Beyond the Buttplug Gnome
Rotterdam's Wunderbaum satirizes the arts-funding debate
What too many Americans are so busy asking is, what is the purpose of government itself? It's a question that has far scarier resonances, given that we've experienced firsthand the folly of a system that places its full confidence in the profit motive to see us through, while consigning government regulation, and government support of just about everything, to the back burner.
Behind all this looms a darker shadow, the consolidation of wealth and power. If the same people who own the internet own the other media outlets as well, and are now purchasing our national elections — as they've always done in less "civilized" places — then the issues that matter for all of us are very much tied to freedom of expression, and the opportunity for expression.
Which takes us right back to the purpose of art. Of course those same people will dismiss the arts as obscene, indulgent or irrelevant. Yet those arts may be all we have left to help us understand what's going on and who we've become.
The only lingering question is whether or not we even want to understand that anymore. Many have given up, but Wunderbaum continues to ask.
WUNDERBAUM: LOOKING FOR PAUL | A performance by WUNDERBAUM | REDCAT, 631 W. Second St., dwntwn. | Nov. 17-20, 8:30 p.m.; Sat., Nov. 20, 3 p.m. | (213) 237-2800
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