Review - Thoughts on Jesse Helms & The Wisdom of Crowds

I don't take pleasure in anybody's death; not even the death of someone who trampled on the rights of free speech in order to prevent funding for art that he considered to be obscene. I'm sure he felt he was doing the right thing for the country I have no reason to doubt he loved.

I remember the late 80s and early 90s as such an exciting, vibrant, colorful and inclusive time for performance art and visual art in downtown New York. So many people only think of Karen Finley as the woman who smeared chocolate sauce all over her body without knowing that it was only part of a full-length piece called We Keep Our Victims Ready, which, among other things, revolted against a society that influenced such low self-images among women as to make them feel like excrement. So many people refused to even consider if there was any aesthetic beauty in Andres Serrano's photograph, Piss Christ, which captured a crucifix emerged in a glass of his own urine. Nobody said you had to like what they did, but it seems hypocritical for a country that values free speech to take back funding from otherwise qualified artists based on their work's content.

You never knew exactly what you'd be seeing at Dixon Place, P.S. 122, Franklin Furnace, Judson Memorial Church and other places that housed the kind of art he labeled as morally corrupt, but you knew it would be glowing with an earnest effort to share creativity. (And tickets were cheap, too!) Goodbye, Jesse Helms. Wherever you're going I'm sure Joe McCarthy has the welcome wagon waiting for you.

Helms was among those who felt (as many still feel today) that, instead of spending public funds to endow artists deemed worthy by a select group designated as experts, public arts support should go no further than the act of buying a ticket or making a private donation. Let the people decide with their dollars which artists please them and are deserving of their support. I feel a slight connection between that reasoning and an exhibition I saw last weekend at the Brooklyn Museum; a place that had its own public funding threatened by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani when he found one of their shows distasteful.

Titled, Click!, A Crowd-Curated Exhibition, the museum's one-room display of 78 photos is inspired by James Surowiecki's book, The Wisdom of Crowds, which, although not particularly about art, explores the value of the opinions of those considered experts as opposed to the collective thoughts of the general public.

378 photographers answered the museum's month-long open call and submitted one photo each on the theme, "Changing Faces of Brooklyn." One of them happened to be my brother, Paul Kopelow, who submitted this photo. (You'll please pardon my overt favoritism if I use my brother as an example of how the process worked.) During a 7 1/2 week period, visitors to the museum's web site were invited to blindly judge as many photos as they like, with technical precautions taken to prevent ballot stuffing and to allow each photo to be judged about the same number of times. The thousands who voted were also asked to evaluate their own knowledge of photography on one of five levels, which is where the fun begins.

If you take a look at this simple chart (this is starting to sound like a Comden and Green lyric) you'll see that Paul's photo placed 5th overall, but did not make the top ten among people who claimed to have no knowledge of photography. He places 6th among those who claim "some" and "more than a little" knowledge, but then jumps to third when evaluated by those with "above average" and "expert" knowledge. Similarly, you'll notIce That the photo that placed 1st among those with no knowledge drops to 10th when rated by those with some knowledge and doesn't even make the top ten among those with higher degrees of knowledge.

And if you're wondering what all this has to do with theatre, think of the diverse opinions expressed by New York's theatre critics and frequent theatre-goers as opposed to the infrequent ones. The latest demographic attendance report released by the Broadway League proves that success on the Main Stem relies on appealing to the infrequent play-goer, with only 6% of those surveyed attending Broadway shows 15 or more times a year. Compare that to the roughly 35-40 productions seen by critics and frequent theatre-goers and you'll understand why a show like the current revival of Grease can get generally poor reviews and enjoy a healthy box office while a critically acclaimed show like Passing Strange struggles to attract full-price paying customers.

These stats don't account for attendance at Off-, Off-Off Broadway and regional theatres, but I think it's safe to say that any New York theatre lover, critic or not, will notice a sharp difference between the productions admired by those who attend frequently and those who do not make theatre a regular part of their lives.

Are the crowds right? Were Grease, The Little Mermaid and South Pacific the best shows of last season because the box office says they were? Were the Tony voters wrong in giving last season's Best Revival of a Play award to Journey's End, a production that struggled for an audience throughout its run? Do you put more trust in the opinion of someone who sees 200+ productions a year or is that person's taste likely to be out of touch with most others? And where do ticket prices figure in all of this? I have no answers, but I'd love to hear your opinions.

And by way, it's The Fifth of July. Happy Lanford Wilson Day, everyone!

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