LA Times arts critic attacks proposed Reagan lifeguard statue because it will be privately funded

Some people, such as Christopher Knight, arts critic for the Los Angeles Times--not the former Brady Bunch actor--stumble through life cluelessly.

As I've blogged a couple of times earlier this month, Ronald Reagan's boyhood home, Dixon, Illinois, is planning to erect a third bronze statue of "Dutch," this one in Lowell Park. It will show Reagan as a Rock River lifeguard--the future 40th president saved 77 lives during his seven years in that job.

Dixon, besides its Reagan legacy, is known as the Petunia Capital of Illinois, Knight notes. Bu the Lee County town actually boasts itself as the Petunia Capital of the World.

Clearly not a fan of the greatest president of the last century, Knight not only doesn't like the design of the proposed Reagan statue, he's quite miffed that the bronze rendering will be--gasp!--privately funded! The horror! The horror!

Blogger at Dixon

According to the Chicago Tribune, the initial statue design was underwritten with funds raised from the Lee County Republicans, a local bank, tourism office, chamber of commerce and an unidentified local resident. Apparently we're supposed to be impressed that private rather than public money will be spent on this bit of bronze bombast, even though the statue will grace a public park.

That, of course, is just one of many trivializations of our public life for which we have Reagan to blame. The practice of turning traditional public functions over to private business went into high gear in the 1980s.

Reagan formalized the President's Commission on Privatization in 1987. (L.A. County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich was appointed to the 12-member panel.) By then Reagan had already worked to try to privatize public schools, Social Security, Medicare, parts of the military, prisons, natural resources and more. Some he got, some came later and many are still being resisted today.

Rock River at Lowell Park

For art in Lowell Park, privatization means that an ostensibly public memorial will in fact represent allegiance to narrow sectarian principles, casting them in bronze for the ages. We're not talking Daniel Chester French and Abraham Lincoln here, or even Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Gen. Sherman. Essentially the bronze will be a political ad. As petunias are a cousin to deadly nightshade, Dixon should probably know better.

A political ad? Sheesh! Reagan passed away in 2004 after exiting public life ten years earlier when he revealed he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Knight adds a jab that the park is "just north of the Dixon Correctional Center, the state’s largest medium security facility."

Clearly Knight hasn't been to Dixon, you can't see the prison from the spot where the statue will stand-- Lowell Park is heavily forested.

Path at Lowell Park

Perhaps the real problem Knight has with the statue is that it is a Reagan statue. And maybe the critic thinks only the government should pay for art--just as it was in the Soviet Union, which was rotten with Lenin statues and busts from Kaliningrad to Vladisvostok.

Related post:

Happy birthday "Dutch," Reagan lifeguard statue design unveiled