Trump’s Doral flip-flop
I had the privilege of attending the volunteer preview of the Monet exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. Once I got home, I read Ray Mark Rinaldi’s review of the exhibit. After reading it, I asked myself, “Did we see the same exhibit?”
Now I may not know as much about art reviewing as Rinaldi, but is it the job of the curator of an art exhibit concerning an artist who painted in the late 19th century and the early 20th century to connect those works to the current issues of 2019, or is it the job of the curator to present the work in the context in which it was created, educating the viewer about place, the artist’s objectives, what personal issues were affecting Monet at different points in his life, and sequencing the art based upon where he was living at the time and how each location affected his art? I think, my friends, that it is the second! And I think the DAM did it beautifully.
I am very concerned about the environment and current issues. I am politically active. But when I go to an art exhibit, I want it to be about the art and the artist, not current social issues. I for one need a break from the current level of political and social chaos, not more immersion in it. So I thank the DAM for the amazing Monet exhibit that they have created for Denver.
Rinaldi’s review of the Monet exhibition at the Denver Art Museum, though generally favorable, is disappointing in its criticism and misses the mark. His comments seem to distort the value of art history taken as a given. Rather, for Rinaldi, the magnificence of pure execution of incredible skills is not adequate for us to be overcome with the joy of seeing extraordinary artistry. Though adequately complimentary, his final analysis is that the museum has done a disservice to Monet in that the presentation is “useless, fading and inconsequential,” suggesting we must find immediate social relevancy and that beauty and craftsmanship alone are insufficient. Go see for yourself and enjoy this incredible timeless contribution to the world.
President Donald Trump has with characteristic grace yielded to outrage over his attempt to grab hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of taxpayer dollars to make an overbuilt property of his bigly profitable.
His incredible assertion that he was going to host it at no profit ranks right up there — or is it down there? — with his statement that the tax law he dictated to a cowed Republican Congress in 2017 wouldn’t benefit him.
The corrupt character of his shameless attempt at self-enrichment is underscored by White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s lying assertion that after an advance team had considered numerous alternatives, the White House selected Trump National Doral “perfect.” Now we hear that we will begin the search for another site.
One sad corollary of this flip-flop is that we must now wonder forever whether, by uncanny coincidence at just the time that the group that was formerly a G-8 would meet, Trump’s friend Vladimir Putin was going to be invited as a personal guest of Trump National Doral’s owner.
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