I spent a chunk of my morning today with Kindergarten Theta. As a part of their Social Studies studies they interview members of the Saint David's professional community to gain a sense of exactly what it is they do on a daily basis. It's only through the questions of a five year old that one struggles to explain just what it is one actually does. My favorite question: What number headmaster are you? My answer, number five, led to a series of follow-ups from the boys that would have made any self-respecting New York Times investigative journalist proud. I think my answers were well-received and accepted as, at a minimum, plausible. Thank you K-Theta.
Yesterday evening, independent scholar and critic Michelle Marder Kamhi ( www.mmkamhi.com ), co-editor with husband Louis Torres of Aristos , an online review of arts; author of Who Says That's Art? A Commonsense View of the Visual Arts ; and grandmother of two Saint David's boys, gave a thought provoking talk on art for our grandparent community. An advocate of objective standards in arts scholarship and criticism, Ms. Kamhi focused her talk on the ways in which art critics such as Clement Greenberg promoted the shift from representational art to abstraction. Kamhi argues that the abstract and post-modern art prevalent today, which often requires explanation by docents in order to be understood, goes against art's purpose. Taking issue with Greenberg's contention that representation is an expendable convention of painting, she quoted the late art critic John Canaday: "Art is the tangible expression of the intangible values that men live by." ...
Comments
Post a Comment