“The future of Mormon art? Scholars and artists gather in New York to explore the possibilities”

Last updated on: July 7, 2017 at 8:25 am by Dan Peterson

“The future of Mormon art? Scholars and artists gather in New York to explore the possibilities” 2017-07-07T08:25:07-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The Manhattan New York Temple (Wikimedia Commons)

I’ve always resisted the widespread notion that art isn’t really Art, that theater isn’t Theatre, unless it’s been Recognized in New York, and that we must genuflect to Manhattan as our cultural capital.

I savor and, to the limited extent that I can, try to support regional literature, regional art, regional publishers, regional drama, and regional cuisine.

I’ve always gotten a kick out of the response to overweening New York pride from Larry McMurtry, whose writing has won the Pulitzer Prize, the Golden Globe, the Emmy, and the Oscar but who lives and works in Texas. McMurtry was once spotted wearing a tee-shirt bearing this description of him by some New York publication or other: “Important regional novelist.”

My question is, Why is Texas a “region” but New York City isn’t?

Was Flannery O’Connor a merely “regional” writer?

Was William Faulkner merely a “regional novelist”? He won a Nobel Prize, of course, but can that possibly outweigh the fact that he lived most of his life and set most of his fiction in Mississippi. How about John Steinbeck, who lived in and wrote about areas in and around Monterey and Salinas, California? Was he no more than a “regional novelist”?

Unfortunately, neither Shakespeare (or, if you’re so inclined, the Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford) nor Milton nor Goethe nor Dante nor Virgil nor Sophocles nor Homer enjoyed the privilege of owning a flat in Manhattan.

Still, although I feel that I had to mention such arrogance-on-the-Hudson, I’m happy to see this development:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865684235/The-future-of-Mormon-art-Scholars-and-artists-gather-in-New-York-to-explore-the-possibilities.html

Salt Lake City certainly isn’t a world cultural center in many eyes or in most regards, and this museum should give Mormonism and Mormon art and artists greater visibility not only in New York but on the east coast generally and beyond.

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