The malignant, lingering spectre of Puritanism stalks the land today, rattling its chains everywhere from the Senate floor to our exhibition spaces for contemporary art. Contemplating this revenant has reminded me of my own encounter with it here on Staten Island, back in the fall of 1980. The Island’s indefatigable champion of the arts, Dan Werner — who’s run the non-profit Art/Network for almost two decades, but at that time served as curator of the first Newhouse Gallery at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center — asked me to guest-curate a show in that space. I did so, and it went off without a hitch — almost. What follows is an account I wrote and published in a national magazine back in early 1981 — a commentary that seems to me, if anything, to have gained in pertinence over the years. I’ve left it unchanged, to preserve its period flavor, so keep in mind that I drafted this almost exactly 18 years ago.
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Every once in a while someone offers me the opportunity to change functions drastically by curating an exhibit instead of critiquing it. This hasn’t happened very often — only four or five times to date — but when does I tend to accept; I find I learn a lot from standing on the other side of the line.
Last fall I received such an invitation from the gallery of a cultural center in the heart of my own community. I was born and raised in Manhattan, but I live on Staten Island, and though most people think of me as a “New York critic” (with all the attitudes that presumably attach to being rooted in Gomorrah), the community in which I’ve chosen to reside, work, and raise my son is not typically New Yorkish, nor even typically urban. Separated from the metropolis by a half-hour ocean voyage on one corner and the world’s longest (then) single-span suspension bridge on the other, Staten Island is determinedly suburban and even small-town in its appearance, politics, and attitudes.
Having lived here for the last thirteen years, I feel myself to be very much a member of my community. I’m in the PTA, and a local civic association; I’ve donated time and energy and whatever weight attaches to my name to a good number of neighborhood self-help programs. I pay taxes here, take part in local elections, and think of myself as a fairly average, unremarkable citizen.
There are quite a few other people I know out here whom I consider to be kindred spirits. And, since we’re all part of this community, I think that we — and, for that matter, I — represent “local community standards” as well as anyone else.
I suspect this is beginning to seem like a peculiarly autobiographical digression, so let me get back to the story. Over the years, I’ve familiarized myself with what’s happened and is happening on Staten Island insofar as photography is concerned — not much, to put it briefly. So when I was asked to put together this exhibit, I decided that it should serve an educational function for the audience. To that end, I structured the show around the silver-gelatin print (what we commonly refer to as “black & white” photography) as a unique and rapidly disappearing vehicle for photographic expression, and invited five photographers whom I think of as master printers to exhibit extended thematic groups of silver prints: Roy DeCarava, Allen A. Dutton, Richard Kirstel, Michael Martone, and Julio Mitchel. I titled it “Silver Sensibilities.”
The result was, if I do say so myself, a knockout: two large, handsome, connected rooms filled with over 140 pieces of diverse and powerful work. I was excited and provoked by the show, as were many of the more than one thousand people who saw it during its three-week run. Certainly it met my community standards. Even the photographers seemed pleased. But, shortly after it opened, the head of the cultural center which houses the gallery received the following letter of complaint.
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Dear Mr. S:
Last month I had the pleasure of visiting the Newhouse Gallery at Snug Harbor for the [John A.] Noble Exhibit which was just glorious and for which I thank you.
I visited the Gallery about a week ago and had brought some young members of my family. There was an exhibition of photographs. I was very sorry that I had suggested the trip to the Gallery. Many of the photographs were outright pornography. The exhibit had a generally low-class view of life in mind I believe, but this is no excuse to show pornography. This type of show one would not expect to find in a “cultural” center where one takes family and friends. I think whomever is responsible for the choice of exhibits should be reminded that Staten Island needs a cultural center for the whole family. I will now hesitate to suggest any young people visit the Newhouse Gallery.
I should think that if you wanted community support you would give the community decent and not degrading exhibits such as the one I have mentioned. This is in my opinion not of a “cultural” nature.
Thank you.
Yours very truly,
/s/Kathleen G–.
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