SFMOMA: "An Unexpected Outcome"

 "Though he is not a woman or a person of color, and I understand how that may be an unexpected outcome, I believe he will materially promote the visibility and best interest of those groups based on his past performance." 

So said Pamela L. Joyner, a black woman who co-headed SFMOMA's search committee, which settled on a white male, Christopher Bedford, to head up the museum, yet another American cultural institution troubled by charges of past racism. 

Well, as a Feb. 10, 2022, New York Times story on this development noted, Bedford not long ago made waves as head of the Baltimore Musem of Art by proposing to sell of works by Brice Marden, Christopher Still and Any Warhol to finance acquisitions of art by people of color and to finance staff salary increases. He also at one point announced a year-long commitment to acquire only works by female artists.

Such is the world of American culture at the moment: just who created something is of far greater importance than what exactly got created. To be fair, however, there are few if any objective standards of what makes for a great work of art.  Generally, someone considered an authority in such matters makes a pronouncement, or perhaps the price for which something sells is viewed as a sufficient proxy for its artistic merit.

In any event, despite the fact that by his gender and the color of his skin, Bedford represents the racist, colonialist, patriarchal past that is said to underpin prevailing U.S. social conditions, he's more or less acceptable for his new post.

I say "more or less" because here's what the NYT reported Ford Foundation president Darren Walker had to say: "While I'm disappointed that a diverse candidate wasn't chosen, no museum leader is more committed to diversity than Chris Bedford." In other words, second choice despite certain merits. 

According to the newspaper report, the museum may well have had to settle on Bedford despite his gender and skin-color shortcomings because the job isn't that attractive, and demand is high for qualified women or those of color.

"A person close to the job search who spoke on the condition of anonymity because that person was not authorized to reveal its details, said that the SFMOMA position was not an easy sell to candidates, given San Francisco's comparatively low-profile contemporary art scene and tepid interest in art patronage among Silicon Valley moguls." So the NYT reported.

"Superstition:" The Subliminal Power of Culture & Religion

 "Superstition," a short story by Sarah Braunstein, in the Aug. 2 New Yorker is about the lingering claims of culture and the almost subliminal power of religion.

Two teenage boys, conventionally dismissive of anything but what strikes their prevailing fancy, live with a permissive, understanding father, perhaps excessively so because the mother of the boys died some years earlier. They have been indulged with all manner of toys and youthful paraphernalia, now no longer valued. 

As is often the case with children in general, and particularly teenagers, the boys are into testing boundaries and at one point discover eBay. The story is set relatively early in the Internet age, before the advent of social media. 

One of the boys, named Lenny, suspecting the public is easily duped, makes up a lucky-charm story about a plaque-mounted fish he had once bought at Goodwill for a couple of dollars and sure enough, after a round of bidding, someone buys it for over ninety dollars. 

James, his brother, is impressed and wants to do likewise, but struggles to come up with something to sell about which a convincing story might be told.  Until he recalls a cross that he received at his first communion, kept in a velvet box.  Eventually he comes up with a story -- it had been in the family since 1915 and, when in the possession of a somewhat distant family member, had been blessed by Pope Pius XII, a controversial figure, James knows, because he "had been reluctant to intervene as a genocide unfolded in Europe."

As far as the plot goes, I will stop here so as not to spoil Ms Braunstein's tale, but suffice to say that James is far more entangled in the cultural and religious background of his family than he would care to admit if, indeed, he understands the genesis of his emotional crosscurrents. 

It's a story that is more interesting than initially appears to be the case and, no surprise, the New Yorker, in the usual author interview, fails to explore the seminal issue. (These interviews are frequently disappointing.)

The ending is an allegorical short cut, necessarily, I suppose because this is a short story. Ms Braunstein's topic is complex and as such, deserves a more sophisticated denouement.

Lily King's "Timeline:" A Story of Manners, or Who Are We?

 It was more or less by chance -- browsing through the latest Lit Hub email on a slow pandemic morning -- that I read "Timeline" via a link to "OprahMag."  There it was identified as a new short story by award-winning author Lilly King and as "the perfect romantic drama." On the that score, readers can decide for themselves, but I hope not.

The story mainly got me thinking about why one reads fiction.  Well, most fiction is written for entertainment and in the interest of providing a living for the author. Some books eventually fall into what is known as "the canon" and one then reads them  in the interest of "becoming cultured." This notion actually plays a role in "Timeline."

But over the years, the reason I personally have read fiction is to get a better understanding of social values, both here in the U.S. and in other countries.  When I worked in Japan for five years, for instance, I mainly read Japanese novels in translation.  And when I worked in England for eight years, I mainly read English literature. In most cases these were, at least loosely, novels of manners, which is to say books about how people interact with each other in normal, ordinary society.  

"Timeline" is a short story of manners, and in that vein, serves to illuminate the nature of present day American life. It's not definitive of our current culture, of course, and I'm sure Ms King would be the first to say so. But it may well be all too representative of certain currents now running within it. As such, it is worth a read.

Where Matters Stand When It Comes to Culture

The Oct. 11, 2020 New York Times Magazine, which comes with the Sunday paper if you still get it delivered, is identified as "The Culture Issue" and it contains a number of articles on where the editors think matters currently stand here in the U.S. For instance: can Hollywood successfully make a film about slavery in view of prevailing controversies about American history and racial identity?

Although I read most of the articles and skimmed one other, what struck me most forcefully was a full-page ad on the back cover by First Republic Bank. Not surprisingly these days, it featured a large photo of two smiling folks identified as satisfied customers: a tall, thin black gentleman and an attractive bespectacled woman, apparently of Asian family origin, who is evidently his wife.

There's a pretty clear cultural message right there -- not necessarily all that new, but one meant to send a signal nonetheless. You don't have to be one of those "privileged" white people to do business with First Republic, which, in the current environment may be making a concerted effort to visibly diversify its customer base. As a culture, that's where we are these days and perhaps rightfully so.

But who are the bank's two customers, shown in what appears to be their tastefully decorated home, and what can we learn about our prevailing culture on that basis?

The man is identified in the ad as Rod Brewster, the Founder and CEO of a company called Pingtumi (think "ping to me") that evidently has availed itself of the bank's services. It makes an app that allows users to push messages out to groups of people who signal they want to receive them by scanning a QR code -- a Quick Response code, or one of those things that looks vaguely like a square finger print. They can be printed on almost anything, or appear on a website.

Receiving ever-more messages of one sort or another via smart phones is probably a lot more about where American culture is these days than what the NYT Magazine articles talk about. But there is more. The Pingtumi app also allows users to poll subscribers about topics of interest "and gain insights into their thinking." In other words, collect presumably usable data, and that's definitely where we are, culturally speaking.

The woman, identified as Ghia Griarte, is a Managing Partner of Ponte Partners (think "bridge"), a San Francisco-based firm that puts investors together with firms in need of capital, with a priority on confidentiality (according to it's website), and also makes investments on its own behalf.

Conveniently, the website shows the logos of a handful of the companies with which Ponte Partners has been involved and by looking at what these companies do, we can get additional cultural insights.

As it turns out, they facilitate small business finance by means of an online platform that matches up potential borrowers and lenders; make programmable robots for the education of children; make avatars for those who wish to "level-up their digital personality;" make software that helps accelerate how fast website content can be pushed out to potential buyers; make digital three-dimensional scenes and animations (think virtual models for swimwear), and, necessarily in view of most of the above, provide security for digital content.

Think about those products and services in the context of culture. It's pretty much the directions in which society is going.

But there is more. If you want to be "with it" from a cultural point of view, perhaps so you know what to wear and what to do, or perhaps for business purposes, Ponte Partners has also been involved with a firm that focuses on identifying consumer and design trends -- both current, and future. These include things like fashion, beauty products, lifestyle interiors, health, etc. This outfit has, among other things, "on-the-ground trend hunters" (you heard about that occupation at your high school job fair, right?) to help customers keep abreast of global trends.

Next year, perhaps the NYT Magazine's culture issue will focus on some of these topics and tell readers what it all means.