Art Cabinet Nantucket

Est. 1995

By Al Orensanz, Ph.D. Soc.
Center for the Arts, NY, Angel Orensanz Foundation

"Frankfurt School philosopher Theodore Adorno wrote in his „Sociology of Music“ one of the most startling criticisms of the way music and, by extension all other arts, are produced, presented and consumed in advanced capitalist societies. Actually he based his analysis on observations of how things are done in America. Since the, all cultural analysts have been lamenting the parceling, packaging and marketing of the arts. Visual, performing and literary arts appear as serving unrelated areas of the mind. Most attempts to correct that situation, the art festivals so popular in summer time, end up in reducing one art to another making it an enhancement or illustration of the other.

That is why the experiment just conducted by Dörte Neudert and her Art Cabinet Nantucket in Manhattan (May 10-19, 1996) has made such a profound impact in the arts community of New York. It has been a rare instance of all the arts working together, one with each other, among the artists themselves and with the public.

Dörte’s underlying goal was to create a total art atmosphere, at a personal scale and level. When entering the 150 year old space of the [Angel Orensanz] Foundation, she found herself in the center of a monumental yet harmoniously scaled synagogue building. It was built by a Berlin architect for a German congregation that largely drew its inspiration from the poetry of Heinrich Heine and the music of Beethoven.  One hundred and fifty years of splendor and decade in Jewish, German and American history meet and resonate here with special vibrations, as in few other spaces in America.

Then, working from Nantucket and Germany, Dörte Neudert was able to put together four concerts, two poetry readings, a large painting exhibition and a crowd of art lovers, friends and visitors from all over New York. A project of this magnitude would have required an extensive committee, heavily funded, politically connected and strongly supported by consultants in marketing, advertising and public relation. That would have been your typical arts festival, celebrity studded, politically correct and market proof, the one, Theodore Adorno lamented so much.

But then Dörte Neudert is not your typical art dealer and curator. Neudert’s goal is to bring together the individual and the art work at as many dimensions and levels of perception as possible. You will not see her involved in art as entertainment or noble past time, but art as an embracing, purifying empowerment of all the best that lives inside. It was rewarding to see Neudert at the center of the Foundation’s space looking upwards to the rose windows, her arms raised, maybe Brahms trio concerto was dancing in her head, and proclaim: That is the sight of God."