Joe Rohde believes art has the power to heal society.
“You know that old saying that ‘art is supposed to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed,’” Rohde asks, gesticulating in the air. “I think art still thinks its job is out there to disturb. When in fact—we are disturbed—we’ve all been perfectly disturbed. We need somebody out there to comfort.”
And for the comfortable?
“The 37 billionaires who run half the world, they’re quite comfortable. They can have some artists go disturb them. The rest of us are not comfortable. So I think the role for art in our time is actually kind of a higher call—to bring vision, and comfort, and direction—and to be almost more shamanic.”
The idea of art bringing comfort may sound countercultural, but for Rohde, 65, who has been a Disney Imagineer for 40 years, it’s not an alien concept.
He joined Disney in 1980 when some of the original designers of Disneyland, like John Hench and Bill Martin, were still dreaming up new lands to enchant the public. Rohde’s first assignment at Disney was constructing papier-mâché models for the Mexican Pavilion in Epcot, and, throughout the years, he rose to become one of the most prominent Imagineers in the company, leading the development of Animal Kingdom Theme Park; Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa; and Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout, along with many other attractions.
Rohde has been called the “Philosopher King of Disney” for his rich and cultured approach to theme park design, as well as his gift for connecting seemingly disparate historical and abstract concepts. Phenomenally, for an Imagineer, Rohde has achieved somewhat of a cult following with theme park enthusiasts, and his nearly 76,000 Instagram followers consider him a teacher for the mini art and history lessons he posts on a frequent basis.
Today, he serves as Disney’s executive designer and vice president of creative and oversees the company’s expansion of its Marvel property, which Disney acquired in 2009 for $4 billion.
Yet when Rohde talks about the role of art in today’s world, he hardly brings up Disney. He focuses instead on imagining a future where the definition of art and the means of art production is transferred from elite patrons and museums to communities of artists.
Rohde calls this process of power shifting the “refolking of art.”
“The arts are starting to refolk because the means of creating artwork, sharing artwork and the audience for that artwork are distributed. So, the question is what the meaning of patronage will be.”
Rohde adds: “Previously, patronage meant, ‘We are the controllers of culture, and we’ve made this kind of group decision that this constitutes art, and now we will distribute this to you guys so you know what art is because we are the determiners of what is art.’ But they’ve lost control of this now, and more so in the music business, but I think this will happen in the art business.”
Perhaps Rohde is right and the arts world will undergo dramatic transformation, but if it happens, it will be at the mercy of our hyperconnected society—a true double-edged sword. Accessing and sharing information at exponentially blurring speeds can yield meaningful interaction and dialogue. But what is stopping the Internet and our society from turning art, like it does most things, into a one-note, generic slush? What does hyperconnectivity mean for the artist?
Rohde and I are speaking face to face over Zoom when this comes up, but I like to imagine we’re actually crossing the Mongolian highlands on Bactrian camels.
“So, when you’re a creative person you’re always fighting against the gravitational pull of the middle,” Rohde says, enunciating in a deliberate and patient cadence. “And the middle gets very, very big. It acquires a tremendous amount of gravitational power to pull things back inside of it—like Jupiter.”
Rohde takes a deep breath then lowers his voice as if he’s telling a secret.
“We are kind of creating a Cultural Jupiter. On the other hand, all around this, is a very, very effervescent sparkling of microcultures that are constantly cross fertilizing themselves because of access they never ever, ever had before. And so the possibility always exists that any one of those microcultures suddenly infects the macroculture and produces vast levels of change. And we hope those changes are for the good.”
The idea of punk rockers mingling with sculptors and a corps de ballet to produce something entirely new and undefinable is intriguing. Who knows? Collaborations like this could change the way we understand and engage with art, and in the process, challenge our assumptions about the way we live and interact with one another.
It screams revolution.
My hunch is that Rohde not only yearns for this time to come, but is actively trying to push the needle. We discuss Minoan and Mayan culture, the lack of greenspace in Los Angeles, and how creative entities self-propagate, but the discussion inevitably returns to art. I ask him about any personal projects he’s pursuing.
He thinks about it, then lets off of his biggest smile yet in our conversation.
“I have this project that I’ve been nursing for a long time. It’s about several themes that come together around elephants and ivory—but also around women and women’s roles—it’s a story about a piece of ivory that’s been turned into something else. And then the thing that the ivory has been made into sort of becomes aware of itself, like a ghost, and is trying to reunite with these elephants. It’s all these very dark, noir-y kinds of images and stuff. It’s a really cool project—I’ve written it as a story—but I think it’s more like a performance piece. Set design, modern dance, music, projection.”
Rohde’s vision for his piece is bizarre yet alluring, a sort of heady mix between Disney’s Fantasia and The Ghost and The Darkness. Trying to frame the piece in our contemporary understanding of art is futile, though.
Rohde’s story transgresses previously guarded boundaries between disciplines and seems emblematic of what we may soon experience during this anticipated creative revolution.
A revolution that can’t come soon enough.