What if we stripped museums of Caravaggio’s paintings?
The artist wrestled with emotional subjects, influenced Baroque painting styles, and pioneered a dramatic technique of contrasting light and shadow. He was also an alleged murderer. Should he, as the Twitter line goes, be “canceled?”
That’s the argument Dame Judi Dench used in a recent Radio Times interview to defend her friends Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. The alleged sexual predators may have done bad things in their personal lives, but why should we avoid all of their films?
“Are we going to negate 10 years at the Old Vic and everything that [Spacey] did [as artistic director] — how wonderful he’s been in all those films?” she asked. “Are we just not going to see all those films that Harvey produced?”
Fans were disappointed to hear Dench defending Weinstein and Spacey, but she wasn’t excusing their behavior, only questioning the merit of dismissing their work.
The issue of separating art from the artist has cropped up frequently of late, in light of #MeToo allegations against well-known artists such as Woody Allen. We can still watch House of Cards (starring Spacey) and Good Will Hunting (produced by Weinstein), and we shouldn’t avoid all art created by or associated with bad people. We’d have almost nothing left.
On the other hand, Harriet Hall at The Independent makes an important point, writing:
Dench called it “agony” for Weinstein and Spacey to have their work scrapped in light of controversy. Sure, it’s sad that all of Weinstein’s and Spacey’s projects seem tainted now. You know what else is sad? Having your life or career ruined by a power-hungry predator.
Dench had friendships with both men, which complicates her comments. Did she defend them just because she knew them as friends, but not as the sexual predators they appear to be? Either way, her argument about the relationship between art and its artist was on the right track.
We can find a middle ground, where we both object to people’s behavior and evaluate their art on its own merits. Hall writes:
If we want people to improve their behavior, we must give them the chance to change. But some people, including Weinstein, have not expressed the remorse necessary to earn that opportunity.
As we evaluate what appears to be compromised art, then we must consider only two things: 1) Will our participation with it monetarily benefit the alleged predator who was involved? 2) Is the art bad? If the answer to either is yes, then it’s worth leaving alone.
If the answer is no, then sometimes even “problematic” art has something to teach us.
