DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Cecile Cooper newspaper clippings, 1966-1987 | ""Estes says funding for arts in '85 will be critical"" Page 2

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Cecile Cooper newspaper clippings, 1966-1987

""Estes says funding for arts in '85 will be critical"" Page 2

ROBERT HOBBS
Director, University of Iowa Museum of Art.

Gates have been loosened for today's artists
The most important trend in the visual arts today is that there is no single trend, according to Robert Hobbs, director of the University of Iowa Museum of Art.
"From the 19th century up until the 1970s, artists felt that art was proceding in a linear fashion, that they were seeking out the essence of art," Hobbs said. "In the '70s, they stopped looking for an essence. They realized that the whole essence process seemed very logical and very rational. At a certain point the artists said, "Hey, if we are mandated to be modern, then we have no freedom. And art is about freedom. Individual freedom.'
"And suddenly the gates were loose and they could do anything and everything. So you find paintings that look like 1910, like the 1890s, paintings looking like three centuries ago. It's a very fecund period right now."
Yet Hobbs says that the continuum of important trends in visual art today can be epitomized by two German artists who work at opposite ends of the spectrum - Anselm Kiefer and Sigmar Polke. Kiefer works in "heroic, grand, metaphysical painting, paintings that can deal with the most profound human emotion and ideas," Hobbs said. Kiefer's work, which deals essentially with post World War II German guilt, uses "Wagnerian ideas and photographs of tanks and World War II bunkers." 
Polke, on the other hand, feels that art does not deal with true feeling, but conventions of feeling. He is a deconstructionist who "creates paintings but breaks them apart at the same time," by playing with every possible convention, according to Hobbs. 
Hobbs says that to appreciate all these current forms of art - from Kiefer's belief in expressionism to Polke's distrust of artistic conventions - people must learn to look at art, not as mere decoration, but as a powerful communicator of ideas and feelings.
"We've gone through a period of 27 years where all meaning has been bleached out of art so that we now look at art as decoration," he said. "But art is much more than a pretty picture on a wall and it's time we all realized that. As long as it's thought of as decoration, both it and artists can be manipulated. They can be used by liberals, by reactionaries, by whomever for everything because it means anything and everything and ultimately nothing.
"I'm going to put up in the next month outside the museum that 'We exhibit ideas, not objects.'" 

"Ideas for 1985: arts..." 
P.C
ca. 1984
p. 2(of 2)

ROBERT HEDLEY
Chairman, University of Iowa Department of Theater Arts.
Acting skill has destroyed the avant-garde
Acting skill has killed the avant-garde in American theater, says Robert Hedley, chairman of the University of Iowa department of theater arts.
"I don't think the American actor has ever been trained better than now," he said.
"People are enormously well-trained. So what does that mean? It means there is no American avant-garde. It doesn't exist."
Hedley defines the avant-garde as "anything which is new, innovative and sufficiently different from traditional theater." 
"I'm not talking about something which is peculiar or odd. It is simply what is newest and most innovative," he said. 
"And everybody is so overwhelmed by this traditional theater. There is no movement in a new direction." Acting skill, Hedley says, "automatically creates a demand for product that can use that skill." And the avant-garde, he says, is normally not skilled.
"It is amateurish. Usually people just sort of get together and they put on something...The avant garde comes out of chaos. It doesn't come out of careful planning. It's also something that normally doesn't pay very well." 
Hedley adds that the mood of the times also has a great effect on the new ideas, or lack thereof, in theater.
"The Vietnam War made the idea of being a waitress and an actor on the side patriotic in a certain way. You didn't mind it because there was this larger good you were doing. So there was an awful lot of street theater, there was an awful lot of political theater."
Yet, Hedley says, we are entering "more and more conservative times" that do not suit the development of the avant-garde particularly well.
"More people are worried about their personal welfare and there isn't this external event," he said. "If I had to predict where the theater was going, I would say more and more we're going to have a disenchantment with this thoroughly trained person who is not a thinker, who is simply a doer or a repeater."
Yet Hedley says he still has hope for new ideas.
He say the answer lies not in abandoning skill, but "placing more importance on what you're saying than how you're saying it." 
"You can't let skill or craft dominate. Ideas have to dominate. There's got to be more and more exciting things rather than just a concentration on redoing Broadway or redoing New York extremely well."

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ROBERT HOBBS Director, University of Iowa Museum of Art. Gates have been loosened for today's artists The most important trend in the visual arts today is that there is no single trend, according to Robert Hobbs, director of the University of Iowa Museum of Art. "From the 19th century up until the 1970s, artists felt that art was proceding in a linear fashion, that they were seeking out the essence of art," Hobbs said. "In the '70s, they stopped looking for an essence. They realized that the whole essence process seemed very logical and very rational. At a certain point the artists said, "Hey, if we are mandated to be modern, then we have no freedom. And art is about freedom. Individual freedom.' "And suddenly the gates were loose and they could do anything and everything. So you find paintings that look like 1910, like the 1890s, paintings looking like three centuries ago. It's a very fecund period right now." Yet Hobbs says that the continuum of important trends in visual art today can be epitomized by two German artists who work at opposite ends of the spectrum - Anselm Kiefer and Sigmar Polke. Kiefer works in "heroic, grand, metaphysical painting, paintings that can deal with the most profound human emotion and ideas," Hobbs said. Kiefer's work, which deals essentially with post World War II German guilt, uses "Wagnerian ideas and photographs of tanks and World War II bunkers." Polke, on the other hand, feels that art does not deal with true feeling, but conventions of feeling. He is a deconstructionist who "creates paintings but breaks them apart at the same time," by playing with every possible convention, according to Hobbs. Hobbs says that to appreciate all these current forms of art - from Kiefer's belief in expressionism to Polke's distrust of artistic conventions - people must learn to look at art, not as mere decoration, but as a powerful communicator of ideas and feelings. "We've gone through a period of 27 years where all meaning has been bleached out of art so that we now look at art as decoration," he said. "But art is much more than a pretty picture on a wall and it's time we all realized that. As long as it's thought of as decoration, both it and artists can be manipulated. They can be used by liberals, by reactionaries, by whomever for everything because it means anything and everything and ultimately nothing. "I'm going to put up in the next month outside the museum that 'We exhibit ideas, not objects.'" "Ideas for 1985: arts..." P.C ca. 1984 p. 2(of 2) ROBERT HEDLEY Chairman, University of Iowa Department of Theater Arts. Acting skill has destroyed the avant-garde Acting skill has killed the avant-garde in American theater, says Robert Hedley, chairman of the University of Iowa department of theater arts. "I don't think the American actor has ever been trained better than now," he said. "People are enormously well-trained. So what does that mean? It means there is no American avant-garde. It doesn't exist." Hedley defines the avant-garde as "anything which is new, innovative and sufficiently different from traditional theater." "I'm not talking about something which is peculiar or odd. It is simply what is newest and most innovative," he said. "And everybody is so overwhelmed by this traditional theater. There is no movement in a new direction." Acting skill, Hedley says, "automatically creates a demand for product that can use that skill." And the avant-garde, he says, is normally not skilled. "It is amateurish. Usually people just sort of get together and they put on something...The avant garde comes out of chaos. It doesn't come out of careful planning. It's also something that normally doesn't pay very well." Hedley adds that the mood of the times also has a great effect on the new ideas, or lack thereof, in theater. "The Vietnam War made the idea of being a waitress and an actor on the side patriotic in a certain way. You didn't mind it because there was this larger good you were doing. So there was an awful lot of street theater, there was an awful lot of political theater." Yet, Hedley says, we are entering "more and more conservative times" that do not suit the development of the avant-garde particularly well. "More people are worried about their personal welfare and there isn't this external event," he said. "If I had to predict where the theater was going, I would say more and more we're going to have a disenchantment with this thoroughly trained person who is not a thinker, who is simply a doer or a repeater." Yet Hedley says he still has hope for new ideas. He say the answer lies not in abandoning skill, but "placing more importance on what you're saying than how you're saying it." "You can't let skill or craft dominate. Ideas have to dominate. There's got to be more and more exciting things rather than just a concentration on redoing Broadway or redoing New York extremely well."