June 08, 2008
Modern "Art" and Higher "Education"
Why do so many Americans despise Modern "Art"?
Why do growing numbers of Americans question the value of a liberal arts college education?
An answer to both questions is to be found on one campus, thanks to the idiots at a once-distinuished institution of higher learning.
New York’s Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is hosting an exhibition of "the best" of student art, which features works by Felipe Baeza, one of which:
shows a man with his pants pulled down with a crucifix extended from his rectum. Under the painting it says, “el dia que me converti catolico,” or “The day I became a Catholic.” There is a similar piece which substitutes a Rosary for the crucifix; another shows a man with his pants down and an angel holding two Rosaries with a penis attached to each of them; there is also a halo hovering over a naked man with an erection.
To give you a sense of what Cooper Union used to be, the historic role it played in presidential politics, take a look at who founded the school, and the -- what do you call it? -- standards it's administration and faculty once seemed to have:
The Cooper Union was founded in 1859 by American industrialist Peter Cooper, who was a prolific inventor and a successful entrepreneur. Peter Cooper was a workingman's son who had less than a year of formal schooling. Yet he went on to become an industrialist and an inventor; it was Peter Cooper who designed and built America's first steam railroad engine. Cooper made his fortune with a glue factory and an iron foundry. Later, he turned his entrepreneurial skills to successful ventures in real estate, insurance, railroads and telegraphy. He even once ran for President.
[...]
Originally intended to be called simply "the Union," the Cooper Union began with adult education in night classes on the subjects of applied sciences and architectural drawing, as well as day classes for women on the subjects of photography, telegraphy, typewriting and shorthand (in what was called the College's Female School of Design).
Discrimination based on race, religion, or sex was expressly prohibited.
[...]
Those free classes—a landmark in American history and the prototype for what is now called continuing education—have evolved into three distinguished schools that make up The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art: the School of Art, the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture and the Albert Nerken School of Engineering.
Peter Cooper's dream was to give talented young people the one privilege he lacked—a good education. He also wanted to make possible the development of talent that otherwise would have gone undiscovered. His dream—providing an education "equal to the best"—has come true. Since 1859, the Cooper Union has educated thousands of artists, architects and engineers, many of them leaders in their fields.
On February 27, 1860, the school's Great Hall became the site of a historic address by Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln's dramatic speech opposed Stephen A. Douglas on the question of federal power to regulate and limit the spread of slavery to the federal territories and new States. Widely reported in the press and reprinted throughout the North in pamphlet form, the speech galvanized support for Lincoln and contributed to his gaining the Party's nomination for the Presidency. It is now referred to as the Cooper Union Address.
Cooper Union's Great Hall was also the site of the school's inauguration whose primary address was given by Mark Twain.
Since then, the Great Hall has served as a platform for many historic addresses by American Presidents Grant, Cleveland, Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, [and] Woodrow Wilson
From Abraham Lincoln to a symbol of Christianity stuck up someone's ass.
What a perfect summary of the decline of both higher education and art.
Posted by Mike Lief at June 8, 2008 09:13 AM
| TrackBack