Contemporary Art

4 December 2007

Howl in an Era that Fears Indecency

Mention of the beat generation hardly ever comes to pass without the name of Allen Ginsberg following the term closely . In 1958 , the proponent of beat poetry and the beat movement wrote a poem to Carl Solomon regarding what is mostly his freewheling , unedited observation and version of America , in the controversial Howl , starting with the famous or infamous lines which go I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness , starving hysterical naked ' It was a poem that

begged to be read aloud , and Ginsberg did so in various gatherings , among them on 1966 in Washington Square

The poem was banned from reaching the airwaves and the rest of the general public by way of media during its era because of the apparent obscenity and offensive as well as seemingly unpatriotic language which runs through the extent of the poem

Today , Ginsberg 's Howl echoes not only in the mind of individuals reading it , or in schools and universities , but on the internet as well The ocassion was called out in commemoration and celebration of the 50th anniversary when the supreme court decided not to completely ban the poem from reaching the general public , deciding that despite the use of obscene language , and critics referring to the piece as a 'direct attack on american society ' it was nevertheless an piece of art which was dubbed to have had 'redeeming qualities

The Federal Communications Commission is incapable of regulating content in avenues such as the internet , satellite programming and cable television , which is why the airing of Ginsberg 's voice intoning Howl escaped censorhip

But this much is to be expected if one person expects to see and hear art for what it truly is , detailed , spontaneous , sometimes offensive sometimes not , and evocative of the spirit of one century or reality at the very least as opposed to vague interpretations peppered with insufferable euphemisms that beat around the bush , which for the most part , was never what art is and has been about

Lines , Shapes and Subjects , Lost and Found , that link the Centuries

An exhibit at the Morgan and Library Museum displays the work of four contemporary artists alongside their choice of resident art pieces in the museum 's collection . It was an exhibit which called for a comparison between works of old and new paintings , drawings and art pieces , of artists long deceased and contemporary artists alive today Unfortunately this did not fare well for the part of the living artists

The works of Goerg Baselitz , Ellsworth Kelly , Guiseppe Pe , and Dorothea Rockburne falls short of expectations and more cedes to looking amateurish by paling in comparison to classic pieces and old-age methods employed by the likes of Cezanne , Jose de Ribera , Parmiginiano , Klimt and so on

But the aim of the exhibit was never to belittle and disparage contemporary art and its artists , but rather to present the differences in these drawings , and the methods...