barcelona, where I am in transit home. I won't be back at work until Wednesday morning, but finally got access this morning to some reliable Internet service and thought I'd mention one Arkie-related item noted in my catchup. /more/
-
A good fit in Bentonville
March 27, 2012The New York Times has a super story on how Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Director Don Bacigalupi and his family have made a home in Bentonville. /more/
-
The Oxford American vs. Garden & Gun
March 19, 2012In the latest Oxford American, editor Marc Smirnoff devotes his editor's note to a 3,600-word screed against the Southern magazine Garden & Gun, which he accuses of, among many other things, "whitewashing the South." /more/
-
4 Arkansans make OA A list
February 29, 2012In its "100 Under 100" list of Southern superstar artists. /more/
- More »
Comments (24)
Showing 1-24 of 24
This Science Saturday dialogue between John Horgan and David Rothenberg titled "The Impractical Beauty of Nature" is a great companion to the recent opening of Crystal Bridges. The topics are:
*David’s new book, “Survival of the Beautiful”
*What biologists won’t tell you about songbirds
*The evolution of human aesthetics
*Getting into the mind of a cave painter
*Can science explain art?
*Is science a religion?
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/39823
I went to town early this AM to pick up something. One of the vehicles outside the greasy spoon on the square had a bumper sticker depicting the confederate battle flag and said "Fighting terror since 1861"
Sigh!
For some, the totality of southern culture is picking a fight, getting your ass kicked, then spending the next 150 years whining about it. Alice's gift is proof and a reminder that there is so much more. Sabin is right about the literature and the music, but the cuisine as dished out today is slowly killing us.
like
dislike
Great article by Warwick! LR is just a few hours away as a number of other cities in the central region of the US. There will be people from these areas that can easily drive up and spend the day visiting this beautiful museum. If they chose to stay overnight, have a meal etc., they still are getting cultural exposure at a bargain price compared to trying to go NY or LA. And it will bring tourists from further away just as the Clinton Presidential Center has--it celebrated it 2 millionth visitor earlier this year. Some of those elite New Yorkers, Bostonians, etc. need to get it out of their heads that there is no culture and no one to appreciate culture outside of their cities.
Funny outlier! It's been a few years since I cruised Berryville. I don't recall them having a statue of The Confederate Soldier like Bentonville has in the center of town.
In fact, I cannot recall if my hometown, Hot Springs, still has that Confederate Soldier standing at the intersection of Central and Quachita or not?
Maybe things have morphed. Perhaps those are just patriot soldiers now. But, Southerners never really embraced Desmond Morris.
Sabin, my art is never vetted.
This may interest you outlier. Jim Webb calls them "Scots-Irish" (See " Born Fighting") but actually the fighting mad, carry-the-grudge folks are more accurately called "borderers," and their seed is found in a significant number of Southern offspring.
http://dissidentvoice.org/Jan05/Bageant012…
Does anyone besides me recall pundit Dorothy Killgalen's remarks on Win Rockefeller's art mobile that toured the state? Same vein of elitism from those folks who think they are the cream of class.
Y'all stop with the coastal elitist bull shit. Having lived all over, I can tell you that the chips on middle "real" american shoulders are just as big as the snobbery you accuse the coastal "elites" (whoever and whatever that is) of having.
Now, Norma! I'm still waiting for that book title!
eL, thanks for the Bageant (RIP) link. Got stuff to do right now, but I will give it a serious read later this evening.
I guess Sabin really is running for office, judging from that rancid piece of special pleading. He is no better and no worse--which is to say, he's a shithead--than any East Coast elitist he may decry. I suppose I now understand why those music issues have been getting worse and worse.
Myself, I figure Bentonville is as good a place as any for a museum. It's the cruel and venal way the Walton family made the money to build it that sickens me.
Good on Warwick! But this just in: not only don't they have Elvis on Velvet at Crystal Bridges, the planned "paint by number" wing was cut from the original plans. There's nothing friggin sacred anymore. Elvis on Velvet and paint by number are significant parts of the rich cultural fabric of the South. No true representation can be complete without them.
Perhaps the Occupy Bentonville group will add this to their list of complaints. It's time to speak up. Where's my sign?
Indeed Mrs Frankweiler, "Albion's Seed" is a good read, haven't finished it but highly recommend.
Even DaVinci had his patrons and built war machines....But who will build peace? The Medici advanced a fella who shaped his version of David, but who will respond in today's mindset to realize a different beat to a drummer of character? What State reflects and refracts light in a way where the common and uncommon men and women can run the race they were intended to run? Are these a United States or do they remain confederated? Show me the design if you can?
I lived in Bentonville for 30 years, and, believe me, despite the Confderate soldier on the square, it is not the South. It was one of the first schools in the state to desegregate the schools (one year after Fayetteville), and was really a hotbed of liberalism, comparatively speaking. Congressman Clyde Ellis, the FDR Democrat, was from there. His successor, Jimmy Trimble, also a liberal, was from Berryville. It was not until all the Midwesterners and Yankees started moving in that Bentonville became Republican. The Wal-Mart corporate ethic no doubt contributed to that.
It is truly sad to see the hate-filled comments on all sides of not just this issue, but seemingly every issue that arises. Are any of the posters capable of rational thought? I fear the good days of our country and of civility are gone
rrr, where's the hate? I just reviewed all the comments and did not find one iota of hate in any of them.
eL, just finished Bageant's piece. Man is he good with words. I also learned what a wampus cat is---wiki tells us. This phrase is key in understanding the folks he writes about: "ever malleable by the swells".
This speech by Tim Wise, "The Pathology of White Privilege" is also enlightening. He touches on some of the same themes as Bageant. Not only is white privilege bad for brown skinned folks, it's bad for those of us who are melanin challenged.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2mjvFNOwmc…
Rock on Warwick. Shove it in and break it off. Ya'll can run the Waltons in the dirt all you want to, but I for one am thankful for them and all they brought to our state. This museum will pay benefits for generations... long after all their clan is dead and gone.
She my be a drunk, but by God, she damn sure did something good for our state and the future generations. I'm uneducated for the most part, and about everyone on here is way smarter than me, so I'm sure there is some part to this puzzle I'm missing... but still, I'd be damned if any wealthy yankee would come down here and make an investment like that.. and even if they did... some would probably bitch about that too.
And for all you Walton bashers that hate charter schools... let me reiterate my challenge to you once again... sign up as a substitute in the Little Rock public schools for two weeks, then come out and tell me that desegregation has resulted in progress. Put your time where your mouth is and do it... until you do, all you say about that subject is drivel.
Warwick Sabin is not one to be evaluating what "art" is! Have you seen the "art" in Oxford American? All this is just to heighten his invisibility to run for office. That's all. He's no art critic or commentor. Just review his publication...you'll see all the art that isn't there.
"Crystal Bridges resides in the region that has come to define American culture, and the South is exactly where our nation’s most ambitious new cultural institution belongs... "This region has provided much of what the rest of the world thinks of as American culture. From music to literature to cuisine and other forms of artistic expression, the South has played a unique role in defining our national identity."
Bible Belt and Heartland snobbery in lieu of Coastal snobbery. Progress is being made ;-) There is no place or region that defines "American culture".
Does anyone know why the Name "Crystal Bridges" was selected. Was it somehow related to the 1980/90's Crystal Bridge built at Myriad Gardens in Oklahoma City?
Hilarious: Forbes magazine on "How Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Exposes The Foolishness Of Occupy Wall Street".
http://www.forbes.com/sites/abigailesman/2011/11/14/how-alice-waltons-crystal-bridges-exposes-the-foolishness-o-occupy-wall-street/
I guess the splendor of Versailles already exposed the foolishness of the French Revolution. Nothing new.
"The Seven Signs of Southernness" are: 1) Timeweaving--The South is the ONLY part of America that does not wholesale accept that moving forward is progress, we take the best of the past into the future; 2) Family--Folks all over the world love their family, but we've got more of it, more multi-generations living together; we get together and make things like quilts, barns and top-notch art museums; 3) Heritage--The South is much more richly diverse in cultures; if The South were a separate country it would be the 6th largest Jewish country in the world, 1 of 5 Southerners is of African descent, large populations of Native Americans still live in The South, compare this to Maine which is 97.5% white even after 200 years, or other non-Southern states, The South has three centuries of diversity learning how to live and work together; 4) Hospitality--unsurpassed in the U.S. still today, the last bastion of manners; 5) Closeness to Nature--better climate, rooted in the Southland, The South was "green" before green was cool; 6) Passion--ALL the great American music is from The South: country, rock, jazz, blues (rap which is a form of blues), we are a people of great exhuberance; and, 7) Pleasure--The South did not Puritans, praise the Lord, and we embrace a joy for living. (Alice Walton is illustrating all "The Seven Signs of Southernness" in her gift of Crystal Bridges to America and the world. Outsider critics can kiss Crystal Bridges glass.) Ben South at Southernness
I'll never forget having Thanksgiving dinner with some friends at their Park Avenue home. Another guest at the table, hearing that my roots were in Arkansas, commented (and I could almost hear her 'bless your heart' in there somewhere), "How are things out in the country?" Hilarious. I have to agree, there is very little southern about Bentonville and I have long ago lost my own southern-ness - so it is fun to read and enjoy this commentary. And I can't wait to see Alice's collection. Although the next generation of the Walton family sure don't seem to live up to their dad, I'm glad to see that a little of his money is doing something beautiful.
More by Author
-
Surgeon general strikes deal on disturbance charges
One charge has been dismissed and two others have been passed, with dismissal expected in six months, in the disturbance case against Surgeon General Joe Thompson, arrested by Little Rock police at his Hillcrest home March 31.
- May 24, 2012
-
Who's occupying what in Little Rock?
An Occupy Little Rock protester got a ticket yesterday for obstructing traffic by inadvertently leaving the sidewalk during a protest march to City Hall . Robert Johnston is quick to highlight the irony in news photographs of the event in a letter to Mayor Mark Stodola, City Manager Bruce Moore and Police Chief Stuart Thomas: The photo on the front page oif the AR Section of the DemGaz says a lot about the City's Perverted Priorities: The photo captures a cop writing a ticket for 'obstructing the street' to a 40ish Occupy Little Rock demonstrator carrying a US flag.
- May 1, 2012
- More »
Event Calendar
-
Re: Yarnell's scooping again; reveals flavor list
I couldn't agree more! But the flavor I love the most is Death by Chocolate!…
- on May 25, 2012
-
Re: Riverfest eve open line UPDATE
I think about this print stuff a lot and believe I see the future though…
- on May 25, 2012
-
Re: Riverfest eve open line UPDATE
It is indeed sad to see the Times-Picayune in such a reduced state. The depressing…
- on May 25, 2012
Top Commenters
Blogroll
Slideshows
-
Police close the Occupy Little Rock camp, perhaps the last Occupy encampment on public land.
Site Index
News
Cover Story / Arkansas Reporter / The Week That Was / Smart Talk / The Insider / The Observer / Editorial / Max Brantley / Ernest Dumas / Gene Lyons / Bob Lancaster / Words / Guest Writer / Letters
Entertainment
A&E Feature / To-Do List / In Brief / Movie Reviews / Music Reviews / Theater Reviews / A&E News / Art Notes / Graham Gordy / Books / Media / Dining Reviews / Dining Guide / What's Cookin' / Calendar / The Televisionist / Movie Listings / Gallery Listings
This Week's Cover
Quick Links
Special Publications
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
