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TECHNO-utopians, heartless neoliberals and market-worshipping optimists will tell you that when creative destruction hits, it’s only weeding out the losers, casting off the dead wood, allowing the invisible hand — which works in mysterious ways — to do its work. And it’s easy to imagine, say, an acoustic folk club or a jazz cellar not being able to make it in a big, expensive city like New York.
But what we’re seeing now is some of the coolest spots — indie rock and electronica clubs — on the edgy edge of Brooklyn collapse under the pressure of the the city’s plutocrat-driven real estate market. Here’s John Caramanica in a NY Times piece:
Every few months, it seems, one of the spaces that transformed Williamsburg from warehouse-heavy cultural dead zone to warehouse-heavy primordial soup for the city’s creative life finally surrenders to the neighborhood’s ongoing condo-fication, literal and metaphorical. At the beginning of the year, it was 285 Kent, which not that long ago was followed into the ether by Death by Audio. Now it’s Glasslands’s turn.
As even the most far-flung and bohemian spots in New York get gentrified and corporate-tized to within an inch of their lives, we’ll be seeing a lot more of this. (Goodbye, Glasslands
, and fare well on the other side.)
Another piece from the New York Times notes: “It’s a familiar New York story, but sped up, with waves of gentrification and still-rising real estate prices disrupting the music scenes that blossomed in earlier, increasingly short-lived iterations of the neighborhood.”
Disappointing to see the city turn into a shopping mall. In a time when even Hoboken — once the home of what may be my favorite rock club, Maxwell’s — has been conquered by junior bankers, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.
I remember reading in the Village Voice in the late 70s about how lower status artists were being driven out of NYC, and how this was a problem because they were the “subsoil” that nurtured the city’s more established artists. (Talk about being treated like dirt.) These cylces of death and rebirth have always existed in NYC, but the bohemian scene will always remerge somewhere around town. Art will always gravitate toward the few centers of plutocracy, even if the artists are shoved around and abused.
To measure the true cultural health of a country one should look to smaller cities like Atlanta, Tulsa, Boise, Lincoln, Columbus, Tucson, El Paso, and so on. There we see the true status of the arts in the USA – which is exactly why we don’t look there. Better to just pretend NYC is the model of everything…
Good points made by both Mr. Timberg and Mr. Osborne. I am a hobbyist artist living near Greenville, SC. Greenville has a cool downtown area and is very supportive of the arts. It reminds me of Austin, Texas from 35 years ago. But it is becoming the victim of its own success, just as is happening in the larger cities. The rapid growth is overtaking the artistic fringe areas. Does your upcoming book delve into potential solutions?
This topic of the effect of gentrification NYC and its affect on NYC as a center of arts is becoming more popular. Recently, Alan Feuer in the NY Times reasoned that the NY arts scene is not dead. However, Mr. Feuer confuses artsy events – dress up parties,eclectic secret events – with NYC as a center for creative arts. Citing the departure of Galapagos Arts Center and the high cost of real estate as an argument that he then counters with a Persephone-type play on the Gowanus Canal is a false argument. New York City high culture – its museums, concert halls, broadway houses – are now only for the wealthy who can afford to purchase tickets and/or places on the boards of these institutions. The rest of the art scene – the experimental, the collaborative – is being pushed further and further east with Bushwick as perhaps the last inexpensive outpost. Remember the progression – Greenwhich Village, Soho, Williamsburg, DUMBO, – each area populated by the artists who were then dislocated by soaring real estate prices. Mr. Feuer also cites Patty Smith and Andy Warhol as the once artsy NY. But NYC much earlier was a place where artists of all genre gathered, and created . Tin Pan Alley, Cedar Bar, Leo Castelli and theaters in Soho and the Bowery. And how many of Mr. Feuer’s examples are the gathering of arts and artists that reflect the city? The photos are of a group of white hipsters, entertained by white “artrenpeurs”. As the population of the NYC continues to demonstrate the diversity that is America, its ethnically diverse artists are dispersed to Newark, and now Detroit and other cities west. The phenomenon is evolution, complaining about it is like complaining about the loss of species – terrible shame but part of a much larger problem. So let’s recognize the phenomenon, recollect clearly what was and not create a false view of what is.
Mr. Abruzzo’s comment reflects much of my thinking on the subject, and on that facile NYT article… very well said.
Evolution? Or is it simply destruction? What, for example, happened to the Harlem Renaissance? Maybe white culture evolved, but a large part of black culture in NYC was simply destroyed to never return. There was no successor to the Harlem Renaissance as there was in the Greenwich Village, Soho, Williamsburg, East Village continuum.
And if we define culture as what is centered in the main financial centers, it will of course be white with only token exceptions. What about the regional cities I mention above? And more specifically, we stand by when cities known for black culture like New Orleans are entirely destroyed even in an apocalyptic fashion.
Isn’t this scenario of white culture in a few financial centers what happens when the arts are in the hands of “Boards” and “Foundations” for wealthy people and their advisers? The USA is the only developed country in the world without comprehensive systems of public arts funding. Europe shows unequivocally that these systems are inherently better oriented toward a more democratic distribution of the arts.
What is ethical behavior in a plutocratic arts funding system so inherently unethical that it has shown itself to be beyond the systemic reform needed to fairly fund the arts? We are left with no options for change and thus turn from reality and content ourselves with rationalizations, excuses, and tokenism. In the end, we even create an ethical facade to hide the immorality of a system of cultural plutocracy.
The problem with using the Harlem Renaissance as an example is that the cultural genocide was so complete that very few even remember the kind of community that existed and what was lost.
well, regional art centers are significant to the extent that artists are doing/able to do challenging work. I can’t claim to have done a comprehensive survey. I know that in the center cities vs. suburbs, generally suburban arts institutions aren’t as challenging.
I will say while in Louisville KY for the 2005 Nat. Trust for Historic Preservation conference, I went to an arts event on Clifton Ave., in an old car dealership that was rented out for events, and I was shocked to see a video art piece on gay issues, with guys engaged in fellatio. I live in DC, and was thinking, wow, you aren’t going to see that kind of piece here, in the national institutions sure, but certainly not the local independent arts venues either.
And then look what happened a couple years ago at the Smithsonian, with a relatively innocuous piece that was called to the attention of the Catholic Church, they complained, and the Smithsonian capitulated. (OTOH, speaking of challenging art, an artist did set up an exhibit outside the museum on the street-I am still shocked the city gave them a public space permit–in a container where they showed the video work banned by the Smithsonian.)
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/31/opinion/la-oe-green-smithsonian-20110131
One of the downsides of work supported by local govts. or presented in arts centers supported by local govts. is there can be a constriction on the range of expression, either self-induced on the part of the artist or as a response to protest by various stakeholders.
Again, in DC, we have a couple situations. At the theater J, a Jewish theater company based at the DC Jewish Community Center, the creative director showed a bunch of plays that challenged conservative orthodoxy on the Israel question, and he was eventually ousted. (Although surprisingly he has been given a new platform at the independent Atlas Performing Arts Center.)
http://forward.com/articles/211340/theater-js-ari-roth-knew-days-were-numbered-after/
And the DC arts commission pulled a work from Anacostia. It featured the display of detritus/trash/litter and residents called it an unreasonable and negative comment on their neighborhood.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/visual-arts/2014/09/12/arts-commission-will-remove-junk-looking-5×5-installation-in-anacostia/
cf. this very old take on the nature of the “regional” music scene in Austin, TX: http://rockpublication.com/dynamitehack.htm The artist being interviewed said the scene is really driven by frat boys going to the concerts where the “hot girls” are going, and that doesn’t support much in the way of innovative or interesting music.
I have to say the displacement thing is a different issue from what I was writing about in response to a comment in the thread. In the high value real estate markets (again, DC is one, which is why I write about these issues), the artistic disciplines need to take extranormal steps to protect their interests when it comes to space.
Most communities don’t have decent cultural plans. And I argue that the disciplines need to step up and do their own planning
I was part of a panel at the 2009 Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas conference, and my presentation is based on this paper:
http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2009/07/art-culture-districts-and.html
Basically, I argue that artistic disciplines need to have cultural plans and plans that include facilities and space preservation. Because it was focused on space, I didn’t address funding issues. . Separately, I argue for regional “taxes” that support cultural facilities and programs systematically. e.g. http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2010/11/way-for-metropolitan-area-to-support.html
But there will always be three tensions that result from this. (1) is the ability of artists to present challenging work more generally because of involvement with the govt. and (2) the difference between supporting individual artists vs. supporting institutions (3) related to the reason that most governments are justifying support of the arts on urban revitalization and economic grounds, not in terms of creative expression.
While I don’t think govts. should be apologetic about this — most are desperate for revenue and economic activity — it is difficult for govts. to provide support to individual artists that isn’t conditional.
A few ideas, some implicit in your comments, need to be examined. First is the idea that public funding leads to censorship, or a politicized control of the arts. In reality, among the Western developed countries, there is no correlation between government funding and censorship except in the USA. Europeans use public appropriations as the central source of arts funding, but censorship of the arts is virtually non-existent in these 40 countries. The arts are in fact far freer than in the USA.
Second, is the tacit assumption that we should be the well-behaved subjects of a system of cultural plutocracy and not challenge its egregious shortcomings. In reality, the private funding system in the USA is not only inadequate; it is dysfunctional. No other country has so many arts institutions collapse into bankruptcy including even major institutions like the Philadelphia Orchestra or the New York City Opera. No other country faces prospects of major museums being liquidated as in Detroit. No other country has such a poor distribution of the arts. Washington D.C., for example, has the 9th largest economy in the world but ranks 182nd for opera performances per year.
Look at the rankings for a few other capital cities, all listed on the website of Operabase:
Vienna 1
Berlin 2
Paris 3
Moscow 4
Prague 6
London 7
Budapest 9
Stockholm 14
Sydney 16
Madrid 17
Even Athens in impoverished Greece comes in at 28th.
Then comes Washington at 182nd. Our so-called National Opera housed in Kennedy Center is in reality our national joke. These disgraceful numbers exist because of our dysfunctional (and largely immoral) system of funding the arts.
We thus see a third false assumption: that we can maintain spaces for the arts without first creating an effective system of funding the arts.
It is astounding that this ineffective, plutocratic system is kept alive by a network of institutions, administrators, consultants, and artists who have so little sense of reality concerning the dysfunctional and internationally isolated system within which they work.
I meant that govts. shouldn’t be apologetic for caring about economic development, not for censorship. I don’t think that censorship always occurs, but it can. And some artists don’t ever want to take money from the govt. out of a not unreasonable fear of censorship. Other artists reject the economic development agenda.
And yes, the US does not compare to Europe in terms of arts funding. But having worked on an EU National Institutes of Culture project in Baltimore–my job was to write about culture based revitalization in 8 different European cities–they see culture funding moving more to the US model, although there isn’t much of a philanthropic culture there, in large part because of declining budgets.
And there is plenty of contention between artists and “the local govt.” even with cool facilities like the Cable Factory in Helsinki or La Friche in Marseille. Plenty of artists criticize the European Capital of Culture program as ignoring “real” art expression, and there is plenty of academic discourse criticizing the program, too.
e.g. ‘Capital of Culture—you must be having a laugh!’Challenging the official rhetoric of Liverpool as the 2008 European cultural capital
P Boland – Social & Cultural Geography, 2010 – Taylor & Francis
Anyway, given the structure within which we are working, where unlike France, access to culture is not enshrined in the Constitution as a right, we do what we can.
Very interesting comments. Thanks. The European Capital of Culture award should not be contextualized as part of arts funding, but rather a prize. It is openly seen as a method of political promotion. Like so many arts prizes, the criteria is subjective and highly politicized. Arts funding systems are managed quite differently.
There is a lot of empty polemic about Europe moving toward the US model, but it is not backed up by the numbers which shows that public funding in Europe has remained steady. In fact, it continues to increase in key countries like Germany, France, and Scandinavia . And no European country has proposed legislation for a tax deduction system that a private donor system would require.
The polemic is generated mostly by neo-liberals without a factual basis.
The person who I am quoting is from the Goethe Institut. He didn’t say it because he thought that it was a good thing, and I am pretty sure he didn’t, but because of the long term structural budget issues faced by European states, and a belief that certain elements of state budgets would have to be cut in the face of other pressing demands.
Some states will do better than others. But look even at what has happened under the Cameron govt. in the UK and the impact on arts organizations and funding. This has “trickled down” to the cities, because their budgets have been cut drastically by the state. (In the UK, local govts. are funded mostly by the national govt.)
Granted the UK is way more neoliberal than most any other European state, so maybe it’s an outlier that offers little in terms of generalizing policy implications to other European states.
2. And good point about the Capital of Culture program. But it is interesting in how cities can leverage the program to develop and extend local arts infrastructure beyond the tenure of the program. That’s what I find most interesting about it. Liverpool and Marseille are very interesting examples from that standpoint, although again, budget cuts in Liverpool have ended up diminishing the artistic returns that had been occurring before the Cameron govt. took office.
Your observations about the variations in policy among European countries is pertinent. There are three that have come closest to neoliberal philosophy: The UK, Italy, and Holland, though the actual results vary in each of them.
The UK embraced neoliberalism early on through the Reagan/Thatcher axis — it’s almost a Thatcher invention. In addition, the Commonwealth countries have always used a hybrid system of public and private funding, so the UK stands apart from the rest of Europe. Their system is a bit more centralized, as you note, but in the early 90s the Arts Council was broken up and autonomous agencies created for the four main regions of the UK (the Arts Council of Scotland, Wales, England, and Northern Ireland.)
Silvio Berlusconi, the richest man in Italy, and the largest and essentially sole owner of its private television networks, strongly pushed neoliberalism. It suited his own interests to weaken the state broadcasters and public funding systems for the arts because it increased the power and market for his private media enterprises. Most of Europe views him as little more than a common crook. His policies have been very destructive in Italy and serve as a warning of what an American system would do.
Holland has had a number of right wing governments threaten arts funding. Cuts have been made, but overall, has remained fairly stable due to strong political resistance.
Other countries, such as Greece, Spain, and Ireland have had to make cuts, but the reasons are economic and not due to a change in philosophy.
One of the complications in discussions about arts funding systems involves the psychology of artists and arts administrators. For some reason, they often perceive funding as decreasing when it is not. They harbor a mentality that they are constantly under siege. Sometimes that’s true, but usually, at least in Europe, it is not. It seems to stem from rhetoric they use to ensure that their needs remain a part of public discourse and are met. They start to believe in their own politically postured alarmism. It is therefore difficult to use their anecdotal comments as a solid source of information regarding arts funding.
note too in Europe the Athens bienniale as a response to economic dislocation. Very interesting.
http://rhizome.org/editorial/2013/nov/5/athens-baby-poka-yio-conversation-stephanie-bailey/
This seems similar to the Cultural Olympiad in the UK in 2012. See:
http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/browse-advice-and-guidance/reflections-cultural-olympiad-and-london-2012-festival
These sorts of special, one-time, thematicized events arev a good way to galvanize public support for the arts. I’m not sure, but they seem less common in the States. I wonder what some examples might be? Unfortunately, they are not a substitute for a long-term commitment to arts funding, which is essential to building a strong cultural environment..
Interesting. Speaking of “the market” what we have instead of Cultural Olympiads (thanks for that I will check it out) are the various Art Basel type “do’s” like in Miami. They don’t build local cultural infrastructure. The only way that they could is if purposeful connections, linkages, and systems were created to do so.
In DC, we have something called “Art o Matic” which is a temporary artist exhibition in spaces that are undergoing change (usually either to be demolished for new construction or new and not yet leased). But my criticism is that they don’t work the event to build longer term infrastructure, connections, and results.
My thing with organizing is that you have to have your “next steps” already planned before your event even launches, so that you can leverage the event, gather resources, get volunteers, etc., for the overall program.
I especially like your last paragraph. We artists are lucky to have people like you.
maybe if we do an artomatic soon, I will attempt to put my 2009 paper as a set of “boards” as a presentation. They always said I should present and then never gave me opportunities to do so.