Drop-Inn Center Has Its Own Artistic Vision
It's hard to know what Steve Ramos expects from the residents and supporters of the Drop-Inn Center ("A Supposed Drop-Inn Victory," issue of March 30-April 5). He seems peeved, dissatisfied. Did he want Klieg lights, a champagne party, the rain falling on Washington Square magically to change from soggy drizzle to Disney sparkle, in celebration of the news that the shelter's future is, for now, relieved of threat? If the center's reasonable request to be left alone in its hard-earned corner of the city seems to have been grudgingly granted, why is he surprised that the main response is business as usual?
The ongoing task of trying to help the homeless is hard work. There is no built-in vacation time or special budget for victory parades. Being asked to move out of the way is the common experience for those who have nothing, and a brief sigh of relief of temporary reprieve is appropriate acknowledgement.
What bothers me in the G.C.A.E.C. debate is that the artistic vision of the proponents of the new performing arts complex does not include an awareness of the Drop-Inn Center itself as an artistic vision. As artists, we are supposed to be imaginative. Those who continue to think of a homeless shelter merely as a building offering food and beds to people who have neither deprive themselves of thinking through the journey of what it is like to be truly poor. It's a difficult and disturbing exercise. I've tried it and found it almost impossible as I sit in my warm house with everything I need for comfort, nourishment and the means to conduct my business and personal life close at hand.
If you have a home, you can always be somewhere. If you don't, where to go is the first big decision of every day before anything else can be accomplished.
Making a place for people to be is a truly creative act. It's an ongoing act of communal purpose and provides the connective tissue for so many other vital human services to be established. I haven't a clue how to go about doing such selfless and necessary work and am therefore very grateful to and admiring of those who do. The glib assumption that such a place is easily replaced or moved or re-establishable somewhere else seems to me unthinking and disrespectful -- an acknowledgement of a narrow aesthetic view of what constitutes a work of art, the time and manner in which it evolves and what is its value.
I have no opinion on whether building a new arts school complex is a good idea or not, but I know that I think it is wrong to categorize and then toss aside so thoughtlessly the dedicated creative work of others in pursuit of one's own.
-- Dale Hodges, Clifton
Not Bad for Us
I enjoyed the cover story about the Mapplethorpe anniversary ("Mapplethorpe and the CAC," issue of March 30-April 5). There was an interesting sidelight that you might not have been aware of. During the fray, Al Tuchfarber at the Institute for Policy Research at UC did a quick survey of a random sample of Hamilton County about the exhibition. The responses were gratifyingly positive -- 59 percent, I believe, said they might not want to go see the Mapplethorpe show but didn't have the right to prevent others. Not bad for conservative Cincinnati!
-- M.M. Logan, Cincinnati
Censorship Presents Real Danger
Steve Ramos' Arts Beat column, "The Boy Who Cried Censorship" (issue of March 23-29), was both puzzling and disappointing. I've just completed presenting a two-day, CityBeat-sponsored conference on arts censorship at the Netherland Plaza, during which I not only spoke but listened while nationally recognized authorities in this field had their say and also joined their audience in a three-hour-long, open discussion of everyone's interests, experience and concerns.
Two immediately apparent lessons were derived. One: Censorship is a serious, pervasive problem in the U.S., particularly institutionalized and individualized self-censorship, as well as anything remotely connected to children. Two: A lot of people around here have their heads in the sand and their butts in the air (even their heads up their butts) when it comes to this issue.
The fabled boy who cried "Wolf" -- with whom Ramos links me, claiming, "He's the boy who cried censorship" -- falsely alarmed his village repeatedly when no wolf actually threatened. When the wolf finally did arrive, no one believed the danger.
The situation in Cincinnati is nearly the reverse. Between instances of actual or threatened censorship and the chilling effect of self-censorship, real freedom of expression is even more precarious than it was in 1990 when the Mapplethorpe retrospective triggered the indictment of the Contemporary Arts Center (and I'm not alone in thinking so).
Cincinnati bears the despicable distinction of being the only place in the country's history in which an art museum was criminally prosecuted for the content of its exhibitions. We did here the unthinkable, at least in the eyes of the rest of the country and the world. Yet, in Cincinnati, it was almost an inevitable extension of decades of CCV, CDL, Si Leis and Charles Keating persecution, with considerable precedence in the 1940s, '30s and even the early 1900s.
But what was unthinkable in 1990 is now a good deal more thinkable, due to the example we set, as an arts critic ought to know. The imperious arrogance of the mayor of New York trying to destroy an entire museum, shutting down not only an exhibition but all exhibitions, programs, education, outreach, etc., due to personal offense taken over a single painting he never even saw let alone tried to understand, drew considerable condemnation but also was a political move to gain considerable support.
Twice last year, the Detroit Institute of Art's director moved against its own exhibitions, padlocking the doors to one and removing work from another. Recently, powerful voices called for silencing an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art because of political disagreement with its content. Where is Ramos looking while his mouth is busy insulting?
He took a couple of gratuitous personal shots at me which reflect rather more poorly on him. "While people who know Messer might take issue with his obvious eccentricities ..." was a totally unnecessary prelude to his discussion of the arts censorship conference, but may have satisfied some sophomoric, personal predilection.
As author of a column on Cincinnati's arts scene, Ramos must have encountered a number of eccentrics and otherwise extraordinary individuals; pity that he doesn't recognize that what makes them unique is also much of what makes them valuable. Also, I don't feel very eccentric.
Ramos ends by praising Michael Blankenship in countradistinction, explaining "action speaks louder than words" and "Blankenship understands that art itself keeps the censorship debate alive," denigrating not only six months of effort organizing and trying to fund a local forum on arts censorship in a city that would rather pretend the problem has gone away, but also the efforts and expertise of its participants.
Perhaps the Arts Beat columnist is uninformed, but I too am an artist, with exhibitions and publications throughout the country and internationally; some of my art is exhibited in a Main Street gallery as I write this letter.
On the other hand, While Blankenship equally values effective words; as a playwright and a columnist in CityBeat, I'm sure he feels that words sometimes can be the loudest action.
CAC Director Charles Desmarais was confronted during the conference by a group of 18 critics, curators and others from various parts of the country and so defensively addressed his decisions regarding this 10th anniversary that he left the entire assemblage shaking their heads in awe (and expressing such later).
Although calling for just such questions to be asked of Desmarais, Ramos was not there to join in their asking, just as he was not present for any of the conference. Desmarais momentarily demurred by suggesting he may be "the boy in the bubble" on this issue (i.e., insulated from the facts), and perhaps it's a description that applies to Ramos, too.
In any event, Ramos was not alone in choosing not to attend and may be pleased to know that I am sufficiently demoralized by the paltry turn-out to be questioning the wisdom and worth of attempting anything similar in Cincinnati in the future. I've tried to kick a bunch of those butts-in-the-air resulting from so many heads-in-the-sand, but few actions and no words have much affect on assholes. So, bugger 'em.
-- William Messer, Founder, Campaign Against Censorship in the Arts
Bob's on a Different List
Possible alternatives to Bob Woodiwiss' comment about Schindler's List -- "If someone in this household is without a sense of humor, what is the cause? ... Never quite recovered from Schindler's List." ("Laughing All the Way to the Data Bank," issue of March 23-29):
1) Could have written "Never quite recovered from Roots," but didn't want to alienate CityBeat's newest demographic, African Americans, by poking fun at slavery.
2) Could have written "Never quite recovered from Dances with Wolves," but didn't want to offend any Native Americans who might not have a sense of humor about manifest destiny.
3) Could have written "Never quite recovered from the (insert historical movie about the near-complete eradication of any culture that ever existed), but was under deadline and didn't have time to research near-extinct cultures.
Reactions to the comment from fictitious people in the Tristate:
1) Tom Smitherines (Batavia): "Hey man, he was only saying it [Schindler's List] was a sad movie. No harm intended. Don't Jews have a sense of humor?"
2) Taina McChunkel (Mason): "Ah geez, I bet some paranoid Jewish guy writes a letter to the editor about this."
3) Cassandra daDozen (Lebanon): "No kidding. I mean, the Holocaust was a terrible event in history, but it was 50 years ago. Get over it."
4) John Mann O' War (Harrison): "I tell you what. I think it's about time somebody stood up for what's right in alternative journalism. I mean, just think -- after every genocide in history, there was always some brave soul who took up the charge to address the dominant culture's feelings of confusion and doubts for living in such an inconceivable and barbaric era and address it by laughing about it. It's healthy!"
5) Frank Schmuck (Avondale): "I'd like to speak up for those people who are sick and tired of this whole Holocaust thing. All these movies and all this 'never forget' propaganda. What more do they want, an official apology from the pope? Haven't those Jewish folk ever stopped to consider our feelings? How do they think we feel being constantly bombarded with reminders that the world let a Holocaust happen?"
The "Final Solution":
1) Scientific hypothesis: The Schindler's List joke was told to relieve cultural tension. This is indicative of the dominant culture's repressed need to continue attacking Western Civilization's favorite scapegoat even in a very subtle way.
2) Most-likely conclusion: The joke was purposely told to cause offended readers to write to the editor and stir up some much-needed controversy!
-- Rob Milstein (relative of a survivor on Oscar Schindler's list), Clifton Heights
