POSITIVITY

Ben, my host here in Lansing, thought my apoplectic blog yesterday, about John Sinclair's pitiful lecture that we attended, was a tad negative. "We spent twelve hours together and that was only a couple hours," he correctly noted. But he undercut his point by showing me another critique that slammed Sinclair as a "pompous blowhard." Touché.

Be that as it may, I promised Ben I would write something positive about today, the end of my 2½ days in greater Lansing. Fortunately, that won't be hard, since we spent a mellow, sunny Easter wandering the beautiful campus gardens of Michigan State University. And looking at architecture and art.

Even in these earliest days of spring, the still-bare trees of campus are stunning. It was like visiting old friends. I knew where the beds of winter aconite should be blooming, and they were right where I remembered.

As Ben chauffeured me for a tour around campus, at one point I ordered him to stop. I wanted a picture of the powerplant smokestack I climbed one freezing February night a lifetime or two ago. It seemed completely crazy to think I'd really been up there, and lived to tell about it (see "Ayn Rand Got Me High"). As with so many tales of youth.

Much of the campus is little changed, but much is dramatically different -- new academic, sports, and residential buildings. Expanded demonstration gardens. The drinking fountains in the library dispense filtered water for reusable water bottles.

The most striking addition to MSU's campus is the Broad art museum, an architectural wonder of gleaming stainless steel and unpredictable angles, located right at the entrance to the university on Grand River Avenue. A modest exhibit of Andy Warhol art in its basement gallery was spectacular; we agreed that Warhol's sinister portrait of Nixon was best.

(At this point in my story today, I'm sorry to say, my positivity runs thin.) 

One might assume that if you give artists -- painters, sculptors, and such -- the finest display space that money can buy, that their art would rise to the occasion. The Broad proves that to be a fanciful dream.

When I went to school at MSU, and for the many years after when I frequented the campus, I knew the art school's faculty artists to be, at best, mediocre talents (possibly, with one exception). What I saw today at the Broad -- an exhibit of the current faculty's best work -- screamed that my memory was overly generous. Words such as elitist, inaccessible, and ridiculous only begin to convey qualities of their art.

Consider one non-faculty exhibit, which the Broad paid actual money to have installed. Picture a grungy, white, terrycloth bathrobe. Now hang it twenty feet overhead from a hook.

If you are waiting for more, there is no more to it. That's it.

The Broad devoted an entire gallery room to another of this artist's work. Picture a sheet hanging on the wall. Opposite is a small screen with a black-and-white video of a cage. That's it. Although it wasn't clear if the room's lighted exit sign was part of the art. The Broad explained the artist's intent: "Careful consideration of the architectural and ambient features of the exhibition space is integral to his process, as too are the social aesthetics and politics of Smith's hometown of Detroit, which specifically come to bear on this exhibition, the first major museum show by the artist in his native state of Michigan."

Hopefully, also the last. It may have been the first time I've ever been left speechless by art.

We later visited a small, scruffy, private gallery in North Lansing, run by Trisha, a friend of Ben. "This is so much better than the Broad," I gushed, within minutes of entering the display of eclectic, beautiful art by local artisans. It was a relief to be able to be positive again. Trisha thought that "better than the Broad" might make a good tag line for her gallery.

I don't know when, if ever, I'll be back to my old hometown again. It was a kick being here, and I've got one more day in another part of Michigan before I head west for Oregon and home. The best part here was spending quality time enjoying gardens, landscapes, and art with Ben, my friend now for forty years. Shared history can't explain such longevity. And it certainly can't be explained by shared politics -- there, we agree on almost nothing. But when it comes to esthetics, we agree on almost everything. And where we don't, Ben gives me insights I've missed, helping me broaden my understanding and appreciation of art.

That's pretty damned positive, don't you think?

Yesterday: FREE JOHN SINCLAIR'S MIND!