Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture

Reviewed by Kristin Grabarek For the past two hundred years Americans have been bewildered, riled, or both, by art. Michael Kammen provides a history of this exasperation, in his disclosure of disputes created by art from the 1830s to September 11, 2001, entitled Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture. Kammen argues that art controversies are relevant because they are symptomatic of social change, and that art controversies are not necessarily negative. He discusses nearly every art form, weaving the history of paintings, sculptures, murals, film, photographs, architecture, even performance, together to support his theses. The historical narrative climaxes with the 1960s, when Pop Art emerged and almost instantly became a status symbol. Kammen argues that the "new mood" that Pop Art introduced must be recognized as no less than a statement of disenchantment with the previous role of art in society. Since the 1830s, the general public evidenced general panic when presented with ambiguous art, as the public wanted concreteness and security. This desire was dashed consistently by artists like Horatio Greenborough, who sculpted a half-naked statue George Washington in 1841, and Judy Chicago, who in 1979 designed a series of vaginal motifs in The Dinner Party, which honored accomplished women. The 1930's Modernism ("Art for art's sake," according to Kammen) grew into the even more shocking Abstract Expressionism, which dominated art controversies with its seeming meaninglessness during the 1950s. But Kammen assures that not all art controversies were about decency and morality. Indeed, many centered on more substantive problems like monument gigantism, location of memorials, and the role of the art museum. Throughout his book, Kammen successfully maintains the voice of a historian, rather than an art critic, a feat which must have proved a challenge. And while his discussion is of American art controversies, Kammen provides enough international art controversy anecdotes to situate American controversies within an appropriate perspective. Complete with pictures for the reader's quick-reference and pleasure, Visual Shock is an enticing and often witty read for the skeptic seeking context for his bafflement, and for the art lover interested in the triumph of controversial art. Armchair Interviews says: For art lovers, and those who love to read about art controversies.

As a national experiment able and eager to invent itself from a relatively clean slate, and as a democracy open to multiple voices, America has been and continues to be a country where the nature and purpose of art is hotly debated. In his recently published book, Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture, Pulitzer-prize winning cultural historian Michael Kammen turns his insightful attention to American controversies over the visual arts to discover what these controversies reveal about the nature of America and its public discourse. Kammen's examination includes controversies familiar to most informed readers -- Diego Rivera's murals for Rockefeller Center or the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, for example -- but also finds lesser known controversies -- such as John Singer's Sargent's own troubles with murals or the initial Washington monument, a half-nude neo-classical statue -- equally fruitful for his scholarly inquest. This meticulously researched and cogently argued book is not another repeat of the history of American art. Kammen's book follows a unique trajectory because Kammen's interest in the subject is as a cultural rather than art historian. He is more interested in how the public talks about art than the art itself; so that in Visual Shock discussions of the art that changed the art world give way to the art controversies that changed the way Americans discuss art, and what those discussion say about America. Kammen divides his investigation into nine chapters, each of which follows a chronological examination of a particular form of art controversy -- from issues of monumentalism and memorialization and nudity and decency, which were prominent in the 19th century, to the debates on public art, political art and the nature of the museums in more recent times. Within the scope of the entire work, Kammen identifies four main themes that interest him as a cultural historian: the way art controversies are symptomatic of social change in the U.S.; the debate over art's role in a democratic society and expectation such a society has of art and architecture; the impulse for the origins of art controversies and how they have changed over time; and the outcome, negative or positive, of controversies. Kammen's book reveals that America has a fairly short cultural memory and that what causes an initial stir and even ideological battle usually becomes, within a generation, an established part of our cultural framework. Many of us will know the controversy regarding Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial, but fewer will remember or have learned that practically every other monument along D.C.'s Mall -- now endeared landmarks of our country's capitol -- was controversial as well. What moves America to discourse also changes over time. In the 19th century, issues of nudity and moral decency were hotly debated, even when, as in the case of Thomas Eakins' use of nude models in a classroom, the offending practices occurred i

Art and architectural aspirations have long aroused disputes among artists, scholars and the common citizen over the appropriateness of paintings, memorials and monuments: for the first time these debates are surveyed in VISUAL SHOCK: A HISTORY OF ART CONTROVERSIES IN AMERICAN CULTURE. Here are the social and political disputes which have taken place from the 1830s to modern times, with central themes and relationships including questions on the types of art appropriate for a democratic society, and how to assess and possibly regulate its appearance. Changes in policies, opinions, and conflicts between trustees of the arts and the general public are chronicled in chapters surveying the wild world of art history. An outstanding survey.

Artist George Braque said, "Art is meant to disturb." This is a profoundly twentieth-century view of what art should accomplish, and clashes with the views of most Americans who enjoy going to a museum or contemplating a commemorative civic sculpture, and do not do so for any advantage of being disturbed. There has certainly been an acceleration of controversy in America regarding art; the Brooklyn Museum's notorious show "Sensation" of 1999, which Rudolph Giuliani tried repeatedly to close down, is a good example, as are countless shows picketed, boycotted, vandalized, or censored in the past couple of decades. But although art controversies in America may have increased, they did not begin only in the recent years, but have been ongoing for at least two centuries. In _Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture_, critic Michael Kammen has written a detailed account of the art and architecture that has bothered Americans. It is a surprise to learn how many buildings, sculptures, and paintings were notorious in the past and have become beloved icons, but it is no surprise to learn how indignation comes in various forms against the sexuality, politics, or religious feelings which the art portrays. It is hard to imagine that anyone could ever have objected to the Lincoln Memorial but it was not just die-hard Confederates that did so when the nation prepared to honor Lincoln at the centennial of his birth. Many hated the location selected, as if America was deliberately sticking its greatest president into a marsh. A Grecian temple was not a universally accepted choice; members of Congress pointed out, for instance, that Lincoln never would have even learned the Greek alphabet, so why honor him with a modern Parthenon? There have always been people who are convinced that any depiction of nudity is scandalous, despite the persistence of artists over the centuries who found the human form worthy of representation. It is surprising, however, that the first controversy over nudity mentioned here is for a memorial to George Washington. Horace Greenough got a commission in 1833 to sculpt the Father of Our Country to stand in the Capitol, and although Washington wasn't actually nude in the huge marble statue that resulted, except above the waist; he had a toga wrapped around the rest of him, and the statue was a figure of ridicule. Age did not bring acceptance to the statue, which after placements other than the Capitol, was condemned to the Smithsonian. There are, to be sure, other controversies of nudity in art described here, especially regarding such photographs as those of Robert Mapplethorpe, and the displays of performance artists who do shows in the buff. It does not take nudity to make controversy, however; sometimes just a style will do so. Until recent years, the most controversial art show in America was the Armory Show of 1913, which was literally set up in an armory building in New York City by an ad hoc gr