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# What Does SCOTUS Nominee Elena Kagan Have Against Art?
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/elena-kagan-art/
- Published: 2010-05-17T13:13:55.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:03:14.000Z
- Description: Kagan can appreciate opera but not visual art? Let's hope that's not true, because as MJ Andersen blogs, “A discerning eye does more than keep a judge well-rounded. It keeps her responsive to what she beholds, and to all that resists interpretation.”
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: Opinion, #image-position-hidden, Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-11-17 09:23 (2009-2011)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2010/05/200px-elena_kagan_1.jpg)

Elena Kagan can appreciate opera but not visual art?

My heart sank when I [read this](http://www.najp.org/articles/2010/05/gavel-yes-easel-no.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) about potential US Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan:

> At some point probably in the late 1980s, Kagan had an encounter with a young associate at a mergers and acquisitions firm. [According to \[Carol\] Steiker](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/us/politics/10kagan.html?sq=&ref=hyperallergic.com) \[who was interviewed about Kagan in the *New York Times*\]:  
>  
> “He was single and he had no family and he was earning — the sum seemed unimaginable — $750,000 a year as a young partner. So she asked the guy, ’What do you do with all that money?’ And he said, ‘I buy art.’ I remember her telling that story and just shaking her head.”  
>  
> It is fine, laudable even, not to be motivated by money. But why so dismissive of the desire to purchase art? Does art leave Kagan cold?

The Supremes — as I like to call them — aren’t known for their love of visual art but there may be an exception, Justice Stephen Breyer, who floored a curator at a dinner party some years ago when he brought up Poussin. I should mention that Kagan isn’t a total culture-hater as she does love opera — which is also admired by justices Anthony Scalia, Ruth Ginsburg, and Anthony Kennedy.

The [blog post](http://www.najp.org/articles/2010/05/gavel-yes-easel-no.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) over at ARTicles by MJ Andersen also has this great line as to why Kagan should give visual art another look:

> A discerning eye does more than keep a judge well-rounded. It keeps her responsive to what she beholds, and to all that resists interpretation.

Well put.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2010/05/westentrance-scotus.jpg)

West entrance of the US Supreme Court (photo by dbking)

I should also mention that critic [Christopher Knight](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/05/supreme-court-nominee-elena-kagan.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), of the *LA Times*, has a question he’s dying to ask Kagan: **Do you support reopening the front doors of the United States Supreme Court to the people?**

Earlier this month, the court [ruled 7-2 to restrict access to the entrance](http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/2010/05/03/u-s-supreme-court-closes-front-entrance-by-7-2-vote/?ref=hyperallergic.com) which was crowned with the inspirational words, “Equal Justice Under Law.” the reason? Like everything else nowadays, the catch-all reason of security. Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a separate statement that called the change unfortunate and unjustified. My question is: How can you uphold the ideas of democracy if you chisel away at the all important symbols, which inspire us to strive for the impossible?