Old War/New War: Band of Brothers and the Revival of the WWII War Film

Film Reviews | Regular Feature Louise Bourgeois with The Sail, 1988. identity in some fashion, Marshall's attempt to "reclaim blackness as an image ofpower" seems more ihematically appropriate than Bourgeois' cryptical explanation of her sculptural series for Chicago's Jane Addams Memorial Park. Even Maya Lin's typically careful exploration ofcommunity identity for her project in an urban park in Grand Rapids, Michigan is lost in a segment seemingly designed to emphasize the challenges of large-scale construction . Introduced by John McEnroe, the final episode addresses the theme of "consumption" in the work of artists Michael Ray Charles, Mel Chin, Andrea Zittel and Matthew Barney. Despite McEnroe's misguided introductory "artis -like-tennis" aphorisms and Barney's obtuse references to Freud and the NFL, the link between the artworks and their relationship to mass consumerism is effectively established. We understand , for instance, why Charles refers to early twentieth-century images of mammies and pickaninnies to explore the negative stereotypes of African-Americans, or why Chin chooses to insert the "dying" patterns oftribal carpets into the "thriving" culture of video games in his KNOWMAD installation. To its great credit, Art 21 avoids the kind of legitimizing analytical commentary that has plagued the art documentary genre since its inception. Limited to interviews with the artists, their families and a handful ofpeople with whom the artists have collaborated in some way, the series encourages viewers to contemplate art unencumbered by the orgasmic formal descriptions of Sister Wendy or by Robert Hughes' emphatic insistence upon art's eternal shock value. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how additional commentary could improve upon Anne Hamilton's eloquent analysis of cloth's function as a social metaphor in her installation at an abandoned Virginia textile mill. It is equally hard to envision improvement upon Andrea Zittel's articulate explanation of how her meticulously crafted "units for living" are designed to challenge traditional notions of control, liberation and oppression. And while I have no quarrel with critic Eleanor Heartney's recent complaints of the series' unevenness or lack of critical historical context, I would question her desire to resurrect the "authoritative tone" and "essentially canonical approach to art history" of previous art documentaries.1 As a trained museum educator and professor of art history, it would be professionally unconscionable (not to mention counterproductive) for me to suggest that external analysis and historical contextualization are unnecessary heuristic devices. By the same token, however, too much interpretation can discourage viewers from developing their own considered response to works of art. Although the efficacy of the documentary genre is always difficult to measure , Art 2Fs producers are to be commended for creating a series that at least endeavors to inspire critical thinking on the part of its audience. Rather than trotting out a familiar line-up of talking heads who interpret the art for the viewers, the series encourages an ongoing public discourse on the function of contemporary art today. This is not to imply that the program is devoid of critical interpretation—such guidance is offered in an affordable companion text that includes several excellent essays written by several members ofthe advisory board and a series of home videos and educational outreach materials. But in neglecting to even mention the program's extensive educational website, Heartney misses the point. Loaded with links to biographies, in-depth interviews, pedagogical projects and community message boards, this impressive site encourages an active, rather than passive analysis of contemporary art that engages participants in a dialogue with each other and with the artists themselves. Heartney is correct, I think, to suggest that an absence of mediating analysis produces a 'whitewashing' effect that undermines the complexity of contemporary artistic production. And as one website respondent from Oregon pointed out, the series all but ignores the profound effect of digital technology on the work of so many artists today. Nevertheless, Art 21 manages to inject new life into a genre burdened by the insular elitism of artworld aficionados. Perhaps if we stop looking backward to the precedent set by Hughes' 1980 series The Shock ofthe New and set our sights on the future instead, we could embraceArt 21 for what it is—an honest attempt...