Oregon has a 1 percent for art law requiring that one percent of all state construction funds be spent on art works. But that’s not enough for greedy Oregon artists, so they have proposed that Portland impose a $35 tax on every non-poverty-stricken resident over the age of 17 in the city that would be used for art. This is projected to generate $12 million a year for art.
The Antiplanner has no objection to people making art and other people buying it. I’ve purchased a variety of art pieces for my home. But what makes art so important that the government needs to tax everyone to make more?
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Some people might say, “It’s only $35 per person.” But, hey, I love trains and love to help restore old trains. For $12 million a year, I could fund a lot of rail restoration work. But just why should everyone else subsidize my hobby? If this measure passes, it will be just one more reason to anyone who actually works for a living to leave Portland.
I agree. It isn’t the relatively low $35 that burns, but the arbitrary taking of the money as a handout to politically favored groups, that, worse yet, do not deliver what could be considered a vital function in need of government (or otherwise) support.
Portlanders 18 or over who don’t qualify as low-income would simply get a bill for $35.
So this would be the beginning of an income tax in Portland?
And this what you get for your money? http://youtu.be/0XM3vWJmpfo
Welfare for starving artists. This is absurd. I don’t like a lot of what passes for art these days. Especially the modern art we put up in our cities and it’s everywhere now. What good is art and how valuable is it when it becomes ubiquitous. Does every open space need to be filled in? Sculptor Richard Cera’s work “Tilted Arch” was put up at a cost of $175,000. It was a leaning slab of rusty metal. There was a war brewing in New York over people who hated it and those accusing the haters of being cultureless. Eventually it taken down, cut up into pieces and stashed in a warehouse and so far culture hasn’t suffered it’s loss. Take that art. They recently installed a public piece at a bus stop in my town. By the way, do they mean “bus station?” I suppose they dare not speak those words since, in our culture, buses are for losers. If someone chucked a molotov cocktail into a museum of modern art, we wouldn’t miss it. Also it’s composition of non-flammable material ensures little is destroyed. Back then architecture was art, it evoked a sense of impression, you didn’t need public art, the buildings served that purpose. Today architecture has become crap. This is the headquarters of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Splc.jpg
The only poverty I see is the “poor” excuse for a building. Nice to know they spent all that money on this rather than actually alleviating poverty in the South.
The SPLC Hate Headquarters looks like what might pass as an early example of a “modern” or “green” building. Maybe from the 1980’s or 1990’s?
And most modern art, especially government commissioned type, is completely tasteless. I suspect much of this is intentional, in the never-ending PC quest to not “offend” anyone with any obvious themes. Much better to create some “sculpture” that looks like a scrap heap and then talk about the artist’s “tortured soul”.
One more reason I’m glad I left the People’s Republic of Portland.
The Soviet Union and its former satellites had so much public art. Now it’s all deteriorating. As Portland’s will after the monetary collapse.
Any examples? Pictures?
Here’s one of many.
This photo doesn’t show the deterioration. Most of the marble tiles in the plaza of this monument were scavenged by locals after the economic collapse. Now, it’s a place for local kids to party and vandalize. The Soviet Union and its satellites, in order to maintain full employment during the collapse, built thousands and thousands of monuments to communism.
Though I actually think that the Soviet’s art was on the whole, more tasteful than the garbage being installed in the Portland area (I still condemn the misapplication of funds for both sets of lunatic planners, to be clear).
But what makes art so important that the government needs to tax everyone to make more?
You “forgot” to mention it is public art. Not just art. Public art. The public wants art in public places, the public pays for public art.
Public art. Paid by taxation. Taxes pay for public art. Not hard to comprehend at all. Very easy.
Harder to understand when the public part of the argument is purposely left off.
DS
Go away and let the adults talk. You act (because you’re a lying planner) as if the public is fully aware of this joke and is cheering it on explosively.
The city of Houston abounds with public art and public galleries. All of it is funded by voluntary philanthropy. The interesting thing is that the amount of philanthropy going to fine arts in Houston is far greater than the amount spent on our three stadiums, which exist for the exclusive benefit of billionaires, and which were built via tax dollars. That speaks a great deal about the corruption in our county government. It knows that the county residents are too cynical to hand their dollars voluntarily to the sports billionaires so the county forces them to.
while at the same time rolling out the old insulting excuse, that stadiums are an exercise in economic development.
Do what San Francisco did, Giant’s threatened to leave unless they got a new stadium. City said no, ultimately they built their own stadium. When it opened on March 31, 2000, the ballpark was the first Major League ballpark built without public funds since the completion of Dodger Stadium in 1962. It’s not to say they didn’t get some handouts. They did receive a $10 million tax abatement from The City and $80 million for upgrades to the local infrastructure (including a connection to the Muni Metro). But ultimately paid for the 357 million themselves.
Welcome to the UK. Every time a government minister has another good idea, that’s more money on the tax bill.
Being able to tax is a rare privilege which the government needs to use in order to pay for things that the community needs. These days, it isn’t treated as a privilege.
I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand some people (not me) are outraged when an artist like Robert Mapplethorpe gets any taxpayer funding for any reason.
On the flipside, there are institutions like the National Gallery of Art, which get substantial taxpayer support (even though it also gets contributions from the private sector – and construction of the original building was funded by the Mellon family).
Getting to transportation projects, I believe that art has a place – though art needs to be broadly construed. Maryland’s ICC (which I have mentioned here many times), is as aesthetically pleasing of a highway as I have seen in a long time, thanks to the extensive (and expensive) landscape architecture work (funded mostly by Maryland’s toll road customers but also taxpayers) along its entire length.
Transit systems often have art installed as part of their construction. Some not so good, such as the artwork that was installed as part of the Redondo Beach station on the L.A. Green Line.
But then there’s the art that was installed along the Stockholm (Sweden) Metro Blue Line, which has rightly attracted international acclaim, and made the line more attractive to its users.
To the east of Sweden, in Finland, there’s this work of art in the middle of major motorway interchange along Highway E18 – it’s a high-voltage transmission line pylon rebuilt as art (via Google Maps).
Getting to transportation projects, I believe that art has a place – though art needs to be broadly construed. Maryland’s ICC (which I have mentioned here many times), is as aesthetically pleasing of a highway as I have seen in a long time, thanks to the extensive (and expensive) landscape architecture work (funded mostly by Maryland’s toll road customers but also taxpayers) along its entire length.
I;m a big fan of the rock garden landscaping done in freeway interchanges in the SW. Very tasteful. But ambiguous metal sculptures (like the horrible deer/child statue they were planning on Portland’s $200 million a mile light rail boondoggle) are a joke.
To the east of Sweden, in Finland, there’s this work of art in the middle of major motorway interchange along Highway E18 – it’s a high-voltage transmission line pylon rebuilt as art (via Google Maps).
I’ve written elsewhere about the requirement for some places in Europe to do something with their transmission towers. Maybe good-looking towers would help with power generation and transmission out of the American Southwest…
Nevertheless, quite a few cities around here are sprucing up their bridges, as a sort of civic statement. Not sure I care for some of them and their kitschy art, but better than a boring DOT design, surely.
DS
Regarding transmission lines, this was a pretty neat (and artistic) proposal for new transmission towers in Iceland.
I don’t believe towers using this design were ever built.
I don’t believe towers using this design were ever built.
I used a picture of these in the piece I wrote, I like them as well. Last I heard they were being studied for feasibility but not built. I’m sure the economy has something to do with it.
DS
Art is now and always has been the provenance of rulers and governments and the Church. We all know that much of the great art we enjoy from the past was brought to existence in exactly this manner through public subsidization.
While I am no fan of Modern Art, I do like public works to be beautiful, and not just functional. Setting aside money for beautification is the difference between neo-Stalinist style construction and making a beautiful built environment, as in Washington, DC.
Traditional wisdom is that “A camel is horse designed by a government committee”.
Though the Moscow Metro (rail) system was clearly a Stalinist creation, built in large part by slave labor (it was built following a decree from Joe Stalin himself), some of its features are rather attractive.
It sure is. It just proves what can be accomplished when you pilfer from society for the sake of glamourizing society.
pilfer from society for the sake of glamourizing society.
I prefer to call Joseph Stalin what he was – the most prolific mass murderer in human history.
O’Toole’s funding has close ties to Stalin.
“Art is now and always has been the provenance of rulers and governments and the Church.”
Got anything to back up this assertion? Certainly in the hundreds of thousands of years of human history, in societies without ruler or government as we know it, and certainly long before “the Church” or organized religion, there are exceptions to this generalization. But Andrew knows everything about everything.
The vast majority of art for art’s sake was created by an artist who had a patron or benefactor (or a king); for most of the past two millennia, the rich were rulers, governors, and the church. This is basic history.
It is true that basketry and pottery and some architecture was beautiful as well, but that was because an artisan spent the extra time and skill to make it nice to behold, as well as functional.
DS
Basic historical facts from Wiki: “Sculptures, cave paintings, rock paintings and petroglyphs from the Upper Paleolithic dating to roughly 40,000 years ago have been found… The oldest art objects in the world—a series of tiny, drilled snail shells about 75,000 years old—were discovered in a South African cave. Containers that may have been used to hold paints have been found dating as far back as 100,000 years…”
For the vast majority of human history, art was not connected to government.
If you have evidence that shows that cave art is art for art’s sake, all the paleontologists and archaeolgists and several other -ologists would loooooooooooooove to talk to you pronto. Don’t bother replying to me, expend your energy contacting them to share your blockbuster breakthrough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
DS
I never claimed it was “art for art’s sake,” Dan. I guess lack of reading comprehension is what kept you from finishing your master’s.
If you have evidence that shamanism was a form of coercive government akin to the Catholic Church, all the anthropologists where I actually completed my master’s would loooooooooooooove to talk to you pronto.
Now please STFU.
I never claimed it was “art for art’s sake,†Dan.
Then you’ll want to go back and re-deconstruct the argument, find out where you went wrong, and apologize to Andrew for misunderstanding what the argument was.
You also may want to refresh yourself on post-Roman Empire history to remind yourself that Andrew’s claim was correct: Art is now and always has been the provenance of rulers and governments and the Church. It is a basic fact of history. Music, oil paintings, marble sculpture, frescoes, and on and on and on. During the Roman Empire too, altho that was distorted a bit with all the wealth and division of labor going on.
Nevertheless, the initial implication and the subsequent defense of the implication that Paleolithic images are due to an artisan spen[ding] the extra time and skill to make it nice to behold, as well as functional is indeed asserting that the objects hold no function other than art, which is, of course, a breakthrough discovery that should be shared with the world.
Bluster and standard rhetoric found in some ideologies may work in some cases, but not here, son. Nope.
DS
Dan,
You must suffer from selective reading disease. Go back and re-read.
Individuals in shamanistic cultures created a great deal more art than just petroglyphs and pictographs. But your Western ethnocentrism and statist bias won’t allow you to see that.
your Western ethnocentrism and statist bias won’t allow you to see that.
*chuckle*
Thanks for needing to make up funny (as in funny haha) bullsh– to have something to say.
Like I said, if you know definitively that these pieces were art for art’s sake and not multifunctional objects, and also they were created in leisure time and not commissioned/ordered by the chieftain, lots of -ologists want to talk to you about your special knowledge and how you know this.
Bluster and standard rhetoric found in some ideologies may work in some cases, but not here, son. Nope.
DS
Nice evidence of absence fallacy, Dan. Here it is for you:
“In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence.”
Anyway, I’ve provided plenty of examples of art (although you keep moving the goal post with your demands of art for art’s sake) that were non-governmental and non-religious. That you keep changing the parameters shows you are only commenting to troll.
Nice evidence of absence fallacy, Dan…I’ve provided plenty of examples of art (although you keep moving the goal post with your demands of art for art’s sake) that were non-governmental and non-religious. That you keep changing the parameters shows you are only commenting to troll.
Now you are just blatantly making it up, flapping and thrashing about for play.
Like I said above, if you have evidence that the examples you provided are as you say, you are wasting your time here, when you should be talking to the experts, and straightening them out once and for all with your mad skillz.
But thaaaaaaaaaaaanks!!!!!!!!!!
DS
Spam queue must have eaten my last lengthy post based on well-sourced Wiki articles.
I’m not going to the trouble again of showing that there were plenty of types of indigenous art that were done for the sake of it or for free-market purposes. You can look up “Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas” on Wiki for numerous examples. You can also read about decentralized, personal “religion” of under “Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas” also on Wiki.
There are enough examples to refute that “Art is now and always has been the provenance of rulers and governments and the Church.”
You posting again without reading those and actually having a discussion shows that you’re just trolling.
Here is some very recent research, Dan. I’m not linking them because of the spam filter. You can Google the title. I’ll even provide the quotation marks so you can get an exact hit.
Art for the sake of art or at least fun? “French cave paintings suggest ancient man was first cartoonist”
“As for another one of Mark Azéma’s and Florent Rivère’s discoveries, there is one element that sets it apart from other cave animations: it turns out that the most ancient Europeans created a kind of “animation toyâ€.”
“Cave art in Spain is the oldest in Europe, new dating method shows”
“These earliest images do not represent animals, and suggest that the earliest art was non-figurative, which may have significant implications for how art evolved.””
Art for the sake of art? “World’s Oldest Cave Paintings are in Spain”
“Study authors say they could have been from modern man decorating their new digs”
“Earliest cave art was erotica, say anthropologists”
“White believes the art was likely meant to adorn the interior of a shelter for reindeer hunters. “They decorated the places where they were living, where they were doing all their daily activities,” he said.”
Don’t bother apologizing for being a d!©k. Just do me a favor and ignore me.
So we have the group that is against almost any subsidy, of any kind, ever. There’s the group that is against subsidizing art that they find unattractive and those that seem to accept art subsidies (and then there’s “cavemen did it without government,” Frank).
Interesting debate. I happen to feel that you have to pick one side or the other here. You’re either for subsidized aesthetics or not. Aesthetics is 100% subjective so you can’t say, “I’m a big fan of the rock garden landscaping … Very tasteful. But ambiguous metal sculptures… are a joke.” Many people hate cactus and love giant sculptures and might say the same about your preferences, and you’d both be wrong, or right, or whatever. I say pick a side.
Well said, bennett. Your argument, You’re either for subsidized aesthetics or not, breaks this argument down to its most basic parts. I don’t think it’s a question of rock gardens or not, but a question of publicly subsidizing art or not, as you noted. After all, one part of the country may like cactus and rocks as art, and another part may prefer a big metal sculpture.
However, I must note, in the case of the ugly Portland sculpture, the local residents were the most opposed to its construction.
On June 11th, 2012, bennett said: (and then there’s “cavemen did it without government,†Frank)
You’re distorting. My original statement was: “The Soviet Union and its former satellites had so much public art. Now it’s all deteriorating. As Portland’s will after the monetary collapse.” To be explicit, my point was that spending tax money on public art as we’re on the precipice of a currency crisis is like polishing the brass on the Titanic.
My other comments were a refutation to the ludicrous and unsupported sweeping generalization that “Art is now and always has been the provenance of rulers and governments and the Church.”
Your “cavemen” comment is evidence of either low reading comprehension and/or ADD or willful distortion as an appeal to ridicule. It ignores the art created over 20,000 years by indigenous Americans absent government. It ignores the art created over 50,000 by Australian Aborigines absent government. Both your and Andrew’s comments ooze with Western bias and ethnocentrism.
More the latter. I admit it. Just poking the bear.
I think that if we expand Andrews “government and church,” to include many of the hierarchical indigenous societies and other indigenous religious institutions (often they were one and the same) we see that art was often commissioned and/or condoned by centralized decsionmakers.
Obviously the systems of art change across cultures and time. I think your right in disagreeing with Andrew’s comment as it’s stated in an absolutist way. Maybe the statement should have been “Art has been primarily the province of the government (both western and indigenous) and religious institutions for the lest couple thousand of years.” I would say that this has changed post industrialization, as some philanthropic actors in the private sector have commissioned many substantial works.
Come on, bennett; you’re smarter than that. When Andrew referenced “the Church” he was clearly referencing the Catholic Church. The term “church” itself dates back more than a millennium to Old English, possibly longer to Greek. It is a Western term of the Christian religion. There is no way that Andrew meant to include shamanistic and other cultures. The Church, meaning the Catholic Church, ruled as a theocracy, a form of government. His statement is one of complete ethnocentrism; seems most statists write off any non-governmental, non-Western societies as irrelevant to their arguments! (Dirty anarchist heathens!)
So I have to call BS on your statement that “if we expand Andrews ‘government and church,’ to include many of the hierarchical indigenous societies and other indigenous religious institutions (often they were one and the same) we see that art was often commissioned and/or condoned by centralized decsionmakers [sic].” Andrew was referencing theocracy, not the decentralized societies that existed in the eras I referenced. Your attempt to insinuate that there were in fact “centralized decision makers” (government “chiefs”) in shamanistic groups shows a gross misunderstanding of these varied–but certainly non-Western–cultures and their social apparatus.
And how does one even begin to support the claim that in such a diversity of cultures, “art was often commissioned and/or condoned by centralized decsionmakers[sic]”? [Emphasis added.] (And please explain your use of “condoned” as it relates to this discussion. Wait. Don’t bother; it’s more BS.)
What a reach, or to use a Danism, hand-flapping!
Frank,
We’re talking past one another. I understand what Andrew was referencing and agree with your historical assessment. I used “last couple of thousand years,” on purpose. Also, it’s obvious in my statement that I don’t equate Native American governance EXACTLY to western societies governance, despite some of the similarities (apparently the similarities of Portland and the U.S.S.R are sooooo obvious. Typical double standard).
Fact is much of the art created by the indigenous cultures you allude to (but have yet to reference directly) created art for many purposes, many of which were ceremonial and religious in nature. Many were also “political” in their own right. It’s not an exact parallel to western societies but there is a collective social construction that legitimizes behaviors such as the creation of art (see: condoned).
Also, is your apparent appreciation for non-western societies just limited to art, or is there some Randian parallel to “shamanistic groups,” you’d like to enlighten me on? My guess is that your convenient claims of ethnocentric liberalism will somehow disappear when the conversation switches from art to say… natural resources, land ownership, spirituality, etc. Riiiiiight, because ethnocentric conservatism isn’t a problem… Ha!
“My guess is that your convenient claims of ethnocentric liberalism will somehow disappear when the conversation switches from art to say… natural resources, land ownership, spirituality, etc.”
Guess again. As a professional historian who has extensively studied and lived in these cultures, my job is to describe, compare/contrast, and analyze, not to judge and/or interpret according to my bias. The first step is really understanding the great diversity among pre-Columbian cultures and understanding the very different social structures between, the highly stratified whale-hunting Makah and the corn-growing matrilinial Hopi.
And again, I’m not a Randian.
So Frank why are you not tagging cars in a mall parking lot?
highwayman: You’re mentally ill. Seek treatment. Until then, read this and STFU:
Derailment (thought disorder)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In psychiatry, derailment refers to a pattern of discourse that is a sequence of unrelated or only remotely related ideas.
This thought disorder is characterized by slippage of ideas further and further from the point of a discussion. A related term is tangentiality—it refers to off-the-point, oblique or irrelevant answers given to questions.
The phrase knight’s move thinking was first used in the context of pathological thinking by the psychologist Peter McKellar in 1957, who hypothesized that schizophrenics fail to suppress divergent associations.
Name a work of art commissioned by a government in the last 20 years that you are proud of?
Enough said.
Oh, the most famous government art museum in the world commissioned its most dramatic new art in a century. They not only borrowed, but totally copied, 3000 year old art. And the world yawned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvre_Pyramid
http://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/files/import/8306-Calatrava%20Bridge%20Jerusalem%202.JPG
http://amazingdata.com/8-impressive-pieces-of-urban-art/
But I admit that I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff. Many people hate it.
I think the bridge in the first link looks suspiciously like the Sundial bridge in Redding, CA?
Regardless, most of this stuff is pretty cool and tasteful.
“I think the bridge in the first link looks suspiciously like the Sundial bridge in Redding, CA?”
Same designer.
I can’t believe you used “Redding” and “tasteful” in the same post! :p
Well, I was only referring to the Sundial bridge. Redding itself, while not a horrible town (though I hear it has a lot of meth problems), doesn’t really qualify.
The insult is forcing people to buy art. The injury comes when that ‘art’, now called ‘enhancements’, is deliberated sited in critical intersections – example the highly-congested l-15 and l-215 near the Las Vegas Strip – where it can only do one thing: distract already distracted drivers. When I put it to Nevada’s DOT, they replied “It helps wake people up!”.
I’ll say.