Published in the Westchester Guardian, May 2014
“Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.” Andy Warhol. The question of what is art can be very contentious and argumentative. Every generation, especially in a free republic, has their own definition of the subject.
There’s controversial works from photographers and conceptual artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano. Some may think that Norman Rockwell’s Saturday’s Evening Post’s covers are too simplistic while others view some Modern Art as just meaningless lines and dabs of paint communicating nothing. I guess it depends on what the artist wants to convey to the viewer and how easily or poetically it can be conveyed. And art should not be limited to non-functional works. Maybe it’s something carefully designed and functional, whose final appearance has a beauty all of its own – the Empire State Building, the Woolworth Building, the Brooklyn Bridge. Theological discussions of what is art are interesting, topical and worthy of another article at another time.
For those items whose function is totally nonsensical, purely for entertainment purposes, but designed and handled with great care, consider the comic book, but even better the All-American Baseball Card. I never thought that as child I was also an avid art collector. I never thought of myself a demolisher of classical American art – flipping them to the ground, throwing against brick walls and of course using them as noise makers for my bicycle. (I had long ago discarded my cards but there are greater disappointments and regrets.)
Nineteen forty-seven was a pinnacle year in the world of baseball cards and art. Jefferson R Burdick (1900-1963), a retired Syracuse electrician, began donating his huge collection of baseball and memorabilia cards to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Museum’s acceptance of this collection signified their recognition of the importance of baseball cards in our culture. In total 30,000 baseball cards (the largest collection outside the Hall of Fame) as well as 270,000 trade and postcards were submitted in blocks. Their collection includes the T206 Honus Wagner card in excellent condition.
From New York Magazine’s, Joe DeLessio, in an interview with Freyda Spira, assistant curator of the museum’s Department of Drawings and Prints, “Hyatt Mayor was the second curator of the print collection. He was interested in culture as a whole, so in order to understand history and culture, you really have to see what’s being communicated in society, and so you have to see sort of the highest peak of art, and you have to also see sort of mass communication.” Spira, “We have this enormous collection of baseball cards, and what we sought to do is create a rotating exhibition of these cards throughout the year, so that people have access to them — even to a small percentage of them — so they can get to see the range of materials that the Met has in terms of high and low — mass appeal as well as Rembrandt etchings.” The collection rotates to display all the cards within reason and to preserve quality. There is a 3 year project to digitalize the entire collection, therefore making it available on their web page.
Can the factors that determines the value of fine art be used to define the values of baseball cards, both lithographs and photographs? If something is valuable does that make it art? Is something that is popular, mass produced and inexpensive also art? How does the passage of time reflect, enhance or inhibits its value and market desire? All these questions can pertain to what the common notion of art is today and can be applied to baseball cards as well. And if an art museum displays such objects is it not confirmation that there is art in these pieces of cardboard (today a paper/plastic medium)? And if it’s mentioned on Star Trek: The Next Generation as a unique collectible object of art, isn’t that enough proof?
“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.” Paul Cezanne.
As baseball is an art so too are the cards emitting reactions and impressions on an eager youthful fan base. From its earliest days to the present, one of the purposes of baseball cards is to impart the game of baseball on an individual, emotive level, player by player to enthusiastic fans. These cards would not have such a lasting, positive, impact if it were not for the professionalism of the photography and quality of design that goes into each card.
“Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.” Ansel Adams
The art is not just the magnificent picture, (portrait or action scene) changing yearly, but statistics displayed on the reverse side. Baseball cards are also document, record a player’s career as a professional. As former number cruncher (accountant), I enjoyed reading the yearly statistics of the player’s history. Hated it when they just revealed the current year and career stats only.
Robert Adams On Documentary Style: “When we think of pictures in the documentary style we think of views that tend to be frontal, that are made from enough distance to put the subject in context but not so far away as to reduce the scene to an abstraction of oriental planes, and pictures that are printed so that they are not difficult to retranslate back into life. There are, to be sure, as many varieties and degrees of this style as there are photographers who use it, but its distinguishing characteristic is always the same, restraint – an avoidance of bizarre camera angles, extreme lenses and formats, and exotic darkroom manipulations. The rationale is respect, a deference for the subject on its own terms, a deference afforded naturally to what is itself eloquent. The photographer’s chief effort is to be fair.”
Baseball cards reflect the popular culture of its time. Can the baseball card stand the test of time? Can it become more than an artwork reflecting a period of time and stand alone as piece of art and not just pop culture representing a singular generation? And if the Museum of Art displays something as art, who am I to dispute it?
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Glenn Slaby Blog