Miklos Legrady - Writing

^{MIKLOS LEGRADY STUDIO}

On The Art Of Offending
Miklos Legrady, November 1996

"This paper started with reading Karen Finly on the art of offending. "The fear of offending has pervaded other institutions as well...We've lost sight of what made America so innovative - we were daring, original and not afraid of offending the old guard. We have lost our inventiveness for the sake of appearances. Art cannot afford to be controversial so it resorts to the standards of a PG rating or what has already been tested. Broadway encourages safe revivals rather than risky new ventures. The artistic content of music is being changed so that they can be sold by Wal-Mart. What's next?"Karen Finley, The New York Times, Thursday November 14, 1996, p. A23

Common agreement may degenerate to mediocrity. Consider Karen Finley's comments in relation to MOMA curator Rob Storr's observation of art's move from the Cedar Tavern to the seminar. The function of a seminar within an academic environment is different from a laboratory. Creativity is a constant experiment. Experiments involve the suspension of traditional judgment in order to explore unknown factors. In a seminar, on the other hand, clarity of presentation is needed to review the finished product emerging from the laboratory. One judges and presents results, using a mind-set which integrates these in a useful context, but which cannot be experimental by it's very nature.

You can't unite polar opposites and the seminar's usurpation of experimental status, of the laboratory , did not mean that it could deliver the goods, though it may claim to. The basic problem is that the academic community has unconsciously censored the scope of experiment, the laboratory practice, to those people who will not offend - who will not question - nor rock the boat. As a result, the most innovative forms of contemporary art, such as digital and installation art, have become decorative pieces whose purpose is to promote the status quo.

Art has a meaning and a purpose within the social body. When this role is properly performed, even the uneducated awaken to an interest in the arts, it's power and value. Today the "A" word generates instant boredom, from the ghetto to Wall Street.