By Steve Provizer

Drawing the Line is grounded in the work of ethicists and psychologists. Its prose is clear and its arguments systematic. But every avenue of investigation only opens up another pathway that ends as a cul-de-sac or doubles back on itself.

Drawing the Line: What to Do With the Work of Immoral Artists from Museums to the Movies by Erich Hatala Matthes. Oxford University Press, 184 pages, $24.95 (hardcover).

What is the proper response to R. Kelly, Woody Allen, Michael Jackson, or any of the scores of creative men and some women — Rosanne Barr, Adele, Lana Del Ray — purported or proved to have been involved in unethical, immoral, or illegal acts? For me, there are no simple answers, just more to examine, particularly one’s relationship to art and toward “offenders” in general.  And how one reconciles the two. Probing this fractal issue is like playing a multidimensional chess game or driving in Allston on Labor Day weekend.

Consider a few of the variables: What is the nature of the artist’s transgression? Jail-able offense? Disputed claim of maltreatment? A thoughtless remark? Is the artist dead or alive? How far in the past was the transgression? Does the work in some real way reflect the artist’s putative unacceptable behavior? Does the work bring issues to light that need to be publicly addressed — conceivably serving a useful purpose? Should art, in fact, serve a useful purpose? What constitutes an “authentic voice” or is an act of cultural appropriation? What role did heavy drugs or drinking play? What degree of punishment or retribution should be sought, if any — pushback, boycott, cancellation? And, in the end, what good does any penalty serve?

To its credit, Drawing the Line, What to Do With the Work of Immoral Artists from Museums to the Movies acknowledges this complexity. I should note that the word “artist” doesn’t really reflect the range of protagonists, who are found at every level of art and entertainment, from teeny-bop pop to snooty Sotheby auctions. The quandary has little to do with artistic bona fides and everything to do with just how deeply an art maker has burrowed under our skin. And, if one believes that the character of the artist can be found in his or her work. Separating the art from the artist is too large a subject to be undertaken here. I’ll write about it in a separate essay.

Erich Hatala Matthes grounds Drawing the Line in the work of ethicists and psychologists. His prose is clear and his thinking systematic, but every avenue of investigation he follows only leads to another pathway that ends as a cul-de-sac or doubles back on itself. Predictably, given this slippery landscape, his explorations lead to contradictory conclusions. At one point, Matthes argues that the attempt to separate the art from the artist is doomed to fail and that an “emotional equipoise” might be sought. At other times, he advocates retributive actions and suggests that if we know the misdeeds we “can’t proceed as we did before.”

Paradoxes abound. We want to keep art in a sacred space, yet we also want it to invigorate the most secular and base areas of our lives — to touch all of our chakras, if you will. It’s no surprise we don’t have any clear demands for what behavior (moral or otherwise) we expect from the artists whose work we love. We make idealized projections of their personalities conjured out of our personal need and aesthetic disposition. Of course, these images are also informed by cultural constructs that have been filtered, interpreted, and propagated by the media. Pedestals may be erected and knocked down in the twinkling of a tweet.

Matthes does a pretty good job of raising the primary questions, although he might have more fully explored the way the media shape public attitudes: coverage reflects and propagates a binary love/hate attitude, a desire for intimacy whose appetite is met through strategies that range from the carefully staged to the grossly intrusive. New technologies have multiplied the capacity for blanket coverage. The ruthless pursuit of eyeballs inevitably works against thoughtful coverage. This growing appetite for click bait leaves no middle ground. We have the extremes of cancel culture on one end and an ostrich syndrome on the other.

Matthes is not a fan of “cancel culture.” For the most part, he advocates exploring the work of “immoral” artists for the sake of deepening our understanding of the complex social issues their behavior raises. He looks closely into the complicated emotional connection between artists and their fans. He believes that this visceral connection explains why fans feel “betrayed” when they think a favored artist is “selling out.” An intense bond forms between artist and art consumer — betrayal is a far stronger emotion than disappointment. But Matthes does not go far enough in analyzing the power of that link — apart from saying that art can show us “how to live in the world.” He doesn’t spend much time exploring why art is so valuable to us.

From the beginning, humans have manifested a creative drive that has had both playful and utilitarian aspects: beauty qua beauty versus the art’s power to praise, entreat, or propitiate the gods. Undoubtedly, artists came along who leveraged their position for financial or sexual gain, although I don’t believe a dossier could be assembled that would give us a clear picture of the number or type of indiscretions or illegalities most artists practiced before the 20th century. Did communities, wealthy patrons, or the church demand high standards of behavior from artists? One scholarly article says no: There seems to be no explicit evidence that moral elevation was a concerted aim of artists in the genre [Dutch 17th century] painting, nor is there evidence of coordination or encouragement of their ‘civilizing’ efforts by moral guardians in church or state. Leonardo da Vinci, on the other hand, while skeptical of the church, said the artist should be like a priest.

Erich Hatala Matthes. Photo: Wellesley.edu

In the late 19th century, the myth of the artist as rebel (foe of the respectable bourgeois) took hold. For many “modern” artists, attacking the status quo was part of the job description. In America, the arrival of jazz in the late 1910s-’20s provoked a backlash against what members of the esteemed called “depraved” music. The Black community during the ’50s (and elsewhere) struggled with how artists like Ray Charles and Sam Cooke secularized “church” music. Rock, when it arose in the ’60s, wallowed in the mythology of the “bad boy” and cultural rebellion. Most recently, politically and morally objectionable lyrics (to many) in Rap and Metal music have generated controversies about art’s relationship to morality.

One of Matthes’s reasonable touchstones in Drawing the Line is the importance of demonstrating empathy for the victims of the artist. Of course, the level of our sympathy will depend on how sensitive we are to that damage that we perceive is being done, be it sexual assault, anti-Semitism, racism, misogyny, classism, ageism. However, as Matthes himself argues, blame for the perpetration of bad acts falls as much on the systems of production and dissemination of art as it does on the artist. But the structures that enable what is deemed to be aberrant behavior are seldom held to serious account. Furthermore, there is plenty of hypocrisy to go around — our standards of morality are temporal and culturally determined. Those who consume the art of the ethically challenged are far from immune to the failings they passionately condemn. The acts of a particular artist may seem to have crossed a line, but is it not bad faith to condemn a high-profile individual and overlook how we perpetuate a society rife with moral inconsistencies?

I have a natural antipathy for pile-on and cancel culture. I know — it’s all well and good to assume a detached perspective when the victim is not someone you know (aka: “a liberal is someone who’s never been mugged.”) In these days of polarization, such a stance might come off as moral equivocation, an abrogation of one’s civic duty to demonstrate revulsion at these artists. But consider: how might we respond if a friend or family member was accused of or discovered committing an immoral, unethical, or illegal act? Most of us would try to look for mitigating circumstances, to refrain from judgment in order to play a supportive role. This instinct to forgive someone — while condemning his or her actions — is a response that is most likely to alter their future behavior. There’s reason to think that such an empathetic attitude would have the same effect on someone we don’t know. Possibly, even on an artist.

When grace, in the form of art, decides to take up temporary human residence, it often expresses itself through what might be a body in dissolution or a soul in disarray. More than a moment’s pause should be taken before we decide that vilification is our only possible response.

Steve Provizer writes on a range of subjects, most often the arts. He is a musician and blogs about jazz here.