AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager

Saturday, July 06, 2019

From The Archives Of Franz Golder's Art World-In Defense Of Art Critic Laura Perkins

From The Archives Of Franz Golder's Art World-In Defense Of Art Critic Laura Perkins

By Eric Saint James

Despite what the general public may think the art world is a monstrously dark and dungeon-like place, a place where no quarter is given, none taken where cannibalism is the rule of the day not the exception. Not the art works or the place but the ragamuffin denizens from the starchy volunteer guides to the low-life art gallery owners who plague the markets and who drain the life’s blood out of whatever elevation of human culture even the most contrite and unworthy artist had sweated blood and tears to offer on the altar. What I can’t abide is bullying by the professional cabal from bottom to top of those who have some serious interest art, have some knowledge and who dare to give an opinion not totally in step with whoever is the arbiter of the day, usually some airhead professional art critic who is secretly “on the take,” raking in kale from the gallery owners and auctioneers.

Case in point and the reason that part of my headline read the way it does is that of art critic Laura Perkins in her seemingly never-ending battle with one Clarence Dewar, art critic, make that professional art critic for Art Today. In his erudite reasoning Mr. Dewar has cast aspersions on a series of articles that Ms. Perkins has done one pieces of art and artists who interest her. Why? Ms. Perkins does not belong to the club, is not a professional art critic and therefore should hold her tongue until Mr. Dewar or one of the brethren sends down the word from on high. The beauty of my writing of this particular bum of the month whose last important utterance occurred when he was about six months old is that I know where the bodies are buried, I know where he got his material from and I know who he sucked up to on his long road down into the dungeon. I stake my name that you will not hear peep one about me and my status from one Clarence Dewar, art critic, professional art critic for Art Today so these are all free shots.

The particular reason that I am standing here in defense of Ms. Perkins, who truth to tell I only know vaguely through my friendship with Josh Breslin, is that old Clarence has recently taken her to task for incorrectly attributing an artwork (see below) by the modern painter Franz Golder assuming that the delicate beauty and use of light could only have been done some Flemish or Dutch painter from the school of Hals or Van Brick. Maybe a mistake but hardly the end of the world since Golder admired immensely his Dutch and Flemish forebears. Dewar’s assertion that Ms. Perkins should take up crocheting rather than get jostled by the travails of art identification is belied by his own “mistake” which believe it or not caused a raucous in the art world back in the late 1960s when he was under the thumb of Clement Greenberg.

Dear Clarence He had gone on and on about some Dutch painter, frankly I forget who and how he has captured nature to perfection in his floral arrangement. The truth: it was impossible for the artist, yes, someone from the school of Van Brick now that I think about it, to have done the painting from nature since the flowers used blossomed at different times of the year. I know this will do no good, but Clarence back off or I will spill many more beans.

From The Archives Of The 2018 Poor People's Campaign

The Rise And Fall Of The Poor People’s Campaign, Circa 2018 Version

My father Bradley Fox, Senior told me last year when I heard about the stir around a renewed poor people’s campaign that trying to use an idea the second time doesn’t necessarily get you any traction, doesn’t bode any better for success that the first time not on the great social problems. All I knew before campaign started in the early spring that was what I had read in a class in college (Rochester-go Yellowjackets) about the various social movements of the 1960s and had been struck by the promise that the original poor people’s campaign had given before Doctor Martin Luther King was struck down by a vile assassin. That Doctor King had been ready to move heaven and hell to get the mass of poor people out from under with his economy recovery program and his “by the boot straps” philosophy as well as having the “clients,” the poor themselves take charge of any programs since they after all have to live with the results.

What I did not know, although maybe in the recesses of my mind I had been told this, that one Bradley Fox, Senior had been “down in the mud” in 1968 through the whole woe begotten experiences that plagued the efforts from leadership problems to rain and mud to drugs and anti-social behavior. That all despite the good intentions of most of the participants and the desperate need to get poor people the hell out of poverty the thing fizzles into the general ebb-tide of the 1960s when the great promise of the pre-Vietnam War drain suck world looked like it would lift all boats.

I went into the 2018, the 50^th anniversary iteration of the still necessary task, getting poor people out of poverty and into some personal and political power from a more generically socially conscious perspective. Certainly I was brought up in comfortable circumstance and never had worry about having a roof over my head, a way to travel, food to eat, and not having to look over my shoulder at every turn to see if somebody farther down the food chain wanted what I had and was ready to argue about the matter.

Here is what I did not know, did not know why my father was so distraught back in 1968 and had many forebodings about the 2018 version. My father had started life in “the projects” over in North Adamsville south of Boston. Had known wants I had no clue about since he rarely ever talked about it before I confronted him about his gloomy projections for the current project. When my grandfather was out of work, and that was a lot of the time since he was poorly educated and fairly ignorant the family had to tighten its collective belts quite a bit. My poor grandmother had to seriously short- change the weekly white envelopes which were in any case always chronically short to give the bill collectors enough to keep the wolves from the door. Not always successfully as periods of carless-ness, no electricity and no heat testified to. This opened a whole new world to me about my dad.

Still he cried a tear, as did I when the great promise of the early spring of 2018 looked like even in Trump times we would get a jump up on the damn poverty and homelessness turned to ashes over some of the same issues that caused the 1968 efforts to fall down, leadership squabbles, some racial antagonisms, and a fair amount of indifference by those who in 1968 would have considered themselves on board this aspect of the freedom train.

From The North Adamsville Corner Boy Archives Before They Were Corner Boys Hey Were Corner s e le na

If you can believe this back in the 1950s, maybe the 1960s too but they did a different tact on the issues politicians, ministers, priests, school administrators and above all the cops were fretting over what they saw as a dangerous trend that could have threatened the very foundations of Western Civilization. They saw, particularly among young men, teenagers and early twenties a certain alienation from the main program laid out for everybody in society (the young women, fewer of them would get the microscopic look later) and dare I say it, a certain rebellion. That rebellion exhibited in various ways from total devotion to hot rods and midnight chicken runs, endless pursuit of the perfect wave by West Coast surfers, an epidemic of armed robberies and other acts of mayhem and murder among the outlaw motorcycle crowd and a serious surliness among the Time Square hipsters and their junkie brethren.

Another manifestation of that same trend would be the sullen and maybe surly guys, mostly guys although some places had girls hanging around as eye candy who hung out on various corners of their respective towns. In the days before malls totally displaced these denizens it could have been a variety store, a drugstore, more likely a bowling alley or pizza parlor, the primo spot of primo spots. The, ah, corner boys had that same alienation and angst as those previously mentioned holy goofs except they had no dough, no money ad no way, no legal way starting out at least to make money and hence they hung and did the best they could.

But one look at this photograph of young boys who would in a few years, some of them anyway, become corner boys, read a sociologist’s juvenile delinquent nightmare and society’s too and you can prove to your own satisfaction that corner boys are made, not born.

Biden: 29%. Bernie: 23%. No one else is close. BernieSanders.com 7/5/2019 9:28 PM

BernieSanders.com<info@berniesanders.com>

7/5/2019 9:28 PM

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