AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Even if you do live in Washington, D.C., the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building might not sound all that familiar to you. But for art historians and preservationists, the Cohen building is sacred. It's been referred to as the Sistine Chapel of New Deal art. Well, that site is now under threat because the Trump administration has listed the building for sale, raising fears that a future developer could demolish the site. Here to tell us about what makes the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building so amazing is Mary Okin. She's assistant director at Living New Deal, an organization devoted to documenting New Deal art and public works. Welcome.
MARY OKIN: Thank you.
CHANG: So Mary, can you just first help us understand what exactly is considered New Deal art?
OKIN: So New Deal art is art that was produced under a series of programs, agencies and projects developed under the New Deal that Franklin Delano Roosevelt established to help Americans recover from the Great Depression and the ravages of the Great Depression. The two most prominent being the Works Progress Administration - the WPA - and its Federal Project One, which hired visual artists to paint murals, make crafts, create sculpture, etc. And then the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts, which is what the Cohen Building falls within, and that was the most prestigious of these agencies and programs in that it held competitive bids for commissions. And so the best artists, but also up-and-comers, would apply to decorate new federal buildings such as post offices and...
CHANG: Yeah.
OKIN: ...Major agency headquarters.
CHANG: And I understand that during this time, the U.S. government was, like, the single largest patron of contemporary art in the world, right?
OKIN: That's right. Europe had devolved into world war, as we know, and the United States became both a refuge for artists, some of whom were escaping from Europe, but also a space for supporting the arts nationally. And it was a really - a watershed moment for American culture because there had never been such support by the government for both established and young artists.
CHANG: It sounds incredible, this time, in terms of how productive the art community became because of this funding. So what makes the Cohen building, exactly, the Sistine Chapel of New Deal art, you think?
OKIN: So I think the artists who were selected created particularly powerful work in this space - paintings that were large in scale, particularly Ben Shahn's work in the hallways of the building on the first floor, but also because of the subject matter that was being depicted. So Ben Shahn's series of murals depicts the promise of Social Security. In one hall, you have images of people who really were suffering prior to the Social Security Act in the ravages of the Great Depression that affected children and the elderly and the sick. And on the other side, you have paintings that show what is possible when you have Social Security and major images in terms of scale, but also in terms of pulling on the heartstrings, which Ben Shahn, as an artist, was particularly great at doing.
And then in the lobby, when you enter, you have two murals by Seymour Fogel, who's another artist of this era. He created one image called the "Security Of The Family (ph) and another called the "Wealth of Nation (ph)." And it's an image showing workers, showing industry, showing innovation and the promise of the 20th century, which we would see realized in the United States becoming, you know, a global superpower economically, socially and so on.
CHANG: I mean, I can't imagine these kinds of works being potentially demolished one day, but the U.S. General Services Administration placed this building on its list of assets identified for accelerated disposition. It's part of a standard process for rightsizing federal real estate and saving taxpayer money. That's according to their website. These are their words. When did you first hear that the government was considering selling this building?
OKIN: So I believe a list was published of this accelerated disposals and - in February. And I - we immediately understood that this building potentially faced threats. It's important to point out the accelerated disposals process is something that's new at the GSA. That has not been the way that things have been done previously. And it's what has caused so much, you know, concern among art historians and the preservationist community because how it will be handled is a real worry.
CHANG: I imagine so because let's be very clear. These pieces of art that you have described, these are huge murals. They're painted directly onto the walls of the building. So we're not talking about painted canvases that can just be removed and preserved safely, right?
OKIN: That's right. It is possible to remove frescoes from the spaces in which they were painted, but it's extraordinarily expensive. And in the case of the Ben Shahn murals, but also Philip Guston and Seymour Fogel and others, you risk the potential for damage. And in the case of Shahn specifically, he painted in fresco-secco, which makes them particularly delicate. That means painting on dry plaster as opposed to painting on wet plaster that dries into the wall. There have been past efforts to conserve and strengthen those particular artworks because Shahn considered them to be, you know, among his most important works of art.
CHANG: Well, as you mentioned, this building was originally built to house the Social Security Administration, and you wrote in an editorial in The Hill, quote, that, "this building stands as a testament to an era when the federal government recognized that democracy thrives not only on sound policy, but also on shared beauty and public purpose." So do you think, Mary, there is a significance or a symbolism to this building that extends beyond just the art contained on its walls?
OKIN: Absolutely. Absolutely. This building, its art and the artists who were making work for this building specifically were thinking about the people who would occupy this space, which was meant to be the headquarters of the Social Security Administration. That never came to be realized. But the idea was that people would enter the space and think about the communities that they served. The idea that Social Security would protect people in the way that they had not been protected prior to the Great Depression was a huge achievement. We were among the only countries that didn't have some kind of social welfare for ordinary citizens prior to the Great Depression, and our country really suffered as a result. And so creating art that was meant to capture both the pain and now the possibility and the hope and the prosperity of Americans as a result of the government caring for the people, providing jobs for people and providing safety nets for people...
CHANG: Yeah.
OKIN: ...I think that's really key.
CHANG: Mary Okin is assistant director at Living New Deal. Thank you so much for speaking with us about this beautiful building.
OKIN: Thank you.
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