THE Great Stair Hall at the Philadelphia Art Museum, reminiscent of the interior of a majestic classical temple, is presided over by a gilded, 14-foot-high sculpture of the goddess Diana, holding a bow and arrow,  originally designed by the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens as a weather vane for Madison Square Garden.

In past years at Christmastime, the stair hall was decorated with lighted Christmas trees and poinsettias.

Last year, Diana was surrounded by artificial spring flowers in pink, green and yellow. You could practically hear the curatorial committee that sat around mulling over this innovation, its most inspired members struggling to come up with something that would be as dissimilar to evergreens and red bows as possible.

This year was much farther down the merry lane of anti-Christmas.

An enormous screen was set up in front of Diana and a seven-minute film allegedly directed by Steve McQueen played in a continuous loop on the screen scenes of the Statue of Liberty from a helicopter. The deafening soundtrack of this deeply profound “work of art,” appropriately titled “Static,” consisted of the roar of chopper blades.

According to the museum’s new curator of contemporary “art,” who came to Philadelphia recently from the Barbican Museum in London, where she industriously played her role in the ongoing hoax of purveying ugly abstract art as beautiful and meaningful, the film was supposed to convey in this setting a message about “political fatigue,” (i.e., emotional meltdown over election of the Great Nazi) and, of all things, silence.

“What makes it very moving is that when those chopper blades, that kind of thunderous sound, subsides there’s this incredible serenity to the piece,” [Eleanor] Nairne said. [Source]

This frightening cacophony was about as “moving” as the sound of a machine gun and its pause did not bring serenity but anxious relief before the next bout of noise began.

McQueen shot the Statue of Liberty in 2009, just after the Obama administration reopened it to the public after having been closed since the 9/11 attacks. Because of that unspoken context, “Static” becomes a meditation on American ideals of liberty in an era of global terrorism.

It was about as meditative as punch in the nose.

The effect of this film, suggesting as it did police surveillance from the air, in this context at Christmastime, when many people visit the museum with their families, was not to calm a populace in the grip of “political fatigue,” i.e., emotional meltdown over the election of the Great Nazi, but precisely to terrorize them in the name of “art.”

But then we are well-trained by now to accept anything in the name of art, even choppers overhead and patronizingly dreary, political messages at Christmastime.

Political radicals have one thing going against them, and will always have one thing going against them: their hatred of beauty. They definitely can’t help it, which in the end is very good news.

— Comments —

Alan writes:

When reading your remarks about the Great Stair Hall but before getting to the words “the museum’s new curator”, I knew it would be a “she” — a credentialed, Liberal “she”, but of course.  What else?

The absence of Christmas trees and poinsettias denigrates the colors and symbolism of traditional celebrations of Christmas in American public buildings.

The screen represents the triumph of the NOW over the old and traditional.  There is nothing that appeals to Americans’ current dumbed-down, concrete-bound frame of mind better than screens.

The screen hides and thereby denigrates an old, legitimate work of art, but a work of art that has no element of noise or commotion and therefore requires a capacity for contemplation and esthetic judgment.  (You don’t need either of those to watch pictures on screens.)

Noise, movement, and changing scenes on the screen effectively (and purposely, we can be sure) preclude any chance for meditation.

Of course your assessment of all of that is valid.  None of it happens by chance.  It is all part of the long march through the institutions.

Laura writes:

Women have done a lot as volunteers to preserve and promote the museum over the years. Or at least they did in the past.

The most famous female curator at the Philadelphia museum was Anne d’Harnoncourt. She was the person responsible for bringing an obscene work of Marcel Duchanp’s to the museum and it remains there to this day, though it would be unfair to reduce her legacy to that. Also her father was a big promoter of modern art.

Regarding the long march through the institutions — I think they’ve only just begin.

Dianne writes:

“Political radicals have one thing going against them, and will always have one thing going against them: their hatred of beauty. They definitely can’t help it, which in the end is very good news.”

So true. Often radicalized women can barely even stand to beautify themselves.

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