Comments on: High-falutin’ talk about art and artists

By: Tam

Tam — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:41:43 +0000

I have a hard time separating the art from the artist. If I can’t agree with the artist, I can’t/won’t get into the art. It’s a huge reason I can’t ever read C.S. Lewis again. When I was young, the whole religion thing went over my head. Now that I know, I’m avoiding him/the movies like the plague. So not into that.

It took me a while to get over driving a Volkswagen once I found out they employed the people in the concentration camps… but a year into a loan was a bad time to get all holier-than-thou over a car. I’m still not completely cool with it, but I rationalize by saying my grandparents worked on the railroad, not for Volkswagen. (I know… I’m not happy either.)

By: Amanda

Amanda — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:34:29 +0000

He was actually a member of the Nazi party (or so said my 7th grade English teacher)

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:42:16 +0000

It depends on the artist’s views seeping into the art, I guess. If I disagree with an artist’s views, and find their work to be representative of their views, then I will not like THAT art.

I believe everyone has something worthwhile about them, something they can share. Sometimes it’s what they don’t share that contributes to the world more so than anything they did. Every action and non-action shapes the world around us, evolving it. What we share as a common experience is actually a separate reality for each one of us. You don;t like pie, I like pie. We’re both correct in respect to our own realities. If pies can make realities, then why not art?

By: Jodi

Jodi — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:20:28 +0000

Rgjabs, according to the WaPo he was an unabashed and unapologetic anti-Semite. So not a Nazi per se, but not a fan of the Jews.

By: Peabo

Peabo — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:53:46 +0000

I thought we agreed on ‘Cilantro’ for Amanda? Maybe that was just me.

Good thing I left early–I love Woody Allen. And Roman Polanski, for that matter. Matters not to me who they sleep with.

I won’t buy James Frey, and I won’t watch any of Michael Moore’s business because of a comment he made at an award show after 9/11. I won’t see a movie that has Lindsay Lohan in it, and when John Meyer comes on the radio I change the station because of his treatment of a high school student council and their prom before he was mr. big shot.

So, for me it’s a matter of quality. If the art is good, the artist doesn’t matter so much to me. But, if the art is flimsy enough that it can’t capture me on its own and all of the other crap about who the artists are and what they say infiltrates my thoughts, well, then it’s probably not interesting enough for me.

For some reason I have no problem with Roald Dahl being a Nazi (also news)….which is a little strange……