NPR on NPR for reals!!!!!
So finally, National Public Radio aired the piece by Karen Michel. Instead of All Things Considered which airs at drive time, when many of their listeners are sitting in their cars driving home, it aired on Weekend Edition (about 9 am Saturday in most markets). Not sure what that means, but you can listen to it on their page:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88827032
or you can listen to it on our page with an added commentary by someone who happened by on the day it aired.
http://www.conceptualart.org/npr/sounds/adam_tight.mp3
We’re figuring out how we plan to respond, but feel free to leave your comments below.
And thanks to our favorite new intern Lisa Tharpe, we will hopefully havesome new archives up very soon.
Thanks for your patience.
Feel free to comment liberally.
March 23rd, 2008 at 10:42 am
Wow how reactionary. You’d think NationalPR would be slightly more enlightened and recognize the validity and importance of media critique. Instead they take the so easy and tired line of “why is this art” and “look how unprofessional they are”. I suggest you return the favor and review their programming pointedly asking “why is this a public good” and “look how elitist they are”.
d
March 23rd, 2008 at 10:46 am
Could she avoid the form or forming of content with anymore distain.
The reporter comes to you with a “shut-down” kind of question and places it right at the end of her piece.
Seems a shame that she went looking for crap and only saw nothing…
To me the potential crticism of the produced and the prerecorded must be of some comfort to her..
I wonder if this voice that many NPR folks take, …the one where they sound so..off the cuff…
has worn a track right away from it’s intended purpose..sincerity
Too bad
she only looked and didn’t listen
Have fun
YR PAL
NJP
March 23rd, 2008 at 11:07 am
You guys are so fancy they brought Candace Bergen out to interview you.
Congrats on getting npr on npr - even if National Public Radio is full of philistines.
You guys rock.
March 23rd, 2008 at 11:11 am
Wellll, they did spell your name right. Then again, practice makes perfect.
The motive of the piece may be to indulge in the irresistible romp of excoriating the Biennial, especially with the deft editing that makes curator Henriette Huldisch sound utterly vacant. Yet that’s a predictable response: an anti-intellectual “news of the weird” dismissal.
So what’s worse:
having a national glimpse into NPR’s work overlook key concepts in art and social practice or
having a national glimpse into NPR’s work act as another 4-minute wedgie for the Whitney.
The omission of Jon Brumit’s contributions to the interview surprises me. I completely speculate that it was not just segment length constraints that affected the decision to eliminate his point of view. The work of NPR is not a simple read for folks in a world that apparently requires nothing but, if our media industry can be trusted in its assertion. Yet the fact is that NPR is having little trouble combining conceptual art, cultural reclamation, community engagement and continuous debate two doors down from the Whitney, single-handedly rescuing the Biennial from its own irrelevance. The storefront is antidote to our anxiety about contemporary art, and efforts to make the work conform to prior conception of how art shall be created and consumed should be ignored.
Shake it off. The dialog that NPR is conducting with the community has longer, stronger legs than this media attention.
March 23rd, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I think Adam (the guardian angel to those of us in the 941 Madison Ave studio) summed it up quite nicely on air yesterday. Why do they even need to ask the questions “Is it art?” ?!
March 23rd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Wow, that was kind of snarky, huh. But a really great response and commentary by passer-by Adam, who hits the nail on the head.
March 23rd, 2008 at 6:50 pm
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IS ART! …or at least it allows the soul, even the most damaged souls to reclaim their hearts bit by bit through self expression. Only by being encouraged, helped, pushed along by friends and loved ones to step out and express ourselves can we learn who we really are. In this way we create a tapestry through our expressed selves and learn what are our creative talents. This is what NEIGHBOORHOOD Public Radio does. It gives a ‘voice’ of self expression that might not be heard otherwise. The tapestry may be the expression of one person, a group of persons or a whole neignboorhood. It is NEIGHBORs helping neighbors in the ‘HOOD’ whatever your ‘hood’ may be. This type of radio station promotes immense creativity and healing. Someone who has the courage to say something in an environment where they feel safe (not judged or beholden to anyone) can then hear for themselves what they are venturing to say and share it with others that know them and get positive loving feedback. Who knows what courage such mutual aid (help) can give to another person. When someone feels they have a voice that counts for something there is nothing, I mean, nothing he/she can not do. Such a forum rarely exists in our hostile, competitive, money and image driven society. This is the type of mutual support and caring that is so lacking in our society now.
In his classic 1902 book entitled “MUTUAL AID” Peter Kropotkin, the Russian Biologist/philosopher states: “……And man is appealed to to be guided in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at the best tribal, but by his perception of oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which we can trace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support— not mutual struggle—has had the leading part. In its wide extension, even at the present time, we also see the best guarantee of a still loftier evolution of our race.”
Where else have the fundamental underpinnings of the most profound artistic movements of the past been found and blossomed: in a sense of community and mutual support such as envisioned by NEIGHBOORHOOD PR. I don’t think we have lived up to Peter Kropotkin’s hope for the human race very well. But creative entities like this radio station give me hope that we still may have a fighting chance.
Karen Michel is a poor journalist at best as she makes a shallow and judgemental assesment of NEIGHBOORHOOD PR two traits that are opposed to the most basis definition of good journalism: explore your subject and represent the facts and let the listener be the judge. Or if the facts are contradictory then interview a diversity of people and use their opinions.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:28 am
I actually thought the excerpt they played from the NPR archive made
the entire point - the voice was so immediate and personal, and well,
not formulaic and predictable in the way that National Public Radio
is. Also, the woman security guard speaking might have something
interesting to say and its too bad that the condescending interviewer
doesn;t have a chance to listen since she is too busy making her point.
Which I guess is that she is from the “real” NPR. She can have it.
I’ll take mine off the cuff any day.
March 24th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I was so looking forward to hearing the piece. To echo the above sentiments, choosing the tone of a complete disregard for contemporary art was disappointing. I listen closely to National Public Radio every single day, and I usually feel enriched by the human interest stories that I hear. This was a potential time to educate people about art and social practice. it really seemed to me the kind of thing that ignorant and closed people say about art. The comment about paintings? (there are hardly any paintings in the biennial)….um, so? I imagined that she was going to say something next like, “my kid could have made the sculpture”. Actually, no. He couldn’t have.
I was disappointed that National Public Radio was so condescending and closed-minded. Art is not a luxury in society; art is a necessity in society. Neighborhood Public Radio and the Whitney are putting forth questions of advocacy, identity, aesthetics and more that will enrich our lives as we seek answers and more questions in response.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed hearing adam’s commentary. i thought it was really astute and more to the point, it showed exactly the power of Neighborhood Public Radio. This guy was listening, he was moved to respond, he showed up at the studio and he was on the air. What a marvelous way to promote expression and open communication in society.
And what’s more, is he single????
March 24th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
There are many ways in which the “other” NPR displays their corporatization, but I was particularly struck by they irony of this most recent display. One would think that as an organization they would be smart enough to produce a piece that explores the nature, or even the possibility, of art and the the airwaves. Instead they dismissed the installation with all the aplomb of a 5 year old calling you “doodie-head.” What was the point of even producing that piece if not to insulate themselves from examination and maybe draw the attention of the FCC or their own lawyers. PUBLIC Radio? Nah.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I went to the website and listened, and it was very interesting. Karen Michel is indeed a boomer about my age, but unlike me, she stuck it out freelancing to NPR (National Public Radio). I remember her best for a brilliantly-produced documentary she produced years ago called “My Dinner with Menopause.” While it was highly produced, essentially it was based on materials that NPR (Neighbourhood Public Radio) might have used - personal anecdotes told among women of a certain age in a staged but relaxed setting. In a way, the ending for which NPR (Neighbourhood Public Radio) and their visitor Adam criticise Karen is an excellent ending, even if it does make KM herself seem a bit like a snitty mass media “gotcha” reporter. She asks the curatorfrom the Whitney Biennial why this neighbourhood radio station is art, and says the curator didn’t come up with an answer. I dare say the curator could have come up with an answer if she put her mind to it - the piece was picked for the show, after all - but leaving the question open-ended is a stroke of genius in a way, because it leaves Adam and me and the rest of us free to answer it ourselves. I would say that NPR (Neighbourhood Public Radio) is a piece of performance art, and not at all untypical of how art works. It is creating a frame - radio - in which the voices framed are not the voices usually heard on radio, but are other voices - and in making this juxtaposition - parallel to Andy Warhol framing a soup can - it illuminates both radio itself and the outsider voices. This is sort of what I’ve been doing for the past 21 years with the radio series WINGS: Women’s International News Gathering Service www.wings.org , where the presence of feminist voices illuminates their relative absence from most radio. It’s also what most of community radio is doing all over the world.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Re: suki’s comment about someone’s remarks being left out, and about segment length. In the last 20 years, the length of a normal NPR segment has been cut 50% - from 8 minutes to 4 minutes. We’ve seen a similar diminishment in the length of news segments on Pacifica. Speaking as an audio editor with NPR experience, it sounded to me as if Michel’s piece had been rough-handled to get it down to the right length. (I’m very happy that I now live in Canada - CBC and campus-community radio here both have a LOT of good longform work. After listening to all this human-sounding radio, I can hardly listen to NPR any more, most of the reporters and anchors sound like robots.)
March 24th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
This was great, much-deserved exposure for Neighborhood Public Radio.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that National Public Radio was unnecessarily cheeky and even condescending about it. But actually I was taken aback: you’d think that an institutional arts-programming behemoth like National Public Radio would be less defensive and would know more about art.
You’d also think they could find a new angle on the Whitney Biennial, instead of re-hashing the hackneyed “Is It Art?” question.
But this piece highlighted the outstanding work you’re doing to a nationwide audience. Congratulations!
Tony
March 24th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Hooray for Neighborhood Public Radio and shame on National Public Radio!
This sort of defensive, attack report is all part of what we’ve come to expect from National Public Radio, which stopped being relevant years ago. This is what National Public Radio pays reporters like Karen Michel to do: be boring; monopolize the airwaves with soft-focus, feel-good, class-ist programming; and, when faced with something truly innovative, throw their hands up in the air and say, “Omigod, what IS this? It doesn’t fit the prepackaged labels I carry around in my head, so I better not take it seriously.”
Too bad for them, and congratulations to you guys for being in the Whitney Biennial and for getting this kind of exposure — like a Trojan Horse wheeled past the gates of National Public Radio.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Adam gets it. That was great. Congrats and good luck on your work!
March 25th, 2008 at 1:04 am
I’m a program director of a “ligit” public radio station in Juneau Alaska. I think what you are doing is exciting and fun and creative and obviously art. It is sad to me that the NatPR reporter had to be so condescending, but let’s face it, she came off as an ass anyway. For her to offhandedly dismiss pirate radio as “not art” just because it is “not legal” is absurd. That really got me — that there has to be a big distinction drawn between types of expression because of what? The FCC saying it is ok?
Anyway, regardless of the reporter’s attitude, hearing about what you are doing was very exciting for me and I think the energy and thought you are putting into this cut through her tired old bullshit.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I didn’t get the impression that the reporter was questioning whether NPR was or wasn’t art, but whether it was “good” (e.g. the issues of professionalism and craft and the quoting of Lee Montgomery unapologetically stating that NPR puts a bunch of crap on the air) enough to be in the Whitney Biennial.
Really, the piece struck me as using NPR - which considering the project’s identity, agenda, and past programming would appeal to the National folks as a tempting target - to do a standard issue hit piece on the Whitney Biennial. Was it condescending - of course - I didn’t expect otherwise. Not that it doesn’t grate to receive condescending coverage (I and some of my best friends have been there countless times - we expect it but it still makes us angry), and one can always hope that people and institutions will rise above one’s expectations.
Her reading of the script - right before she goes into the interview w/the curator - and the text of the script itself seemed to have different emphases. Her vocal phrasing was flat without much emphasis, plus a bit rushed, though the argument the script was making seemed to emphasize “attention must be paid” - which follows the other standard script - the one about the Whitney Biennial as something akin to the Academy Awards of American Art - demanding masterpieces and “the bestest art right now” - that of course, rarely meets those criteria and gets castigated for it.
Basically, what I got out of the story, is not that NPR isn’t art, but while it does have some interesting content and there is magic to people empowered by having their voices heard on the radio, that the project, partly due to its non-traditional nature (e.g. not painting) and partly due to the “varied quality” - is mediocre and doesn’t belong in the Whitney Biennial.
Not having experienced first-hand NPR’s current installation in NY, I can’t say whether the story’s focus on “regular people telling stories (or sharing recipes)” as what NPR does is meant to serve the reporter’s argument or whether the project as presented in NY and/or when the reporter was present is more focused on that than previous outings when there was a significant amount of “arts programming” that would have been an “easier sell.” Certainly Matt Volla’s piece about the semiology of walking that appeared on NPR the week of the Whitney opening (which would have been when the reporter was there) was an artist making and discussing his art.
Considering the “crap” quote and the curator’s recorded vapidity, my strongest reponse was curiousity about the context of those remarks. Not to “blame the victim,” but it was surprising to me that such things were even said in the presence of the reporter and that someone in the Whitney PR Department didn’t get back to the NPR reporter - hell, an unpaid intern could send a form letter thanking the reporter for her request and cutting and posting the already generated project description about NPR that does address the issue, or at least uses “art language” - Of course this is assuming that the story is accurate.
However, unlike the other commenters, I don’t dismiss the question, “what’s the difference between a pirate radio station and NPR,” besides the latter’s identification as artists? I would imagine that Lee and the other NPR folks have considered this question in terms of defining goals and self-analysis of their project. Definitely with the “growth” of social-practices work and its increasing acceptance as at least “artful,” more people subscribe to the notion of “it’s art because I’m an artist and I say it is.”
Of course, this isn’t a new notion, but one that goes back to modernism. The main difference I note between now and that time in modernism, is that there is a growing feeling that “everybody can be an artist” and make their art available to the public via the internet for next to nothing in terms of money, time, and expertise, which effectively allows more people “to realize their creative potential” (were this National Public Radio, this would cue a tagline for HP products). I was surprised this issue didn’t make its way into the story, as the magic of the internet and “web 2.0″ are a favorite topic of journalists of the reporter’s generation.
I think if there is, as Suki says, an “anxiety about contemporary art” - it isn’t, at least not for me, one about relevance, but one about evaluation of one’s work. In terms of social-practice projects, there are issues of criteria (e.g. how do we determine whether this is good), in terms of other well-worn media (including not just visual art, but music, film, “the arts”) it’s the issue of separating wheat from chaff - finding and getting recognition for “great” art in an ever-increasing sea, of well, mediocrity. There is an anxiety, partly due to economic reasons, whether making “great” work (or even good work) is something that will be adequately rewarded. I also notice an anxiety on the part of some audiences that the art they engage with is special and worth their time and effort. I think this is an anxiety shared by the NPR reporter - she wants the Whitney Biennial to be a trustworthy arbiter of what is special and worth her time and effort.
I don’t see the reporter’s final question as implicitly dismissing the validity of pirate radio as an enterprise, either - I would bet that the reporter would question including National Public Radio in the Whitney Biennial. I don’t think it has anything to do with pirate radio being “not art” because it is “not legal,” but because radio is not a traditional art medium, again back to the comment about paintings, and that pirate radio is not known for its “quality” (translation: professionalism and craft that is something as far as the medium of radio goes, National Public Radio prides itself on). And while idealistically I’d disagree - but I’d also bet that the reporter would say, that because NPR doesn’t take the form of a traditional art medium it needs to work that much harder at “quality” to make up for it. Though I do wonder where in this scheme radio initiatives of other arts organizations would fall - like NY’s PS-1’s - WPS1 “art radio”?