Ironically echoing the speculations about the death of God, Captain's Quarters asks "When Exactly did Art Die?"
He's unable to answer that question, but he is confident that he knows the cause of death:
Art has lost all vigor, as it celebrates works that become increasingly puerile and bounded by bigotry. Its obsession with Christianity as an evil presence has cost it its relevance to the modern world, and it has become nothing but a masturbatory exercise only for its own circle of mechanics.
Let's not count the mangled metaphors, but instead look to the basis of his sweeping generalizations. He refers to four or five specific pieces of art, and his criticism of at least two of them are way off base.
The latest examples are [two] entrants in the Blake Prize competition in Australia, [one of] which features a statue of the Virgin Mary in a burqa..
(I was unaware of Australia's importance in the world of art, but you can always learn something reading the Captain.)
And what does the good Captain think Mary's outfits looked like? He imagines them to be more colorful? But at that time dyes were not readily available and terribly expensive. To get any sort of a blue color Indigo was required, and had to be imported from India. Needles were actually thin bones, so complicated sewing was out of the question. As a good Jewess, her head would have been covered at all times. Sounds kind of like a Burqa to me.
Captain Ed continues with his faux outrage, describing a picture by the Roman Catholic painter, Chris Ofil
Flinging elephant dung at a picture of the Virgin Mary and surrounding the image with pictures of genitalia got NEA funding here in the US.
But Mr. Ofil is an English painter of African descent. He received no money from the NEA. None. The good Captain heard of the work when the British owned collection of paintings of which it is a part, was brought across the pond and briefly loaned to the Brooklyn Museum of Art. At that time Rudi Giuliani used the picture as a political prop to gain headlines. To actually look at the picture, to understand the role of elephant dung in much African culture, is to realize that no sacrilege is involved.
This is classic right wing propaganda- stirring up outrage with gross generalizations based on false examples and the Captain, who can on occasion be reasonable, cannot be proud of himself today.
(memeorandum)
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