William Blake’s poetry, wrote T.S. Eliot in 1920, illustrates "the eternal struggle…of the literary artist against the continuous deterioration of language." And perhaps at no prior time in American history has the nation’s language—and the countless connections among citizens that the language forges—felt so profoundly eroded. As E.L. Doctorow writes on page 26, hysteria, spiked with nativism and racism, runs rampant through society, bringing with it a blanket of disenchantment that smothers creativity, innovation and, ultimately, progress.
In the nine years since the September 11 attacks, Americans have indeed seen their public forum become nastier and nastier: hair-trigger antagonism and unease lace the nation’s public discourse; and many, from all educational and economic strata, have little faith in the direction the country is heading. "We are in a national crisis," says artist Eric Fischl. "We are totally atomizing our society to protect ourselves from something terrifying." But Fischl sees art as an antidote to the communication breakdown, and he’s recruited scores of artists to assist him. "People want to help a wounded nation. They want to contribute, to engage."
Fischl is the curator of "America: Now and Here" (ANH), a vast new art exhibition currently in development and scheduled to launch next summer (americanowandhere.org). Comprising visual art, poetry, film, music and drama—the only "constraint" is that all of the art needs to somehow embody "America"—the project is an attempt to reconnect the nation to its artistic genius, to re-engage society with the creative spark that was once seen as essential to its march of progress. Public figures from Thomas Paine to Thomas Jefferson saw creativity as central to advancement—in 1787, after all, American democracy was a completely innovative way of running a country. At its heart, "America: Now and Here" is a profound exploration and exposition—and exploitation—of American artistry. As Fischl explains, "Creativity is a form of literacy."
Central to this theme is that the nation itself is a creative project, an ideal fostered by the visionary efforts of its hyper-literate citizens. Feeling that America was suffering through an identity crisis that had been catalyzed by 9/11, Fischl conceived the project three years ago. "The country had become off-center," he said, and the common language that had previously informed and benefited generations of Americans had somehow been lost. "I’d have conversations with people I knew about the future of the country," Fischl recalled, "and they quickly became anxious, unsettled and nervous. No one felt confident that we had a future as a society."
ANH will see the so-called kitsch of Jeff Koons’s visual art commingle with the contemporary folk music of Rosanne Cash; the poetry of Adrienne Rich with Edward Albee’s drama. Movies curated by the Sundance and Tribeca film festivals will be screened at the exhibition and in other local venues. And more than sixty pieces of visual art at each location—think Diane Arbus without the in-your-face bizarreness, Jasper Johns without the winking, get-a-load-of-this irony—will portray America, and Americans, with diverse yet inclusive vibrancy and eclecticism.