Virtuosity—the quality that lit up the best of arts culture during 2011—turns out to be the quality least appreciated in this transitional period for technology, economics and politics. It’s ironic that artists like Steven Spielberg, Kanye West, Jay-Z and Picasso (revived at a Gagosian retrospective), who had the inspiration to see past the confusion and novelty of the moment and create work that goes deeply into the essence of modern experience and our basic human needs, become the least appreciated artists. It’s as if their technique, brilliance, flair, talent, ability and expertise are held against them.
Making a diptych of Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse, two distinctly different films linked by their virtuosity, carries forward the expressive efforts of all of the cultural forms that CityArts regularly covers. Gregory Solman joins my account of the two films by measuring the scale of Spielberg’s achievement. It is time that pop art such as cinema be regarded with the same intellectual respect as the classical forms the cinema updates; thus I link Spielberg to Gerhard Richter. (Go to CityArtsNYC.com for a different approach in my annual Better-Than List.)
The critics at CityArts take this moment to look back at 2011—and forward to 2012—in order to find the significance of those confident, commanding, rule-changing efforts that keep us returning to galleries, museums, movies, albums, video games, dance troupes, jazz clubs and theaters. The vision that Mario Naves finds in the paintings of June Leaf and Edwin Dickinson, the soulfulness Ben Kessler feels in Stevie Nicks’ humane patriotism, the richness Joel Lobenthal observes in the legacy of Merce Cunningham and the personal revelation that John Demetry sees connecting Kanye West, Jay-Z and Picasso are what can be trusted when machinery, government and media leave you bewildered.
Taking assessment of the cultural year prepares us for the cultural future. This requires bringing thinking back to the arts. If we don’t recognize the virtuoso imagination and human expression in contemporary art, our cultural pursuits will be meaningless. CityArts readers know that we depend on artists to sustain our humanity—especially when politicians and pundits don’t. Our fascination for art should be, as Captain Haddock tells Tintin, unquenchable.
About the cover: Art director Ed Johnson treats Spielberg’s great, head-spinning double image from The Adventures of Tintin, where 20th-century art meets the 21st century. It recalls how all art is civilization’s self-portrait, even when the techniques and media change. Right now, Spielberg’s doubleheader best demonstrates that conscientious, virtuoso dynamic.
