Assemble a group of distinguished American artists, most of them based in New York City, and ask them to reflect on the disaster of September eleventh. That is what Harvard University did last week with results that ranged from the insightful all the way down to the banal.
The session went to prove that artists, like the rest of us, find it difficult to understand the spiritual meaning of the terrorist attack. They may be excellent in their own specialty but laying hold of wisdom is hard for them, too.
Playwright John Guare found the most important lesson was to continue his work. “All we can do,” he said, “is to keep doing what we are doing.” So Guare returned to completing a play that he had left unfinished, but now has readied for an opening in the spring. “The fact that I was writing I found sacred.”
Novelist and short-story writer Jamaica Kincaid, born in the island nation of Antigua but now an American citizen, asked herself if she should renounce that citizenship. This was her reaction to the United States’ bombing of Afghanistan. “Lots of people in Afghanistan are as innocent as those in New York City,” she proclaimed.
Singer James Taylor cautioned against drawing conclusions too soon, before we have a chance to develop perspective. “The rush for a consensus reality,” he warned, “ is inappropriate. It takes a while to find out what it is.”
Elizabeth Murray, a visual artist considered one of the most important painters in this country, vividly described the feeling of death in the neighborhood where she lives close to Ground Zero. All the lights were out, the television was not working. The atmosphere produced in this woman a loss of purpose. According to her, “most artists are normally on the edge of feeling that what they do is meaningless,” and this event pushed them further toward out along that edge.
The dire events of that September day also created another realization in Elizabeth Murray. “It took my breath away to realize how privileged we have been,” she told the audience. “In New York City, we have been spoiled,” Murray added.
A star of the musical stage, Mandy Patinkin, said that the catastrophe has made him consider what he does as an entertainer more deeply. And it has raised the question, “What is there in the American lifestyle worth defending?”
Patinkin does not think art in itself will be any different but that it will be seen and heard differently. He finished his remarks by sharing with listeners his new practice of leaving four different boxes in the back of theaters where he performs and ends by asking for donations for his favorite charities that promote world peace.
Trisha Brown, dancer and choreographer, at first felt stunned by the destruction and loss of life but was later vitalized by contact with her students. “An integration came into my life that was very hopeful,” she reported.
Some of the panelists showed themselves very critical of American values. “How shallow American culture has become,” complained Elizabeth Murray. She cited in particular the worship of celebrity and the pervasive use of spin control.
Jamaica Kincaid returned to her earlier themes saying that what has happened is “bigger than us, than our feelings.” She even corrected what others had said about the importance of compassion: “I like compassion but I like justice first.” And that should concern us Americans, she indicated, in our situation whereby ten percent of the world’s people control ninety percent of its resources.
This same outspoken writer also criticized the singing of “God Bless America.” In contrast with the title of the song, she asked the question: “God, can you give some blessings of people in other parts of the world?”
These artists also voice concern about censorship by government and self-censorship by organizations such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra which recently changed a concert program because of concerns about “sensitivity.” Playwright John Guare proposed as a reason for opposing censorship that the role of art may be to oppose what others say.
Like a biblical prophet, that same author moralized thus: “How flimsy our lives are, the things we have to have.”
Richard Griffin