The Artistic Rebuttal Project: Making the Case for Art, One Non-Believer at a Time

[bbernardini]

The wife of a high school friend of mine is involved in this. Pretty cool, I think.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-k-smith/artistic-rebuttal-2011_b_851412.html

A brief excerpt:

Anger can be a powerful motivator.

In artist Amy Scheidegger's case, it was a group of obnoxious undergrads on the subway in West Philadelphia who spurred her to action. They were discussing college majors, and one made the highly educated observation "Art is, like, the most worthless degree anyone can get. Like, haha, they have a degree in making shit with popsicle sticks." As general hilarity ensued and Scheidegger's blood boiled, she made a quick exit from the subway car with a new determination: To rebut, decisively, the popular notion that art is worthless, especially among young people who in theory should be exhibiting a more enlightened attitude than that of their elders.

The product of Scheideggers's angry determination, begun on a nano-grassroots level but now rapidly spinning into a real movement, is the Artistic Rebuttal Book Project, a collection of individual "take that" messages that will be reproduced in book form and, in the best case scenario, distributed widely across the country to reach those who need to get the message most.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

1. Thanks!

I've already passed it on :bounce:

[bbernardini]

2. Kick!

[crickets]

3. What a positive and empowering response.

Rather than seething over a nasty moment and moving on, Scheidegger realized a deeper troubling attitude underlying it and decided to do something about it. Fantastic!

[marions ghost]

4. Ever since Jesse Helms --art, particularly visual art, has been

denigrated. Music, writing, & movies are more acceptable because they are seen to have more entertainment value. But art for art's sake is seen as indulgent, useless, aberrant, narcissist. Never mind its impact on just about everything visual. And its role as reflecting & processing our world as well as any other cultural medium ever does. Even art using high tech materials is seen as a waste of time. This says a lot about our culture. People feel they don't have the background to appreciate art and therefore they run it down. Actually they do have what they need--eyes and a brain. It's a dialogue. You don't need a degree in it to appreciate it. You don't even have to be a liberal independent thinker to do or appreciate art (tho it helps ;-) )

Thanks for posting something few will really care about. There is a need to get across the reasons for art in ways that people are receptive to.