Arts, Man on Wire, and Bomb the Suburbs
Lilian Sun
Maczynska
The Literary Imagination
20 August 2012
Arts, Man on Wire, and Bomb the Suburbs
Pan to Houston, Texas at night. On an episode of Stephen Fry in America, produced by Andre Singer, standing on a stage in a dimly lit room, surrounded by Houston’s elite, actor and comedian Stephen Fry speaks of the importance of the arts. “Oscar Wilde quite rightly said, ‘All art is useless’. And that may sound as if that means it’s something not worth supporting. But if you actually think about it, the things that matter in life are useless. Love is useless. Wine is useless. Art is the love and wine of life. It is the extra, without which life is not worth living.” In contrast to Fry, there are people who wish the government would cut funding for the arts. And then there are the artists. People who fight for the right to practice their art, whether they consciously know they’re fighting or not. People who will go to amazing lengths to showcase their art, and their dedication and determination is what gets them mentioned year after year after year. People like Philippe Petit, the quirky French high-wire artist who flew from France just to walk on a wire across the Twin Towers, whose life is forever immortalized in the documentary Man on Wire. People like William “Upski” Wimsatt, one of the most prolific Chicago-born graffiti artists, who inspired a generation of graffiti artists to view graffiti as an art form in his book Bomb the Suburbs!. Using whatever methods they can, illegal or not, they both worked to achieve their dreams and send their message to the world. They managed to pull people out of the blasé outlook mentioned in Georg Simmel’s scholarly essay The Metropolis and Mental Life.
One of the most prominent situations where an artist’s dream pulled people out of the unconcerned manner in which they carried themselves was the 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers by Philippe Petit. High-wire walking is a form of tightrope walking, much like
Maczynska
The Literary Imagination
20 August 2012
Arts, Man on Wire, and Bomb the Suburbs
Pan to Houston, Texas at night. On an episode of Stephen Fry in America, produced by Andre Singer, standing on a stage in a dimly lit room, surrounded by Houston’s elite, actor and comedian Stephen Fry speaks of the importance of the arts. “Oscar Wilde quite rightly said, ‘All art is useless’. And that may sound as if that means it’s something not worth supporting. But if you actually think about it, the things that matter in life are useless. Love is useless. Wine is useless. Art is the love and wine of life. It is the extra, without which life is not worth living.” In contrast to Fry, there are people who wish the government would cut funding for the arts. And then there are the artists. People who fight for the right to practice their art, whether they consciously know they’re fighting or not. People who will go to amazing lengths to showcase their art, and their dedication and determination is what gets them mentioned year after year after year. People like Philippe Petit, the quirky French high-wire artist who flew from France just to walk on a wire across the Twin Towers, whose life is forever immortalized in the documentary Man on Wire. People like William “Upski” Wimsatt, one of the most prolific Chicago-born graffiti artists, who inspired a generation of graffiti artists to view graffiti as an art form in his book Bomb the Suburbs!. Using whatever methods they can, illegal or not, they both worked to achieve their dreams and send their message to the world. They managed to pull people out of the blasé outlook mentioned in Georg Simmel’s scholarly essay The Metropolis and Mental Life.
One of the most prominent situations where an artist’s dream pulled people out of the unconcerned manner in which they carried themselves was the 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers by Philippe Petit. High-wire walking is a form of tightrope walking, much like
Cited: * Bowen, Tracey E. "Graffiti Art: A Contemporary Study of Toronto Artists." Studies in Art Education 41.1 (1999): 22-23. Print. * Fry, Stephen. "Mountains and Plains." Stephen Fry in America. Dir. John-Paul Davidson and Michael Waldman. BBC. 02 Nov. 2008. Television. * Man on Wire. Dir. James Marsh. Prod. Simon Chinn. By Igor Martinovic, Michael Nyman, J. Ralph, and Jinx Godfrey. Magnolia Pictures, 2008. DVD. * Simmel, Georg. "Altruists International - 404 Error Page." Altruists International - 404 Error Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Aug. 2012. <http://www.altruists.org/static/files/The%20Metropolis%20and%20Mental%20Life%20(Georg%20Simmel).htm>. * Wimsatt, William Upski. Bomb the Suburbs. New York, NY: Soft Skull, 2000. Print.