Gorman’s performance also got me thinking about the tradition of the inaugural poem — embraced by only four presidents to date — and what it says about the role of art in civic spaces, the importance of art being valued at the national level. (Like the National Poet Laureate, the National Youth Poet Laureate is co-sponsored by the Library of Congress.)
There have been several recent pieces written about the need, given the devastation COVID-19 has wrought in the cultural sector, for a New Deal for the arts, something akin to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, which put people back to work after the Great Depression.
Under the WPA, through subprograms such as the Federal Art Project, artists were paid to put their special skills into practice for public works. The result was thousands of artworks, including by big-name Northwest artists Jacob Lawrence, Mark Tobey and Morris Graves, and (unduly) lesser-known locals like Theodora Harrison, Fay Chong and Agatha Kirsch. As part of its exhibition Forgotten Stories, Northwest Public Art of the 1930s(forced to close by COVID-19), Tacoma Art Museum produced a fascinating 20-minute video with curator Margaret Bullock about the impact of the federal program and the Northwest artists involved.
In July, Crosscut contributor Misha Berson wrote about the need for a fresh take on the New Deal. This past weekend, New York Times art critic Jason Farago wrote on a similar topic, outlining an extensive plan for how the new Biden administration could craft a federally sponsored arts initiative.
“What is art’s function?” Farago asked. “What does art do for a person, a country?”
He based his answer on Aristotle’s: catharsis. “You go to the theater, you listen to a symphony, you look at a painting, you watch a ballet. You laugh, you cry. You feel pity, fear. You see in others’ lives a reflection of your own,” he wrote. “And the catharsis comes: a cleansing, a clarity, a feeling of relief and understanding that you carry with you out of the theater or the concert hall.” Or perhaps as you close the screen on which you watched a young poet capture the gaze of a nation.
Listening to Gorman, I felt the catharsis. I dared to imagine a future in which a poet could become president.
Gorman’s performance also got me thinking about the tradition of the inaugural poem — embraced by only four presidents to date — and what it says about the role of art in civic spaces, the importance of art being valued at the national level. (Like the National Poet Laureate, the National Youth Poet Laureate is co-sponsored by the Library of Congress.)
There have been several recent pieces written about the need, given the devastation COVID-19 has wrought in the cultural sector, for a New Deal for the arts, something akin to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, which put people back to work after the Great Depression.
Under the WPA, through subprograms such as the Federal Art Project, artists were paid to put their special skills into practice for public works. The result was thousands of artworks, including by big-name Northwest artists Jacob Lawrence, Mark Tobey and Morris Graves, and (unduly) lesser-known locals like Theodora Harrison, Fay Chong and Agatha Kirsch. As part of its exhibition Forgotten Stories, Northwest Public Art of the 1930s(forced to close by COVID-19), Tacoma Art Museum produced a fascinating 20-minute video with curator Margaret Bullock about the impact of the federal program and the Northwest artists involved.
In July, Crosscut contributor Misha Berson wrote about the need for a fresh take on the New Deal. This past weekend, New York Times art critic Jason Farago wrote on a similar topic, outlining an extensive plan for how the new Biden administration could craft a federally sponsored arts initiative.
“What is art’s function?” Farago asked. “What does art do for a person, a country?”
He based his answer on Aristotle’s: catharsis. “You go to the theater, you listen to a symphony, you look at a painting, you watch a ballet. You laugh, you cry. You feel pity, fear. You see in others’ lives a reflection of your own,” he wrote. “And the catharsis comes: a cleansing, a clarity, a feeling of relief and understanding that you carry with you out of the theater or the concert hall.” Or perhaps as you close the screen on which you watched a young poet capture the gaze of a nation.
Listening to Gorman, I felt the catharsis. I dared to imagine a future in which a poet could become president.
