Comments

1
he said he was sorry. sort of:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/arts/…
2
Gosh, will UW also have to stop playing music by artists who have ever made inappropriate sexual comments? The student radio station's library will probably have to be weeded quite a bit...
3
At some point we will have start talking about what level of accusation (whispered, alleged, well documented, proven in court) and what level of severity (language, behavior, assault) necessitate what level of response (ostracization, boycott, public repudiation, legal action). I'm still not sure if what NPR did with Garrison Keillor was appropriate or not, though it sounds like evidence is starting to come out that it was a lot more than "bare back touch." Seems like some artists should be driven from sight but some should be allowed to learn from their mistakes and perhaps still stay in the public discourse.
4
Its a Catholic school, if they didn’t take action liberals would be all over it for promoting “sexual abuse”. Besides we all know that all art by “accused” persons must be burned and buried as your #metoo movement overlords command! Refusal will result in physical castrations on top of your already imposed psychological ones. “Obey The Pink Hat”!
5
I think The Stranger should go to the urban womens shelters to see how many of the “thousands” that attended last weeks march 2.0 stopped by either before of after the march to donate funds or supplies to their needs. I’ll even help with the list. Im sure a majority of those pink hats helped their own while taking the time to scream the betterment.

http://ccsww.org/get-help/shelter-homele…

http://www.marysplaceseattle.org

http://ccsww.org/get-help/shelter-homele…

https://www.homelessshelterdirectory.org…

6
This is the Lefts version of burning the books. And this whole time Christians were depicted as the only ones claiming moral superemacy.

Christians lost the market on morality and lefties are more than happy to fill it with their dogma. Hope everyone enjoys this slow erosion.
7
What’s even more insane is he was accused. Not found guilty of a crime in a court of law.
10
#8 it’s not just a piece of art. It much more important. It’s his livelihood.

Are you telling me that we shouldn’t make sure he’s guilty of a criminal offense before we take away a persons means to feed and house their self?
13
@12- what a fucking stupid analogy.
15
I worked through an analogous situation in my own head back when I first realized that I was becoming deeply moved and involved in the work of Richard Wagner (whose work, I might add, has been a big part of the Seattle Opera's repertoire for several decades). I've spent years and years exploring his operas, especially the Ring cycle, but also his other works. They are enormously deep and complex works, which reward repeated listening, reading, watching, and attending. I'm still finding new things they say to me.

But I cannot avoid Wagner's history. The man was a notorious anti-Semite. I've read his Jewishness in Music and it's appalling stuff. And that anti-Semitism is right there in his music, in Alberich and Mime, in Beckmesser, in Kundry. And I am very well aware of the uses that the Nazis put his work to, and how his daughter-in-law, Winifred Wagner, was an enthusiastic Nazi and friend of Adolf Hitler, and how Hitler himself was a devotee.

Here's the thing: Wagner's work is undeniable genius, even if it is tainted by evil. The man himself was complex: A prolific writer. A poet. A socialist. A myth maker. A man who cast aside his first wife. A man who saw deeply into the human condition. An anti-Semite of the first order. A composer of the finest calibre. A genius. A moral bankrupt who stole his best friend's wife. In sum: a human being, but one who scaled the heights and plumbed the depths like few of us ever do.

So what do I do with his work? I cannot deny that it moves me. His Wotan is one of the few characters I have every met in any artform who can consistently move me to tears. And this was the creation of an appalling man. But if I had never discovered his work, I would not be who I am today. And what he has provoked and awakened in me, I deeply believe has made me a better man.

This is what the best art does. Long after the death of the artist, it outgrows him or her and takes on a life of its own. I understand why his work is not performed in Israel. But some of his finest modern conductors, including Daniel Baranboim and James Levine (a man with his own clouded history) have been Jewish.

Human beings, especially artists, are not perfect. They are not even perfectible. This is not to excuse their actions, for which the artist must be held responsible. But to delete the work? Art has value far beyond the virtues or vices of the artist, which die with him or her. Ars longa, vita brevis.

I am not qualified to judge if Chuck Close is in Wagner's category, or even close to it. But I strongly object to this act of censorship.
16
This feels too far for me. Close has been one of my favorite artists for a long time now. Whatever he maybe did or didn't do, doesn't change his work for me in the slightest. So he's a dirty old man with impure thoughts. So what, everyone goes Mask Off at a certain point in life.
17
@12 it turns out it's completely legal to call black people nigger.

In fact, nearly 100% of my favorite artists do so in a regular basis
18
@17

And are these all white artists?
19
the fact you can't find Louis CK on Netflix anymore may be worse.

and i'll take that tainted Close off of SU's hands...
21
He made "Vulgar comments", of course he should be unpersoned and his art should be taken down and probably all mentions of him in art history books and art classes and so on removed. Really, this totally invalidates his art and makes it meaningless and worthless.
24
@22 this makes perfect sense if you don't have an imagination and can't recognize symbols.
26
@25 You sound, quite literally, retarded. You just argued against your own argument. It's clear you see this act a "symbolic punishment", in defense of your thread saying ~"this isn't a punishment so there is no reason to think about what this means".

Pick one, or get the fuck outta here with your medieval mindset. In the 2000 we assume the rational thought is more valid than emotional reasoning.

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