Everyone Should Major in Women's Studies

by Thomas

This is something I have been thinking on. I read two chapters from John Wright's book on interest groups, the first on lobbyists and the second on political action committees. I know that in the liberal world, and oftentimes in the conservative one, that the public perception is quite distrusting of the political influence that lobbyists and political action committees may gain for corporate America. Indeed John Wright dispels much of this and describes lobbyists and PAC's rather as information providers and generally expediters of the political process, bringing grass roots movements to the doorstep of the Capitol.

Novelists tell us what is impossible. Theorists tell us what may be possible at a future point. Journalists tell us what is. Historians paraphrase what was. All of this sounds good, right? I doubt too many people would disagree. I do, to an extent. My Principal Investigator once lamented, "why oh why are the theoretical biologists mapping what we already know? They should be describing what is to come!" What art theorists do is describe what happened and why it all fits together so neatly now. Art critics indeed are not practitioners in the same way that artists are. They may have a more objective standpoint (and that is debatable), however it is difficult to ascertain whether or not watching art can produce anything as new as it can describe how it came to be. Art historians describe these events with whatever slant or cued preference they choose to show. It isn't as important that they get the facts, or the ideas, as they tell a narrative that may or may not compartmentalize Duchamp into a 173 page book *with pictures*. I restate: Novelists tell us what is possible. Theorists tell us why everything in the last thirty years occurred. Journalists tell us what they want to. Historians paraphrase what they wish would have been.

This brings us back to the lobbyists. They are information providers. Art historians and art critics help the public see what is going on. Indeed, compartmentalization is a necessary process, or how would we discern what to focus. Are art historians correct? I hope not. Are art critics unbiased, undoubtedly no. However, their contribution is an extension of the artist to the viewer.

Solid points concerning context. I have trouble with some of the placement of art. As an art critic, an art journalist, Linda Weintraub could go farther and enter the artist's studio (or better yet, could view the art in a gallery painted black with all the lights off and blinds turned). That kind of approach would begin to unravel more of the artist's story.