Thank you. I know a lot of people here don't know me, so I'll introduce myself. My name is Jerry Bepko.
I'm privileged and honored to be serving as interim president. It's still not loud enough, I think.
Is it getting better? No, I've got people in the left rear there who can't hear anything. I haven't
said much yet, but. How is this?
We're getting there, thank you. Maybe I should try to get as close as possible to the microphone, like
the rock singers do. As I tried to say a moment ago, many of you may not know me and I want to introduce
myself. I'm Jerry Bepko, I'm privileged to serve you in these months, in this spring term as interim
president.
of IU and I'm very happy to be here this afternoon to be a part of the group that is opening Arts Week
2003. I'm very excited about this because I think it goes to the heart of who we are and what we do
as members of a university community. We often talk about the three missions of the university. These
are first to provide the best education possible to the broadest range of learners.
Secondly, to discover new knowledge and break new ground in all fields, including the arts. And finally,
as a public university, to be actively engaged with the publics we serve. We have a clear obligation
to improve and enrich the lives of the citizens whose tax dollars and philanthropy support our enterprise.
Arts Week showcases our progress
in each of these three mission areas. And it does so in really dramatic and dynamic ways. But
most importantly, Arts Week points to what is the essential work of a great university like Indiana
University, and that is to inspire our students and our friends and our supporters. IU has long adhered
to the proposition that learning about and appreciating the arts is an essential part of becoming
a well-educated person. As David Starr Jordan, the IU president who instituted our liberal arts curriculum,
once noted, the whole of one's life must be spent in one's own company, and only the truly educated
person is good company for himself. Acquaintance with the arts not only makes us better company for
ourselves, but also for others. It makes us better citizens because it raises fresh questions
about our relationship to others and to the social and natural world. As teachers and researchers, our
job is to ask good questions and to come up with good answers whenever possible. Knowledge production
in a research university like IU is most often associated with scientific discoveries, but one need
only tour the exhibition of faculty and student art that is opening today
or attend the premier performance of an original music composition by an IU faculty member, or to grasp
an important truth about, in order to grasp an important truth about the arts. In the same way the discovery
of a new subatomic particle can alter our understanding of the world and our place in it, so can the
creation of a new novel or sculpture or piece of music.
John Kennedy in his October 1963 tribute to Robert Frost put it this way, when poetry leads, with apologies
for the gender references, when power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations.
When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his
existence.
When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truths, which must serve as
the touchstones of our judgment. Arts Week is also a wonderful example of civic engagement and partnerships
in a knowledge-based economy that places a high premium on innovation. The arts provide an essential
model for the creative process.
I'm sure many people here attended Richard Florida's lecture about the rise of the creative class, which
he identifies as the major growth sector of the economy. Like Arts Week as a whole, that lecture was
a partnership enterprise jointly sponsored by the university, local businesses, and the Bloomington
Economic Development Corporation. Thanks to work like that, which Richard Florida is doing,
we've become aware of the fact that building a 21st century economy in Indiana requires us to make use
of our cultural capital and to use it to attract this growing creative class. As a result, cultural
tourism efforts with events such as Bloomington's Loftus World Music Festival or the Indy Jazz Fest
in Indianapolis as magnets have become essential features of economic development across the state.
I've become especially focused on these thoughts since being appointed to the Indianapolis Mayor's Commission
on Cultural Tourism. The creative class has always found a home at IU. That is true in part because
IU embodies the diversity of gender, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation that Florida points to
as one of the prerequisites for creativity. We value that diversity and we're committed to nurturing it.
Another aspect of this diversity is IU's outstanding achievement in a wide variety of the arts and sciences,
from theater to creative writing to information technology. This enables the kind of fruitful
cross-pollination that is apparent, for instance, in computer-generated visual art or music. Excellence
in the arts and humanities is a bright and strong motif in the rich tapestry of IU's history.
Our grand traditions in the liberal arts promote the ideal of knowledge as an end in itself, as an experience
that ennobles our lives. As John Kennedy also said, the nation or the community which disdains the mission
of art invites the fate of Robert Frost's hired man, the fate of having nothing to look backward to
with pride and nothing to look forward to with hope.
As humanists and artists, we have a sacred trust to transmit the past to the future and to add our own
creative voices to the continuing dialogue about our shared humanity. Arts Week illustrates some of
the many ways we are doing that, and it shows how we are remaining true to that trust. It is indeed
an example of our pride in the past and our hope for the future.
But most of all, it is evidence of our ability to continue to inspire and delight one another. Before
moving on in the program, I'd like to offer my compliments and the university's gratitude to Professor
Kim Walker, who is Director of Artistic and Cultural Outreach. Thank her for her fine work on Arts Week
and thanks also to the City of Bloomington and Mayor John Fernandez for collaborating
to make this a genuine town gown enterprise. And now it's my great pleasure to introduce Sharon Brim,
our excellent chancellor of the IU Bloomington campus, whose devotion to the arts is an encouragement
to all of us. Sharon.
President Betko. It's a great pleasure to be here with all of you. And I just want President Betko to
know how very, very much we on the Bloomington campus appreciate his leadership during this crucial
transition for Indiana University. We are extremely fortunate to have such a knowledgeable, highly skilled,
dedicated, and now here's the most important characteristic for tonight, arts-loving,
interim president. So we're so glad to have you here with us tonight. There is of course plenty of art
to love throughout Indiana and in Indianapolis, but tonight it's just such a special pleasure to be
here gathered together to celebrate the arts in Bloomington both on the campus and in the community.
As we all know, the treasure trove of Bloomington art is a very large one, filled with all sorts of
precious objects and performances, constantly replenished by our active, creative, and prolific artists.
Speaking personally, the arts in Bloomington have been an enormous source of pleasure and inspiration
for me ever since I came to town in the summer of 2001.
It is a great joy to be able to support and encourage the arts here. And I am particularly impressed
by the increasing ability of the town and gown to work together on arts projects. And so I, too, I want
to join with Interim President Bebko in thanking both John Fernandez and Kim Walker for their excellent
work in promoting this collaboration.
I know that John cannot be here tonight, but I'm sure Tom Gravera will let him know that we are very
grateful for his excellent work as well on this endeavor. You do know, I hope, that if you give the
podium to a chancellor, she's likely to use it. And so tonight, in addition to welcoming all of you
to Arts Week and indicating my strong support for the arts in Bloomington, I want to announce the opening
of a major fundraising campaign for the Bloomington campus.
one that fully embodies IU's commitment to diversity as just stated by President Bebko. As many of you
know, last spring the campus went through yet another controversy about the Benton mural in Woodburn
100. I say yet another because this one was not by any means the first such controversy. In talking
with students, faculty, and staff about the mural, it became quite clear to me
then in order to make it the last such controversy, we must have more art, not less art, on the campus.
Specifically, we must have more art that recognizes, celebrates, and memorializes the multicultural
past and future and present. And we must have more multicultural artists, including students, faculty,
and visitors on our campus.
For more than half a century, Bloomington has been on the National Arts Map for many of its programs,
artists, and facilities. Now, in this new century, Bloomington also needs to establish its place on
the National Arts Map for its multicultural art and its multicultural artists. To help us achieve this
goal, the Bloomington campus, with the excellent assistance of the Indiana University Foundation,
has established the One for Diversity Fund. As I said last spring in my statement on the mural, by calling
the fund One for Diversity, we emphasize that each of us on this campus must take responsibility for
enhancing respect for and commitment to diversity. We build diversity one by one, step by step, person
by person. And starting this evening,
we will build the One for Diversity Fund contribution by contribution as individuals and organizations
join in this effort and demonstrate their support for diversity in the arts. We will begin our campaign
by focusing on the campus and the local community. The extent of our generosity will reflect our commitment
and the extent of our commitment
will influence our friends and alumni who live at a distance from Bloomington. We will want them to
join us in the One for Diversity project. But first, we must make our own dedication to this project
unmistakably clear. So far, the signs are auspicious. Even before this announcement, the fund has received
contributions from the president's office,
the Indiana University Foundation, President Bebko, Vice President Nelms, Dean Dan Dalton, and myself.
This, of course, is just to get us started. Over the next three years, we will focus on two major goals.
First, we seek a very large participation rate. It is my hope that the fund will receive contributions
from the vast majority of IUB students, IUB employees,
and those individuals in the city and surrounding counties who enjoy the artistic resources of the campus.
Each contribution, whatever the amount, is of great value because each contribution sends the message
that we, in the town, in the gown, and in the counties, are committed to diversity in the arts. Second,
we have set a campaign goal of half a million dollars.
This is an ambitious goal. It will be hard to reach. But I believe that it is within our power not only
to meet it, but to exceed it. There's a brochure about the fund that will be available in the lobby
and also we'll have some in the art museum. And I hope that you will pick up copies for yourself and
for others. The One for Diversity Fund is an incredibly important initiative for Indiana University
Bloomington.
and for our local community as well. I hope you will give it your strong support, both moral and financial,
and urge your friends and colleagues to join you. This fund gives us the opportunity to take the Benton
mural controversy and turn it into a constructive, productive, and wonderful project that will help
to create an artistically rich, inclusive community
at Indiana University Bloomington. Just think how proud we will all be when three years from today it
is announced that tens of thousands of people have contributed to the One for Diversity Fund and that
we have surpassed our stated goal. Imagine the celebration that we will have, and I look forward to
seeing you there. And now it's my great pleasure to introduce to you Tom Gravera,
Comptroller of the City of Bloomington, and as you all know, a very strong supporter of the arts in
Bloomington. Tom. Thank you Chancellor Brim for that most gracious introduction. Mayor Fernandez would
like to be here. I know he very much would like to be here.
But he did have a scheduled conflict. He is attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors. And as you know,
there are very important and pressing issues that face our communities for which the mayors across our
nation must collectively address. And so he does send his regrets for not being able to be here. And
hopefully I will be able to stand in his place adequately. As a preamble to my remarks, I would like
to relate to you a little story
This story really is something that concerns a memory that I have in a previous job. Prior to coming
to the city, I worked as a consultant for a management and technology consulting firm. Part of my job
responsibilities was to interview students who might become prospective employees of our companies,
and I traveled
across the Midwest and East Coast to several universities interviewing both graduate and undergraduate
students. One memory stands out in particular, and this was an undergraduate student whom I was interviewing
at the University of Rochester. This student was a computer science major and he was seeking a position
as a computer programmer in our company. As I looked at his resume, I also noticed that he was enrolled
in the prestigious Eastman School of Music studying piano. And I commented to him that I thought it
was a bit of an unusual combination, a computer programmer and a pianist. Well, to summarize his response
to me, which I thought was just absolutely remarkable, he said, really, the study of piano helps me
become a better programmer.
He said, to learn music and to be good in the art of music, one must have the discipline to be able
to study the basics of music. Yet at the same time, to be a good musician, one must also be creative.
Computer programming really is much like that. Our greatest advances in technology have come not just
through the rigid application of rules,
that are most often associated with computer programming, but really have come through creativity. And
I thought his answer was remarkable because he really emphasized the essence of advancement in technology.
And so I know as I left that this student, regardless of his chosen path, would be successful at whatever
he undertook, or I think he really got it.
Since Mayor Fernandez was first elected and had taken office, one of his major priorities was to improve
and enhance the quality of life for the citizens and visitors to Bloomington. I believe that our quality
of life here is largely based on a culture that is colored, textured, and flavored with an abundance
of arts and humanities that are available to us.
Over the next two weeks, Arts Week events will take place in about 25 different venues. 40% of those
venues are not on the campus, but are on locations throughout the city of Bloomington. This extraordinary
outreach and collaboration between the university and community could not be done without the support
and work of several people. I would like to thank
former President Miles Brand, current Interim President Jerry Bebko, Chancellor Bram, and especially
Professor Kim Walker for extending the hand of partnership and working with several of our community
organizations to make Arts Week the great midwinter celebration that it is. The city of Bloomington
is indeed devoted and committed
to a working collaboration with the university for cultural outreach and enhancement. And in fact, in
the next several weeks, we will be discussing before city council an appropriation that the mayor is
seeking that is close to $150,000 that will be combined with a $50,000 commitment from Indiana University
to establish a not-for-profit organization
that is dedicated and devoted to enhancing cultural tourism in our area. On behalf of Mayor Fernandez
and the City of Bloomington, I extend my greetings and welcome to all of you and encourage you to invite
a friend, invite a neighbor, to come out and visit and experience all of the wonderful things that this
university and this community has to offer.
With that, I'd like to turn it over to Kim Walker. Continue on. Well, I want to thank everyone for their
lovely compliments and their support. Really, my great pleasure is coordinating all of these marvelous
talents. When I first began this position,
I asked, what is Arts Week about? And they said, it's about the faculty. So I spoke with the faculty,
and they said, it's about the students. I spoke with the students. They said, it's about the community.
And this year, we have all of those players involved, heartily, as well as alumni. So tonight is my
great pleasure to invite a panel discussion on beauty and contemporary art. And moderating this panel
is Anya Royce. And right next to her, well, she's in anthropology and
a former ballet star, I should say, in all of the world. And next to her, Georgia Strange, who I tend
to meet in blockbusters checking out videos every now and then. But you wouldn't know that by the incredible
sculpture she creates. And Howard Jensen, wonderful producer. I hope you've seen some of the plays in
the theater department. And Karen Hansen, our wonderful new dean of, oh my gosh, I'm doing a blank.
Honors, thank you. I've known her in many roles, that's why. But we're delighted to have her background
in philosophy joining us. And there's one surprise guest who will appear rather late, untimely, and
of course it's the musician. And Imre Pala will join us shortly. He's involved in the Miraculous Mandarin,
which will be performed next week. So thank you very much and welcome.
Thank you, Kim. I want to add my welcome to all of you and encourage all of you to take advantage of
the many, many performances, exhibits, lectures, and events that are packed into these two weeks brought
together for Arts Week 2003. This is a panel of extraordinary individuals. Actually, we had a rehearsal
this morning and I found out how extraordinary they are. They include practitioners of art,
former practitioners of art,
philosophers and scholars. So we have different experiences and different viewpoints from which to tackle
some of the thorny questions embedded in the title or should I say titles and theme of the panel. Some
of those questions might include, what is the relationship between art and beauty? Are they linked and
do they need to be? Do all societies need either or both?
And how does art satisfy that need? Are there some fundamental qualities that define beauty no matter
what the artistic genre? And finally, can beauty be out of fashion and why? We're each gonna take about
four minutes to make one or two points that we think are the most important to begin with. And some
of us will have examples to illustrate the points, but I want to
want to say that these are not formal presentations. We would like to think of this as a conversation
once we get some things out on the table. And we will invite you toward the end to join us with questions,
challenges, not too many of those. Observations, congratulations are always welcome. And there are two
mics out there. So without any more introduction, Georgia.
Anya and I have to share this. Thank you. Referring to our meeting this morning as a rehearsal was rather
generous on your part, but we are emphasizing spontaneous interaction with all the constituents on this
panel as well as our audience. So we do want to encourage discussion. I want to begin my brief remarks with
two images. I've chosen examples of masks from the Dan culture in Liberia, West Africa, also in the
region of Ivory Coast. These masks represent somewhat of a polarity of a visual sensibility. I think
both of them are
incredibly beautiful images. They achieve beauty in different ways, using the elements and principles
of design. They achieve beauty in radically different ways. One appears rather rhythmic, and there's
a certain elegant quality to that mask. The other one is a little more intimidating. It has shotgun shells,
There's a kind of exaggeration that's very different in the abstraction and how abstract language plays
out. So there's kind of an intimidating, aggressive quality to one of these masks. Yet both of them
are beautiful. And the reason I'm showing this is because I think it's not so important how we define
beauty because that is endless argument.
but that we value it. And I think in the 20th century, there's been a real disenchantment with beauty.
And I could probably point to Duchamp early in the century, where he emphasized idea as critical to
art. And of course, ideas are critical to art and always have been. But the emphasis on idea and the
conceptual content to the exclusion
of the visual concerns is problematic. And that's why I use the word disenchantment. And we see this
culminating in the move in the 70s of conceptual art. And for myself as a visual artist and as a teacher
of visual art, this language, this visual language seems to be crucial to visual thinking. And so I
want to emphasize that
that I think it's important to value beauty and to be involved in that discussion and bringing it back
into the discussion about art. And I'm happy to say that it is actually returning in the discourse.
And one of the reasons we chose this title was the fact that calling something beautiful was almost
a critique of something or a criticism as if
being concerned with beauty was somehow vapid, that it was almost decorative. And somehow it didn't
have the deep meaning that something that's maybe more political or provocative or somehow aggressive
in terms of how we view things. And so I want to just emphasize the importance of the re-enchantment
with beauty.
This past week, a grand old man of the theater died in that he was almost a hundred years old when he
died. He has probably seen more plays than any other American. And I'm speaking of Al Hirschfeld and
I'd like to quote from his obituary in the New York Times. He wrote a letter in 1986 and expressed his
opinion about an article
in the science section on defining beauty. And I quote, beauty is incapable of being defined scientifically
or aesthetically. Anarchy takes over. Having devoted a long time to the art of caricature, I have rarely
convinced anyone that caricature and beauty are synonymous. Beauty may be the limited proportions of
a classic Greek sculptured figure, but it does not have to be. It could be an ash can.
And I think that's where you get into maybe the area of anarchy, what is beautiful. Talking with many
colleagues and students, I discovered that beauty is not greatly discussed anymore in the theater. I
think it should be, but it isn't. It was to a great degree in the 19th century.
I suspect that because of the advent of naturalism and realism, that beauty maybe became seen as superficial.
With naturalism, the truth was stressed much more than beauty. And also with naturalism and realism,
ugly aspects of human existence were treated realistically. Now I think those plays that fall into that
category, such as Ibsen, Strindberg, Miller, Williams, Albee, because those writers are indeed poets
in their own way, the works survive. But I rarely hear people talk about
beauty in the theater. I believe that if a theater practitioner were told that their work was beautiful,
it would be taken as a compliment. But once again, we just don't talk much about it. My turn.
I wasn't sure, and you can see two titles down there. I wasn't sure whether to speak as an anthropologist
tonight or as a dancer, and I couldn't resist Baryshnikov, so it's going to be dance. Human beings need
more than the living out of their days. They need to be able to reflect. They need to be shown the world
in a different way to be transported and transformed, and that's what art does. When it doesn't do that,
It's technique without the ability to generate reflection or dreaming. Beauty and art, and I say art
because it exists in nature, has certain qualities. Simplicity, economy, selection, balance, rhythm,
symmetry, harmony. And I think that these cut across genres, cultures, and times. And people recognize
that. They recognize the beautiful even if it's not in their own traditions. I think what Georgia was saying
is absolutely true. People value beauty even if they can't define it or put a label on it. They recognize
those kinds of qualities. Dance in the 20th century has gone back and forth and back again between portraying
the beautiful coming out of the 19th century classical ballet into modern dance with Isadora Duncan
and Martha Graham. Abandoning conventional notions of beauty but I think what in fact they have done is
in every instance is to come around creating new genres, which still have those kinds of qualities of
beauty about them. It's a different kind of beauty, but it still has those things of symmetry and balance
and economy. Modern dance in this country, ballet in this country, Japanese buto, which was an extraordinary
fluorescence of Japanese modern dance. I'm going to show you a very short video. It comes from Twyla
Tharp, who if you don't know,
is a native of Richmond, Indiana. And we gave her an honorary degree. And she created this piece, Push
Comes to Shove, to music of Haydn. And she created it for American Ballet Theater in 1976. And that's
one of the things you can see in the next two weeks in Art Week, is not Push Comes to Shove, but American
Ballet Theater. This is a piece, and I show it because it plays on the conventions of the classical
ballet of the 19th century.
formal presentation, neat ends to steps, centeredness and always pulled up body and a particular kind
of body, staying in the frame and costuming that's as formal as the steps and the expectation of the
audience is that the audience will also sit out there and be formal. And what she does is create this
wonderful spoof on all of those, those kinds of things. It's very subtle. When they came here,
I don't know, 10 years ago and did this,
I was part of the audience and I began seeing these very funny things and I started laughing and the
people on either side of me looked at me like, this is ballet, this is serious, what's the matter with
you? Finally at the end they found it was funny too. So I want to show you that. This is Mikhail Baryshnikov
and if I can ask my panelists in the middle to move. We can see more.
Okay.
makes most of the points that I wanted to make. Tharp has certainly challenged our notions of classical
ballet, but still staying within all of those qualities that I think define beauty. And Baryshnikov,
nobody but Baryshnikov could do that. I want to tell you that. So. Emry. Yes. Emry Palo is our mystery
guest. Was I a mystery guest? You were a mystery guest.
You were going to be our inner beauty. Well, thank you. I apologize for being late, but I had to do
with beauty. I was rehearsing music for an upcoming concert, so it took me a few moments to get over
here after finishing the rehearsal. Today, somehow, everything is a little bit against me. I think the only
non-native speakers, so I will be searching for words occasionally, and I have a cold, so forgive me
for that, please. Beauty in music. Just thinking about the program I'm going to do next Wednesday, which
I just came from the rehearsal, there is Brahms' Hungarian Dances,
there is Glier, Harp Concerto, and Bartok, Miraculous Mandarin. Rather contrasting pieces. If you think
about Hungarian or pseudo-Hungarian music of Brahms and the very deeply Hungarian music of Bartok, the
difference of beauty is very obvious.
between the two pieces, and you may come to a concert and you say, well, I went to that symposium and
Paulo said that the Bartók is beautiful. I don't think so. But one of us may be wrong. Because beauty
is in the eye of the beholder, ladies and gentlemen.
Also the development of the appreciation of Bartok's music, I think also shows the change of perception
of beauty. When that music first appeared, I don't think anybody at that time in their right mind would
have considered even to call that music beautiful.
Today you question the sanity of the person who doesn't call it beautiful or most of it beautiful. So
it changes. What are the beauties in music? Which aspects of beauty in music do you take as important
or not important? There is the beauty of the form. There is the beauty of the melody. There is the beauty
of the harmony.
There's the beauty of the disharmony. So if you are thinking, let's say a Beethoven symphony. A Beethoven
symphony, the main beauty in my mind, and please let's understand that opinions are of course subjective.
As they say in Hungary, everybody has the right to his
stupid opinion. So in my opinion, we look at the Beethoven symphony and first of all, and mainly of
all, you admire the beauty of the form. You experience listening to it, the battle
with the material, he really reworked and reworked and reworked the pieces, his symphonies,
but the shape, the form, is what makes those pieces very, very special. You wouldn't say this is the
melody. Now, think melody. Who may come first? Melody, you think, probably a little bit more opera than
you would think.
symphonic music, then within the operatic music, you think Verdi, of course, you think melody, but probably
the true melody person was Bellini, whose music may not be as well known, but if you think beauty of
melody, you think Bellini. Now, let's come to the, let's say, second half of the 20th century.
Boulez, wonderful composer. What comes first into your mind? Beauty of the melody, beauty of the harmony,
beauty of the form. Why would you find a specific, or I don't want to get really into details,
A work of Boulay is beautiful. Why would it speak to you in the understanding of today's, not even musician,
because a musician gets much deeper into the materia and as a listener of a music piece, of a concert,
of an opera, you want, you get
the first impression and after that first impression, you taste the soup, you either like it or you
don't have a second spoonful. Either that music will speak to you in one way or the other, or you say,
I don't like it, I don't want to go again. So the 20th century and now 21st century as we proudly pronounce
it, but basically, at least at my age,
believe most of my life. I have lived even in my necrology, it will be said that he lived most of his
life in the 20th century. So somehow I relate maybe a little more to that than the last three years
of the new century. And probably in the hundred years of the past century, you find a little more beauty
in music, in art, and in everything else than what this last three years
gave us, returning to beauty music, beauty in a composer of today. And you arrived, Boulez, in particular.
You arrive to the unfortunate solution, and please don't hit me for that, you can't explain it. And
there is no verbalization, there is no way
And that's what I really wanted to point out at the very end. You can't explain why you will find something
truly beautiful. For me, the final realization, if I find something beautiful 20th, 21st, 16th, 17th,
18th century, if I fall in love with it, it's beautiful. Art, if it's a statue, if it's a picture, if
it's music,
do I have to explain why I find it beautiful? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. And you may find
it ugly and I may find it beautiful and we are both right. I think that's where I want to leave my little
contribution. Thank you.
You get to follow that. Thanks. You're welcome. Philosophers, of course, have spent a lot of time, since
they can't create the art, in trying to come up with the definitions. And I want to just say a little
bit about the history of Western philosophy on this point. Philosophers have paid a lot of attention
to the concept of beauty. And their business is not the creation of it, but the conceptual clarification of it.
It's probably fair to say that throughout the history of Western philosophy, there's been more attention
to the concept of beauty than there has been to art, in part because philosophers took beauty to be
a manifest not only in art, but in other contexts, in people, for example. The falling in love with
analogy is very important for someone like Plato.
It's not an analogy for him. He thinks this is where you begin to see beauty in people, in what we might
call other natural phenomena, in forests, flowers, seashells. Philosophers were just as interested in
beauty manifest in natural objects. There's a kind of divide, though, that's worth noticing between
the ancients on the issue of beauty, say Plato and Aristotle, and more modern philosophers, not yet
to say contemporary philosophers, but modern philosophers.
Plato and Aristotle didn't share very many views, and they certainly argued about the nature of beauty.
But they both assumed it was an objective property. For Plato, and maybe significantly for Florentine
neo-Platonists, who brought Plato back, and in part because of the importance of beauty for the Platonists
as a real quality, a real metaphysical quality, there was a kind of rise in the status of the visual arts.
For Plato, beauty was a kind of objective property underlying everyday reality. For Aristotle, who didn't
believe that there was a kind of another world where there are ideal forms of such things as beauty,
beauty was nonetheless an objective property of everyday objects. Modern philosophers, however, now
I'm thinking about the time around the 17th century,
are struck by the subjective character of experience, and in particular, well, that's not fair to say.
It's not in particular. It includes the experience of beauty. They're struck by its subjectivity, and
they didn't come up with any lines like everyone has entitled to his own stupid opinion, but it kind
of amounts to that. There is nonetheless
for them than a struggle to account for the idea of there being a kind of standard of taste. Now, some
of these philosophers, such as David Hume, who's essentially an 18th century philosopher, died just
about the time of the American Revolution, took judgments of taste to be, took everything else, matters
of fact. We all have an experience. There's no denying that there's an experience, and all we have to
go on are these kinds of experiences.
But he did want to say that there were experts. So there's room for saying your judgment's stupid. The
experts, he has to figure out how to delineate that class. He says that they're people who are free
of bias. They have a lot of experience with the objects in question. They go back to it. They encounter
them in certain cool, calm, collected circumstances. They don't have vested interests. All kinds of
things related to what can make some people an expert.
and why it might sometimes be wise to defer to the judgment of an expert. All in all, though, the experts
are people who are most likely to bet right about what experiences most people will have. The real standard
of taste is in the end durable admiration, admiration that lasts over time. But the idea is that nobody's
experience is right or wrong. I mean, it's akin to sort of the experience of something sweet.
That's in part because of, you might say it's in part because of chemical properties of, say, sugar
or something like that, but it takes tasting it for the sweetness to be there. Similarly for beauty,
there might be features in the world that contribute to having a certain experience, but it's dependent
upon the experiencing for the beauty to be there. And that's a kind of, you know, slightly off, but
close enough account of Hume's view. And if we all basically have a normal physiology,
we'll all find sugar sweet. But some of us don't. Now, they're not lying when they say something isn't
sweet. They just have a different set of taste buds, perhaps. And that can happen with people, too.
But there is something like a norm, what most people, over time, throughout a variety of cultures, will
find beautiful. So that accords with the sort of thing that Anya was saying, that there are certain
features designed to produce an experience of beauty in people over time. And the experts are those who
examine things enough and long enough to have the right judgment. Now, another important figure along
this line is Immanuel Kant, who did not like this very subjective, personalized view. Beauty for him
was not an expression of personal inclination. He didn't want to say it's just sort of that it set something
off in me and I like it. He wanted to find some other way around this problem that Imre has highlighted.
And he came up with the idea that a certain kind of disinterested grasping of something was crucial
to experiencing it as beautiful. He had to parse away all kinds of inclination and emotion and thoughts
of other things like the morality of something.
judgments of beauty were very special sorts of judgments. Again, they're related to, they require the
experiencing self. But what Kant wanted to say is we all have the same kind of basic capacity to experience
certain kinds of things in the right way if we free ourselves from our emotions, which may differ, and
our interests, which may differ.
And we get in the right frame of mind. In the end, he does give a definition of beauty that I'm just
sure no one on this panel will buy. But he came up with something, purposiveness of an object so far
as it's perceived in it without any representation of a purpose. I mean, the idea there is something
looks like it was made for some purpose, but really, you're not going to use it for that purpose. It
looks like it's all meant. Even the seashell that has a certain design, it looks like it's designed.
This is, of course, before the
theory of evolution. So the natural object account works better there. But you know what he means about
a work of art as well. It looks like the parts are meant to go together, but you don't have to say what
they're meant to go together for. Now, at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th then, certain
philosophers, and very importantly, I think here in Nietzsche, criticized what they regarded as these
overly intellectualized accounts of
of beauty, understandings of beauty. And they returned in part to people like Plato and an interest
in the eroticism of beauty. Again, the sort of thing that Imre brought up and connected it with desiring,
falling in love with. And that sort of freed up another space for values besides beauty being important
in the experience of art, being aesthetically important. Expressions of emotion, for example, whether
they're beautiful or not.
perhaps moral values, perhaps political values, and certainly ideas, as Georgia mentioned. I mean, artists
became interested in expressing ideas, not just presenting beauty. I didn't mean not just. Instead of,
or at that moment, or truth, as Howard mentioned.
In fact, there were then lots of theories of art that just kind of left out beauty altogether, that
art was aiming at other kinds of things, like metaphysical truth. So how could attribution of beauty
be a criticism? Well, if you're in this frame of mind or at that historical moment, there could be other
aims that you take art to have that you take at that moment to be more important, or you think you've
got a theory for all time that makes other aims more important.
I think one of the things that the panel suggests is that these things do shift over time. There are
various emphases that artists might want to have for various reasons, not unrelated to the history of
their art up to that moment. And that's why at certain times, I do think, beauty falls out as one of
the aims of art. But I think it's coming back. This is going to be a devil's advocate kind of comment.
And I'm going to raise the issue of critics
Nobody's favorite who's in the art or any kind of art. But what Emory was talking about, about new genres
basically, challenge old paradigms and old expectations and old assumptions. And so people object to
that because they're not familiar with it. Is it the critic's role then to try to educate audiences?
And what Karen was talking about when she was talking about Hume and the disinterested expert, perhaps
the critics, played that role as well. I'll just throw that out. May I? As a performing artist,
you are also. But I was thinking about that because I was just thinking the disinterested who
criticizes it from outside. I mean, just think about Hans Lick who was a great fan of Brahms and the
total contrary of Wagner and they really didn't like it. So I believe that the person who thinks that
he, she is outside of it and just criticizes it per se without emotion,
so to say, can be just as long and can miss the goal just as well as somebody who just purely emotionally
comes. So which is the better? I don't think we can decide that approach, beauty, art in altogether
from the more emotional point of view or we want to approach it more from
Clearly, I am just believing that these are the rules to find something beautiful, to find something
good. Music, art, and so on can be good without being beautiful or vice versa. Love beautiful which
is not good. Anyway, which is the correct? Let's hear it from the knowledgeable lady. The involved or
the uninvolved?
I just want to say that critics play a really important role, particularly for forms of art or art expression
that's not language-based. Whether it's a historian or a critic, they're trying to use language,
which is, for all of us, our primary means of communication. I think it's really important to have critics, whether
They're constantly evaluating or judging, but it really adds to the discourse. I referred to Duchamp
early on, and hopefully it didn't sound that I don't revere him, because I do. He just had a major impact
in terms of this emphasis on idea over the visual. Duchamp talked about the creative act, which involved
the artist
the audience and the object. And that's really about how that interaction is so critical to the aesthetic
experience. It's the tree falling in the forest. So it's that interaction that's really key. But something
else that critics do, I talk about this language, they put things in a language, a verbal linear language.
A lot of art making,
is more phenomena. If I could say the word phenomena, whatever that word is, I'm sure Karen can say
it, I can't say it, but it's phenomena and it's more holistic than language, which tends to be linear
thinking. Just listening to people talk about it, it's this idea that there are parts just like there
are sounds that make words and that those parts
have to be put together to make words, and then they have to be put together in larger relationships
to make sentences, then to make paragraphs. Well, the same kinds of things are going on in visual formats,
whether it's a line or plain color, or whether it's movement in Baryshnikov. It's a language that has,
to some degree, moved toward, maybe it doesn't have rules,
some of the things that these principles that we've talked about or we've alluded to, whether
it's compositional balance in whatever form, whether it's visual or sound, that these are how we judge
as artists, as performers, whether what we've done is complete, that has that idea of it's meant to
be, that things that are in there aren't superfluous. It's meant to be there. There's a sense of fit.
a sense of wholeness in the composition. Exactly, and the wholeness of a composition, the shape of it.
If you are in the business, let's say, in music business, there is a form, there is a sonata form,
let's say, you know it. The person who listens to it feels the form, though doesn't know it. And I think
that's why form,
is a very important and crucial element of art because even if you don't realize that it's there, if
it is there, you understand the feeling of it. It's just you feel that there is a shape to it or you
feel that there is no shape to it. I think it's very important.
Well, I'm struck by the it's very important line. I think that's why, among other things, but it's one
of the reasons why all of these folks, once they got into this idea that the experience of beauty was
a subjective thing, were so
keen on finding some ways of restoring the idea of a standard. Because they did want to say that some
things were more important than others. Some things were better than others. They didn't want to leave
art in the position of, say, hors d'oeuvres, where one might say, well, I like green olives. You like
black ones. I mean, there's no disputing the taste. Who really cares? But with respect to certain works
of art, people do become passionate. And you're quite right, I think, that people
Critics and philosophers often come up with theories about what is crucial to art based on the art they're
responding to, the ones that they already love. I think that one of the distinctions between art, which
is for nothing except itself, and I'm going to get into trouble here, figure skating or gymnastics or
things like that, which are judged, and they're judged on the basis of points for particular kinds of things.
Someone in one of my classes said, well, why can't you have a point system for ballet? And it just chilled
my blood to think about that, because then you're breaking things, you're ruining the sense of the whole
of the work, actually, and you're coming to look at it bit by bit by bit, which is not the way in which
most of us appreciate or fall in love with art, I think.
Okay, I'm going to... We've reduced the time where they can talk. Yeah, we have. It's safe enough. We
can invite your questions and comments, and there are two microphones, one on either side. Or you can
probably just, if you have a voice like Emory, you can probably just sit there and say it. Yes? We just
saw two slides. We saw a recording and a videotape, and a lot of children watch television all the time.
And children listen to recordings of music all the time. What effect do you think this is going to have
on people experiencing beauty when they're really seeing facsimiles? We didn't see art up here. We saw
something that was really unattractively lighted and way too big for us to experience. What are your
thoughts along these lines? I might also add that we have just
We have just set up a new informatics school which promises to do more of this for us. I don't think
it's all that helpful, frankly. I originally brought a DVD of a Bergman film, a section that I find
especially beautiful. I finally, since I wanted to confine my remarks mainly to theater, did not
did not show it because that's not theater, it's film, even though Bergman is known in his own country
more for his theater work than his film work. The only way you can experience theater is the live event.
As soon as it is filmed, it is not theater, it is something else. I think a lot of people come to the
theater expecting
an experience like film or TV, and it's not. If they keep coming, I think we can get them hooked. I
wish we could get more young people into the theater, and we're constantly trying to see how we can
do that. One of my colleagues had recommended that I actually bring masks. There are several people
in the School of Fine Arts
And I decided that it was too big, this room, and I just didn't think people can see it. But I also
think that this is a format that is very language-oriented. I was thinking earlier about how interacting
with art is a very sensory way of knowing, and it's a body way of knowing.
We, yes, we're looking at facsimiles, but I think for this format, this is the kind of things that we're
going to be using. Fortunately, this is gonna be followed by an exhibition, a gallery, where people
can physically sense the work. So they'll be reflecting and sensing with their body, with their eyes,
And we're using the format of the eyes to talk to all the senses as a visual artist. And you think about
how different forms of art maybe uses one or two senses to essentially talk to the entire person, which
is very physical. We're physical beings. I very much agree, and I very much agree with Howard.
I think the media should be just an appetizer, so to say, for the real thing. The real theater experience,
the real concert experience, the real opera experience, the real experience, if you go and see the real
Sistine Chapel in Rome, you will never be able to, you can see it on TV, you can see it on whatever,
but when you walk into that room, I never forget my first
and I just almost fell on my knees. The real experience is never comparable with the way it's being
shown in the media. I never forget a wonderful experience I had years ago in Washington. We were there
with the City Opera and I went to an opera performance of Turandot. In the intermission at that time
I was still a sinful smoker. Somebody came up to me and said, do you like opera?
I said, well, it's a living. He says, I just fell in love with it. I saw on TV La Boheme, and I decided
the next time wherever I can see live opera, I'm going to go there. Now, if media does that, that's
the most wonderful thing they can do for us. Let me just give you one tiny story. I taught anthropology
of dance last semester,
many of the students had never been to a concert. And in the class, I used a lot of videos. But their
one requirement of the class was to go to a performance and to review it. And there were four or five
students in the class who had never been to a ballet, never been to a dance performance at all, and
went and fell in love with it. So I think using media in that way to give people a sense of what is
possible to look at
probably very important. Also I think in terms of dance, even more than music, it's such an ephemeral
art that the performance then is gone and it's never the same again. And so for purposes of history
and kind of having a record of what a particular thing looked like, media is probably very useful. One
last question. Yes?
I saw the videotape that Anya showed earlier and she physically reacted to a certain thing that Baryshnikov
did and she just turned to me and said, you have no idea how difficult that was.
So then we started talking about how practice informs appreciation. I began as an actor, and I was often
asked what I liked about it. And I couldn't verbalize it much any more than it's a feeling I get when
I act that I can't get anywhere else. And on a good night, it's glorious. On a bad night, less so.
But yes, it's absolutely true, I think.
Like a colleague of ours said, in a lifetime, maybe four or five times in a lifetime, God is sitting
in the audience. And if you have those evenings, then it's the most incredible experience.
That's a very good point, Dale, and I think that it's hard when you take a little snippet out of a whole
piece. I think if you saw the whole piece, then you would have a sense of the whole and where everything
fit, and you would be able to make judgments that you can't make when you see just a very small piece
of it. So on top of it being not the real thing, it's also just a piece of not the real thing.
I'm going to turn this, thank you very much for being a wonderful audience and turn it over to Heidi.
Heidi Gilt. Heidi Gilt. Thanks Anya and thank you to the panelists. We've been talking about beauty
and the aspects of beauty and the importance of it in our lives.
And I'm here to talk about someone who brought that into our lives and continues to do so even though
she's no longer here. And I'm talking about Sally Hope Davis, who passed away this summer. Sally is
one of those remarkable people whose legacy is going to last for generations. She married Henry Radford
Hope in 1944, three years after he became the director of the school that now bears his name.
He and Henry were definitely united in a personal passion, but they also had a passion for the arts
and for collecting and for friendships with artists, and it shaped their entire lives. In the summer
of 1944, that's the summer in which they were married, they purchased Picasso's L'Atelier or the Studio
of 1936. It's the final and most ambitious painting inspired by Picasso's liaison with Marie Therese
Walters. And Sally bought that painting
She preferred it to the mink coat that Henry suggested she might want to buy. That same summer, she
and Henry purchased a brock entitled Napkin Ring, a major oil of 1929. And in 1947, as the war was going
on, they had fallen in love with the work of Henry Moore and purchased his reclining nude directly from
the artist.
Over the years of their collecting, they purchased many other important works, a Marino Marini, Marcent
Hartley, Deran, Dubuffet, a wonderful 18th century work by the Italian Solamena. All of these are now
and many more cornerstones of the art museum's collections. The Hopes also befriended artists, including
Max Beckmann. And in 1947, Henry tried to lure him to Bloomington with a job. And I think he was here
briefly, decided ultimately to go to St. Louis.
But they loved Beckman, purchased his work, and ultimately commissioned what would become Beckman's
last portrait. It was done of the Hope family. It was completed in the summer of 1950, delivered to
the Hope family in the fall, and Beckman died just a few months later in December of that year, 1950.
Many of you in this room still remember Henry Hope's dramatic demise in the atrium of our new museum
on the occasion of the dedication of the Tony Rosenthal sculpture in his honor in the fall of 1989.
After 45 years of marriage, focused around a thriving family, her husband, and a love of art, Sally
became a widow. Less than a year later, in fact the following spring, Sally returned to Bloomington
as a new bride, bringing her childhood sweetheart with her, Charles Davis, as she dedicated
the gift of a my old sculpture, Ile de France, in Henry's memory. The time that Sally came to visit,
she took me aside and she said, you know, a lot of people are probably going to say I should have waited
a year, but at my age, you can't afford to wait. Every spring after that, Sally and Charlie made an
annual pilgrimage from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which was their winter home, to Michigan, which was
their summer home. And they always stopped in Bloomington.
Sally would always come to see us and sit with her art collection. She would simply ask for the chance
to sit. And she mainly sat on the bench where the Stuart Davis and the Marino Marini and the Picasso
and the Marston Hartley and the Dubuffet just surrounded her. In one of those visits, Sally and I were
walking together through the museum and I just sort of gently asked her if she liked Michigan, where
Charlie had his summer home, as much as she liked the Cape, where she and Henry had a compound.
me aside and she said, my next husband is not going to have his own summer home. For the next few years,
for the past few years, this elegant and beautiful woman began to slow down. She didn't make her annual
visit last summer, and towards its close, Honey McLennan Dale, one of her daughters, telephoned me with
the sad news. Sally's ashes were scattered
at her beloved cape in a family ceremony. Many of us here said flowers and condolences and remembered
a lady of elegance, style, grace, and a love of art, as well as a sharp sense of humor. The family also
wanted to remember her, and they chose a wonderful gift. It takes the form of Max Beckmann's last portrait,
the portrait of the Hope family, and at its heart stands Sally, blonde and radiant,
at the height of her strength and beauty. This painting will be the focus of an exhibition in our hexagon
gallery being organized by Jenny McComas, a graduate student in the Hope School. It will be on view
from April 2nd to May 11th. Jenny is gathering recollections about the portrait from Sally's sons and
daughters, all of whom are in the painting, and these personal reminiscences together with drawings and other
Diary entries and other information we can glean will be part of this focus exhibition. It will be a
gem and it will be a fitting tribute to Sally. But mostly I stand here now because we are dedicating
the whole semester's worth of exhibitions to Sally's memory because she loved art and she supported
the works of her contemporaries and she loved the Hope School. They always wanted to know what was going
on with the studio faculty. They believed wholeheartedly
in the importance of visual creativity, and they set the high standards which the Hope School has maintained
for decades with its top ranking among art schools. One of the school's great strengths is its commitment
to tradition while always being open to innovation. It's a very, very tough balance, easily tipped too
far in either direction, but that balance is perfectly maintained here. Henry and Sally both believed
in the fundamental issues of seeing, learning, and training the eye.
and both of them pursued this with a passion for the art that was contemporary in their own day. The
strength of their vision and taste is borne out by the masterpieces which they've acquired and which
remain the stars of our museum. Sally gave us her treasures so that faculty could teach and students
could learn from the best. Sally would have absolutely admired the outstanding exhibition
put together by the creative faculty of the Hope School of Fine Arts this year. All the shows,
as I said, both faculty in MFA and the Beckman Show are dedicated to her memory and to remind us all
of Sally's fundamental importance to Indiana University. I thank the Hope family for their generosity
and I thank Janet Kennedy and Georgia Strange for partnering with us on this important collaboration
to honor Sally in this way.
And I especially thank the Hope School of Fine Arts faculty for their unstinting hard work and hard-won
achievements in their creative endeavors. On the occasion of Arts Week, which is the opening part of
the celebration of the biennial Hope faculty exhibition, our dedication of this exhibition to Sally
Hope is a truly fitting tribute. Thank you all so very much.
Imre, Karen, Howard, Georgia, and Anya, I want to thank you again. And I'm sure the audience would like
to. Thank you very much. I feel like one of those little old ladies that can just see over the dashboard.
But yeah, I'll grow for next year, perhaps. Anyway, please, I encourage you to enjoy one of the next
56 events that are going on in the town and gown celebration here, the welcome table
tomorrow night is one of the most unusual creations Malcolm Dalglish and Lotus have produced for Arts
Week. There is a beautiful limestone table. There will be a fire cooking pies and a one hour theater
production with music and artists from the community and Indiana University never been seen before and
never to be seen again. So it's your one opportunity. And if you've had not enough of these videos and
enticements tonight,
tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock, Anya Royce is giving a talk about the superstars of the performing arts.
And tonight, we didn't make that distinction between creative and recreative arts, but one of my colleagues
has a nice saying in the School of Music. He says, in the morning, as we're teaching, we pretend we're
God. And in the evening when we perform, we prove we're not. So anyway, please join us next door. There
are wonderful treasures awaiting you.
So thank you, Heidi, and everyone else, Tom, Jerry, and Sharon. Thank you.