It’s the latest strategic move from the State Department: smART Power. A two-year, $1 million pilot program, smART Power will field a different kind of American “diplomat” — a cadre of élite artists. Their mission: to use visual arts as a medium for winning the hearts and minds of foreign populations all over the globe. The impetus for this initiative comes right from the top. It’s part of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s new approach to U.S. foreign policy, what she dubs “smart power.”
State’s cultural-diplomacy programs have grown rapidly over the last ten years — and so has the funding. The ante has been upped steadily by $1 million per year.
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Cultural diplomacy is, of course, a good thing. So, too, is winning minds and hearts over to the American ideals of democracy, individual rights, and free-market enterprise. Such ideals are woven into the very fabric of our lives as Americans. We identify with them, and they make us proud. And the more the rest of the world recognizes their universality, the more secure and prosperous all of us will be.
It is doubtful, however, that the typical American would identify with any of State’s select 15 artists, nine of whom live and work in New York City and most of whom were molded at art-establishment meccas such as Yale, Pratt, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with the Big Apple or these big-name schools. But just how representative of America, and American art, can such an insular, homogenous group of artists be?
It was the Bronx Museum of the Arts that was given the authority by State to select these lucky 15 from more than 900 applicants. Entrusting such a diplomatically delicate choice to this edgy establishment is a puzzling choice. The museum’s reputation, according to New York magazine, is “based primarily on provocative shows of contemporary [i.e., postmodern] art.” Indeed, one of its past exhibits on police violence drew sharp criticism from Mayor Rudy Giuliani and law-enforcement organizations. Perhaps a more neutral and accountable organization like the National Endowment for the Arts would have been a better choice.
For her part, Holly Block, the Bronx museum’s director, called the program “a fantastic opportunity for people who are interested in pushing the boundaries of art making.” Does this mean non-postmodernists need not have applied?
But that isn’t all. According to the museum’s presentation, the point of smART Power will be to address such issues as “women’s empowerment, the environment, health, education, and civic engagement.” This all may be fine and good, but it’s not clear just what kind of message our brave artists are intent on conveying. As cultural diplomats, are they purveyors of principles, or of policies? Any tilt toward the latter would likely be political — which would contradict the smART Power premise of “engagement on a neutral platform,” in the words of Maura Pally, a senior official in State’s Educational and Cultural Affairs bureau, the entity responsible for this program.
If the smART Power 15 intend to promote principles, just what will those be? Their artistic and ideological orientations, one suspects, veer off somewhere in the direction of postmodernism and utopianism. It would be helpful to hear these, our future cultural envoys, answer the very important question, “Is there any objective ideal worth fighting for?”
It is important to remember that the idea of employing American artists as cultural diplomats is nothing new, and it has met with success before. One shining example is “Jazz Diplomacy.” During the Cold War era, it greatly enhanced America’s appeal in global hotspots through the universal language of music. Not to mention that such musicians as Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong were strong uniting forces in their time, whose artistic contributions retain their appeal to this day.
It’s doubtful we’ll be able to say the same regarding another recent initiative from the cultural-diplomatic thinkers at State: hip-hop. Over the last several years, select contingents of American rappers, graffiti artists, and break dancers have held concerts and workshops all over the globe on the State Department’s dime. Intent on introducing youngsters abroad to U.S. culture, these artists promote “the positive nature of hip-hop and graffiti cultures and present them as healthy alternatives to drugs, violence, and delinquency.” So says State.
An obvious problem arises here: Graffiti is commonly perceived as vandalism, and hip-hop’s popular lyrical expressions are widely associated — at least in the U.S. — with violence, drug abuse, sexual license, and misogyny. The hip-hop group Native Deen, which the State Department sent on an early-Ramadan tour through Indonesia this year, has lyrics that include “Allahummah, help my people up in Palestine, who be dying, oppressed all the time.” Dominican rapper José “Reychesta” Collado has songs that accuse the police of racial discrimination; he held a sponsored workshop in Peru. The only way State’s hip-hop diplomats could represent American ideals is if those ambassadors were drawn from the margins of hip-hop culture — not from its amoral-leftist mainstream.
The smART Power 15 seem to have more in common with the hip-hop and graffiti ambassadors than with the jazz diplomats of yesteryear. That’s not to say that the artists sent by State should all be reincarnations of Norman Rockwell, Winslow Homer, or Georgia O’Keeffe. But it is worth recalling that we continue to be drawn to these classic artists because they tell us something about ourselves both as human beings and as Americans.
The artistic milieu has its own culture, one whose innovative attempts to portray meaning often break with tradition — after all, Rockwell, Homer, and O’Keeffe did just that. But if these 15 artists dispatched abroad by State are to represent us, it’s not enough for them merely to be good at what they do. As Americans, they should do honor to our commonly held values and principles. We Americans should be able to recognize ourselves in those who represent us, be it here or abroad.
This is part of State’s mission. Let us hope it delivers.
— Daniel Kettinger is a member of the Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders program. He is pursuing a graduate degree in security studies at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.
You can find the heartwarming story of State sending "Native Deen" to tour Indonesia for Ramadan here: External Link
You can find lyrics where Native Deen sings to Muslims “You're a member of this Ummah so you don't assimilate” here: External Link
Most of Native Deen’s Lyrics are innocuous – they tell us how wonderful Islam is without actually getting into the messy details of actual Islamic doctrine from the Koran and Hadith.
Look up Native Deen on You Tube and you’ll find in the related videos on the right videos set to songs by SOA “Soldiers of Allah” – songs from over a decade ago when members of that band were less sophisticated about Taqiya.
But it’s a funny thing: The State Department has a whole sub-site of pages devoted to “Islam in America” External Link . The percentage of Buddhists in the USA is similar to the percentage of Muslims; Buddhists .7%, Muslims .6% - see External Link . Yet our State department has no "Buddhist Life in America" analog to its “Muslim Life in America” pages. I’m not suggesting that there should be one. I’m wondering why our State Department treats these groups so differently. Is State endorsing Islam and not endorsing Buddhism? Search "Buddhism" or "Buddhist" and you get nothing on State's website. Search Islam and you get a whole section of pages with stories and photos.
As an individual who believes in ethical monotheism, and the American values of liberty, in God we trust, and e pluribus unim (thank you Dennis Prager), I happen to be an artist (painter) who bemoans conservatism's surrender of visual arts to the left. This article is typical in that it complains, doesn't name the true problem (doesn't discuss any of the actual art), and doesn't offer any alternative except for nostalgia for stereotypical ideas of the past (here, artists who are truly hereditary b*stards of art history).
It is agreed doubtful that the typical citizen would identify with any of these artists. The onus of this, however, is often on the citizen. Visual art is a special area of life (not unlike religion) where somehow anyone feels completely free to preach and propound on the idea -no matter what degree of engagement a person has in the idea (especially surprising when the engagement amounts to a priori disallowance!). Art (also like religion) requires a lifetime of engagement to understand (emphasis on understanding through action), of which an attempt at belief is the difficult first step. Mr. Kettinger, you write about art like it is a culture alien to you. This is apparent in your understanding of "post-modern". This term is utterly dated in visual art (rooted in a reaction to Modernist abstract painting that occurred around the 80's), and does not mean the same thing in areas such as literature or politics. Contemporary art is plural and reaches back into the past as much as it "push[es] the boundaries" into the future.
This being said, thank God that the artists came from such serious institutions. Furthermore, of course the artists came from these establishments, because they (being the people engaged in art) are the only people who cared enough to apply. It is fully agreed, however these institutions suffer from leftism and group-think.
These things, leftism at least, are hardly a problem for good art. This is because good artists are not either "purveyors of principles, or of policies", unless they are principles primarily rooted in art itself. Any art that makes its main goal to "address such issues as 'women’s empowerment, the environment, health, education, and civic engagement'” is PROPAGANDA, not art. I recommend listening to two lectures from within the last year at the eminent School of Visual Arts in New York City. Carter Ratcliff and Peter Schjeldahl, each highly prominent critics/theorists each speak to this.
Conservatives, let those who have ears to hear, or rather eyes to see, engage in the visual arts and the critical discussions around it, rather then dismissing and abandoning such an essential part of western culture.
Very well put.
I would argue though, that anti-American propaganda, masquerading as art, and under the aegis of the US State Dept. is really problematic and incredibly counter to our interests. And though a bit arch, the meat of the criticism (or maybe concern) here is understandable.
I recall it was alleged by a former White House security agent that the former first lady (Hillary) commissioned art schools from around the country to submit decorations for the national Christmas tree.
The offerings included sex toys, rude depictions of body parts and the like. As a result, our nations Christmas tree was festooned with perverse decorations of which the public was unaware while Hillary Clinton privately indulged in the delightful frisson transgressing bourgeois sensibilities under our very noses. Hillary has solicited our artistic ambassadors from the same schools that provided the Christmas decorations. I see the same childish impulse at work in Secretary of State
Clinton's decision and expect the same degree of respect to
American principles and tradition.
Given the dynamics of her marraige, this dude suspects Ms Clinton's private indulgences involved more direct applications of the submitted toys to delight her sensibilities and create some transgressive frisson...
Not unless it is done in the free market at a profit, it isn't. The old Louis Armstrong overseas concerts of the late 60's would be the model for that.
As someone with two music degrees, please allow me to state something that should be obvious: The government has absolutely NO BUSINESS WHATSOEVER throwing money at art of any kind. It's exactly like the, "venture socialism" loans to companies like Solyndra. The only beneficiaries are left-artists who have ties to the leftardists in the government agencies who ladel out the slop... which is YOUR TAX MONEY. Nobody who is actually worthy ever sees a penny.
Postmodernists are, without a single exception, a despicable gaggle of no-talent know-nothings. Name a single transformative work that a postmodernist has created. I'll wait. In case you haven't figured it out yet, you can't because there isn't one. Not a single one. Not even an exception to prove the rule.
Posmodern artists have brought only one thing to the level of art: Applying for grants.
I think it was Northrop Frye who said that a person who appreciates a certain work of art is likely to have the more interesting opinion than the person who hates it.
I've noticed how a lot of my conservative family and friends easily dismiss most modern and contemporary art as trash, with a level of conviction similar to their religious and political conviction. I think they miss out on some interesting stuff.
It is obvious to people who believe in limited government that the government has no business financially subsidizing the artistic endeavors of anyone. Political conservatives are on solid ground just sticking to that principle. To wade into a judgment on what values the 15 artists selected by the State Department should represent quickly bogs down in indefensible matters of opinion about artistic merit of particular works of particular artists. Worse, you risk advocating for art as propaganda, ie Norman Rockwell represents American Values.
Most contemporaneous artwork of every generation is junk, forgotten in one generation. Since there is no objective standard by which to judge visual art, the general societal recognition of great art only emerges slowly over time, usually on the order of generations and never absolutely. We only know because of a durable intergenerational consensus that El Greco is one of the greatest artists all time. We still don't know what the ultimate stature of Andy Warhol will be, for example. (Even less, Robert Rauschenberg.)
A government bureaucracy has no competency in deciding what constitutes good art, even if they ask the cognoscenti in contemporaneous academia. Likewise, neither do conservative political commentators.
Duly rebuked, truly summed up. Kudos for stepping outside of the idea enough to understand what is really important.
One last argument and PS to comment below, one can accept art as pivotal even when it rubs against taste. It's a given that Rauschenburg's late work, as cited below in all the depth of understanding that wikipedia and a 5 second search has to offer, is trash; his early work, however, transformed the way that artists perceived the act of art making. By definition, it goes against convention and expectation, and thus angers and offends taste, but can be appreciated by stepping back and seeing its effects.
Way to get up on your square soap box. Don't be so myopic as to not appreciate the value of hip hop as a language of empowerment and expression for global youth. Don't be so relativistic to think that the jazz diplomacy didn't have its detractors who made similar claims of the licentiousness that reefer-inspired jazz had on the wholesome mores of the day.
