hmm, don’t agree.
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After my piece on Jane Hammond’s Fallen ran in the Daily, my editors asked me if I thought that the memorial, or my piece about it, should mention the Iraqi civilians killed in the war. Though I find it nothing short of horrifying that probably more than 114,212 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the American invasion, my answer to that question is no. When considering a work of art, I believe the critic has a responsibility to accept the piece on its own terms. This means experiencing, judging, and thinking about the process and the product before me—figuring out what works about it, what doesn’t, and why. A good reviewer enters an artwork and crawls around inside it; a bad one stands outside and says, “I would have done it this way.” Unless I see what I consider a glaring omission—and in the case of Fallen, I don’t think there is one—it’s not my place to tell the artist what she should or shouldn’t include. More here.
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my letter to the editors:
‘When considering a work of art, I believe the critic has a responsibility to accept the piece on its own terms. This means experiencing, judging, and thinking about the process and the product before me—figuring out what works about it, what doesn’t, and why. A good reviewer enters an artwork and crawls around inside it; a bad one stands outside and says, “I would have done it this way.” Unless I see what I consider an glaring omission—and in the case of Fallen, I don’t think there is one—it’s not my place to tell the artist what she should or shouldn’t include.’
that’s such a cop-out. by those standards, all reviewers of art are bad unless they’re in love with the work they’re reviewing. steinhauer can explain why she doesn’t agree with the inclusion of iraqi casualties (which are more than the number she chooses to quote – always a sticky issue when the dead are “others” and their deaths our fault) but she doesn’t delve into why that is not a glaring omission – except by comparing the artwork to maya lin’s memorial and making the judgment: ‘For some of us, it’s easier to care about dead Iraqis than dead American soldiers. I understand this impulse.’
for v few of us actually. for the vast majority of us, it’s ok to “support our troops” and be “patriotic” rather than talk about the difficult subject of what exactly it is that the troops are doing overseas.
yes, any loss of life is regrettable, a tragedy, but u.s. soldiers get the option of signing up for military combat whereas invaded/occupied people don’t. war in the 21st century is very much about well-equipped, trained armies fighting, harassing and torturing civilians. memorials that don’t tell the whole story help perpetuate national myths forever.
joseph nechvatal said it best: “my deep feeling is that today art must indict, or at the very least, play the role of the jester who unmasks the unspeakable lies of the powerful. americans have been deceived and victimized by our government’s propaganda, and if art cannot rebuff and contest this grave situation by fueling the political will and imagination of resistance, I wonder why we need it at all.”
