.POETRY AND ART IN CHICAGO:  A PROSIMETRICAL COMPLAINT.
by Robert Klein Engler

In Mainland China, all public and most private art and poetry are subservient to the concerns of the state. In Chicago, the state is small-minded, parochial and made up mostly of elected officials who favor a moribund liberalism. Most are Philistines at heart. Moribund liberal ideology drives the Poetry Center, anchored at the Art Institute of Chicago, to one embarrassment after another.

The Art Institute itself has been morally adrift ever since a group of aldermen marched in and forcibly removed a student painter's rendering of former mayor Harold Washington from a gallery wall in 1988 (Mirth & Girth by David Nelson). The work was returned, but art and poetry have been held hostage there by politics ever since.

Politics energizes the web pages of E-Poets.net, a politics that seems to despise America under the guise of new media and phony multiculturalism. Elitist politics of postmodernism prints the soon-to-be obscenely endowed Poetry Magazine, and a politics of acting out working-class vulgarism first inspired the Performance Poets and the poetry Slammers at the Green Mill. The politics of feminism and socialism guides the programs at the Guild Complex. The politics of quotas and geographical balance motivates the Illinois Arts Council in its awards and grants.

There are exceptions. The magazine, After Hours, is one. But nearly everywhere in Chicago and around the state of Illinois, political preliminaries are put before poetry and art. The politics of the Left, the politics of Affirmative Action, the politics of resentment and gender envy, the politics of the emotional vampires of suburbia, and the politics of moribund liberalism have taken the place of Truth, Goodness and Beauty.

The condition of art and poetry in Chicago is the result of a half-century of Democratic Party rule. Affirmative Action is a case in point. In order to combat prejudice and discrimination, liberal politicians now support policies that have the government discriminate and show prejudice. In order to bring about equality, the government must now practice inequality. If you listen closely to moribund liberal rhetoric, you can hear the echo of the Vietnam War:  "In order to save the village, we had to destroy it."

What's more, this moribund liberalism is clueless when it comes up against the practical limits of the real world:  Does diversity in culture mean we have to condone cannibalism? Does equality of the sexes mean we have to define pregnancy as a disease? Are art and poetry only propaganda for the policies of social change? In both social policy and in the arts, excellence is being sacrificed for political and short-term Party interests.

In this discussion, it is fair to make a distinction between that art which is supported and funded by the public and that which is private, that is, the art of individuals working in their own solitary ways. Clearly, it is public art in Chicago that is most politicized. Nevertheless, the political influence and ideology there bleed over into the private sector. Public art is a wound that bloodies all who get near it. The Art Institute of Chicago, a private entity, is beholden to the public. The Chicago City Council may revoke some of AIC's privileges if it doesn't toe the line by praising and displaying minority art. And toe the line it does—at the expense of excellence, good taste, and its own integrity.

To make money in Chicago, you have to play the political game, so Big Business is heavily invested in the fraud that is contemporary art. Corporations hang together to keep the prices high. They can't walk away from bad art, so they stand in the gore and admire the naked emperor's new clothes. Some Chicago arts patrons have blood on their hands; others have blood on their feet.

Nowadays, not only is art a substitute religion, it is also an ideological arm of the moribund liberal state. Once the Protestants argued for justification by faith, now moribund liberals believe in justification by art. Good works are as filthy rags before the lord of patronage. One need only hear the PBS fundraising commercials on the radio using the same techniques as TV evangelists to confirm that Weber was correct.

Benjamin did not live to see the aftermath of World War II and the triumph of the liberal state, nor did he recognize the rise of globalization and the postmodern ideology required to advance the multinational agenda. Nevertheless, if there is a better description for why MacArthur grants fund the Guild Complex, I'd like to see it. If there is a better justification for paying a poet hundreds of thousands of dollars as a "high priest" of art at the University of Chicago, I'd like to hear it. What better way to understand the evangelical mission of Columbia College or the motives behind Poetry in Motion on the CTA busses and trains than by the insight of Walter Benjamin? You have to go a long way to convince me that a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship or a National Endowment for the Arts award is anything more than a dispensation of grace from the shrine of ART—one in the service of moribund liberal politics.

'The old values and standards were really imposed by politics in the first place,' the postmoderns argue, 'so why not recognize the fact that there is nothing other than politics in action now?' We are cast back upon the old argument of Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic:  'Might makes right and justice is the advantage of the strong.' Postmodernism shows us that power to impose one's politics means power to impose one's poetry. Clarity and meaning cannot co-exist with a multiplicity of yelling voices. A multiplicity of voices is Pandemonium. Under the prevailing postmodern ideology, power must silence some voices. That power is now a tyranny of minorities, not the power of Truth, Goodness and Beauty.

Before public poetry events are held in Chicago no one dares to say, "Just invite the best poets." To begin with, who are the best poets? No. First, the guest list must be examined by the Party's cultural commissars and then the criterion for 'balance and diversity' is imposed. "Is this person from the right area of the state? Is that woman from the right ethnic group? Do we have too many white men? We can't have gays at high school events!" Only after the list is made up following the guidelines of an Affirmative Action political theory will the poetry happen. Woe to the writers who criticize this state of affairs. They will be silenced and sent to Indiana to grow cabbages. Mao and the mayor both impose their political ideologies. They will censure what does not fit and press their taste upon the fumbling crowd.

Yet, for many in Chicago, there is a happy convergence between politics and art. Their notoriety, and hope to become a high priest of mediocrity, make up for their lack of talent or craft. If there is a 'style' here, it may be the result of this convergence. Just have the right politics, and the grants and commissions come your way. Only those of ideological purity are welcomed into the Party's shrine. There, they look upon the face of power and live. Such poets and artists in Chicago count themselves blessed because the wheel of political fortune has spun their way. Little do they think how soon they will be passed by, for, if fortune stands still, it is no longer fortune.

The vulgar performance poem, the primitive mural, and the graceless fountain of power are all on display in this city. For the sake of an ideology, there is too much blood and not enough sutures. For the sake of an ideology, there is too much waste and too few rags to mop it up. "Cows on Parade" leaves behind a mess Chicagoans can't help stepping in mornings as they plod to their jobs. Later, at the open mikes and on the gallery walls, the artists of Chicago shout and scribble, "I'll show you my sore, if you show me yours!"

The mark of a true provincial is the belief that nothing good can happen at home. The provincials believe really important poets and artists are not found in Chicago but elsewhere. Artists must be brought to Chicago from New York or California, and increasingly from Mexico and China. Public arts administrators in Chicago think there is no native-born Chicagoan worthy of their selection. These arts administrators end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. They have to look elsewhere because their policies end up discouraging the local in the first place.

Furthermore, as long as the administrators' primary motive is something other than poetry or art, they will never encourage a great, distinctive poetry or art in Chicago, an art that represents the city as a whole, instead of this minority group or that one. Perhaps the powers that be realize this and simply don't care. What they care about is that the Party stays in power and is able to clone one leader after another.

.MAGGIE AND THE MAYOR AT THE LOOM.

It is always duty over desire, always the shadow
of his father's bulk over the book that calls him
to obscurity, so he soils himself with her again.

The newspapers whisper. He can't remember
for what good he has this power, but he persists
and the Party persists, and his thrusts persist.

There, in the dark slide where the acid of cigar
smoke and whisky voices stutter, he gives up
the chalk of his juice, there, the envelope seals.

In Babylon, the priests conspired for meat and bread.
The same host of a moon comes up, pale and flat.
Night deepens over the city to clot like blood.

Let the mattress remember this midnight press.
Dreams of corn and shamrocks pepper their sleep.
Outside, in the alley, someone whistles a dog home.

[RKE]

The present mayor of Chicago knows little about art and less about poetry. He does know that if art and poetry can get him votes, then he is for it. When he continually forsakes the public good for private or Party interests, how could he ever imagine a gesture that goes beyond the practical? If art and poetry criticize the state or if artists and poets present a view different from the phony diversity and multiculturalism that Big Business needs, then the mayor is against it.

It is hard to imagine an official art or poetry in Chicago that is independent of such political pressure. Perhaps the same holds true where you live. Perhaps, like me, something bothers you about the appointment of the Poet Laureate of New Jersey. The backseat union of politics and art is not unique to Chicago. There are just more bastards here intent on power.

Art as propaganda is nothing new. In his study about the poetry of Agrippa d'Aubigné, Imbrie Buffum writes, "The painting and sculpture of the baroque period are animated by a spirit of propaganda; art is made to serve a religious or moral purpose."

Nowadays, in Chicago, art and poetry are not religious or moral propaganda, but rather, political propaganda. The chief propaganda agency for the city is the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, headed by Commissioner Lois Weisberg. This agency, like its counterpart in Communist China, only accepts and promotes art that is in the interest of the state. In Chicago, the state is represented by a moribund liberalism, so the art that the Department of Cultural Affairs promotes is overwhelmingly multicultural, diverse and barbaric.

Once we understand that the real mission of the Department of Cultural Affairs is a political one, then we understand why it does not have the farsighted vision to support great art, let alone a Chicago art. The Department sees no farther ahead than the next election. Political art in Chicago is used to get out the vote, and if this means appeasing one minority group artist or another at the expense of Truth, Goodness and Beauty, so be it:  Bad art is a small price to pay for continued power in office. You can buy more power with the counterfeit coin of mediocrity than you can with the tender of excellence.

Who cares if what the Department of Cultural Affairs supports will not stand the test of time? Propaganda and art in Chicago are for the moment. Just like the architecture of the modern city, contemporary art is a facade of precast forms suspended over a skeleton of girders. The joints are then sealed with a silicon goo. In time, rain and ice seep in and crack the facade. If it lasts ten years without needing repair, we are lucky. How can these buildings and parkways last a lifetime? Nothing nowadays has the weight and depth of classical marble. No matter, just as long as they stand until the next election, just as long as the barbarians are appeased.

It is failed propaganda because its motive is not to communicate a message, but rather, to further the self-esteem of the artist. The propaganda of moribund liberalism fails because it is pseudo-therapy, not a collective aspiration. Such art does not even approach the level of the great poster propaganda seen in the old Soviet state.

The Chicago transit authority decided to hang posters drawn by school children in the city's "L" stations. Because the schools are predominantly staffed and attended by minorities, the overwhelming theme of this public CTA art is the expression of minority concerns. A good example is a poster now on display at the Roosevelt Road station. Measuring about 3 feet by 8 feet, it hangs by wires from the roof of the south exit where the Green and Orange Lines stop. The poster depicts a group of children in silhouette, outlined in various colors, just the way the police leave a chalk outline of a body at a crime scene. Written on the poster are these words:  A person's Character Should Not be Judged based on the Color of his Skin but on the Content. Running down the middle of the poster are the words:  I am Black History in the Making. The poster is signed "Christopher."

How could this dreadful poster be displayed, at public expense, and be offered as an example for self-improvement or collective aspiration? How could Christopher's teachers allow this to pass their critical judgment? The quote, supposedly from Martin Luther King, Jr., is just plain wrong. King never said this. As propaganda, this poster is a failure. The poster says just the opposite of what King intended, yet no city manager seems to notice it. Blindness to the consequence of their policy is the first symptom of moribund liberalism. They let the poster hang in public view as if such an error were tolerable because it furthers a child's self-esteem.

The boy's teachers probably didn't recognize that the quote was wrong, either. Just like the drawings suburban parents stick on the fridge, these CTA posters attempt to advance self-esteem at the expense of truth, promote the false goodness of tolerance for the incompetent, and claim that the lack of grace means nothing for a work that ought to aim for beauty.

The public will never be made better by such a waste of tax dollars. How ironic, that in an effort to appease, the City of Chicago and the CTA manage to turn the goal of public art inside out and create failed propaganda as well.

(Robert Klein Engler lives and teaches in Chicago. His books, including American Shadow and several others, are available from amazon.com. Headwaters/Hudson Press has scheduled the release of his multipart poem, "The Accomplishment of Metaphor and the Necessity of Suffering (In the Modernist Style)," in chapbook form for later this year.)
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