[contextly_auto_sidebar id="1whRNQEaMtG6Y3rKjMLHRzTEwdTzdym6"] THE American Scholar magazine recently asked me to lay out some of the questions I was left with upon completing my book, Culture Crash. I was glad they asked me for questions rather than answers; the plight of the arts, humanism, the middle class, and art for art's sake seem so complex and impacted that it's a lot harder to solve … [Read more...]
The Future of the Arts
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="oNW8dK0FCdGFSKqGQqeHclNNxOzhoCM1"] OKAY, nobody really knows what's coming. But a pretty good stab comes in a new book by veteran arts manager Michael M. Kaiser (Alvin Ailey, Kennedy Center, etc) , who is both hopeful and brutally honest. His opening section on the building of an arts infrastructure (including an audience) in the postwar U.S. is as clear and succinct … [Read more...]
Is European Arts Funding Doomed?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="KkC7I9hLXMdSqZ9yVeCleKO4zeItPdkO"] ONE subject that comes up a lot on this site, especially in reader comments, is the public funding of art by European nations. That funding makes a lot of things possible -- including access -- that the market would not support. A new dispatch from Paris -- where a private museum designed by Frank Gehry has recently opened -- … [Read more...]
Political and Public Art, Billboards, New York and Los Angeles
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="gUbWKQMto2pd9SNDW9DKGH0zVVcyuOMo"] WHAT happened to political art? Has it seen a revival during a period in which inequality and related subjects are flaring? Does tackling a topical theme doom a work of art to becoming ephemeral? Will activist art ever again be as visible as it was during height of the AIDS crisis in the '80s? We probably can’t answer all of that … [Read more...]
Arts Funding in the UK, Minimalism in LA and Crash in New Jersey
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="lpJ1NjBTQ91gXSFAYVELC8izsXpf07Li"] WHY do folks in much of the rest of the post-industrial world – not just Europe but Canada and Australia and elsewhere – feel so much less anxiety about state funding of culture? I have my theories – some of which I explore in my book – but the issue continues to baffle me. Turns out that in the UK – a nation both very similar and … [Read more...]
The Enigma of Acting, and Longing for Adelaide
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="32rmFQIcwhA54BeHtYSmHSIWsnR6KSaz"] WHAT drives actors to do what they do? Can they inflict real and lasting emotional pain while transforming themselves? And has science been able to document and quantify any of this? These questions are explored in a long, nuanced new story on the Atlantic’s Health channel. Sitting behind this story, of course, is the recent … [Read more...]
The Corcoran Gallery, and Help for Indie Bookstores
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="7mQJ6eVfmMvVhLp6vBoK3Zj91LEskmke"] THE big news in the culture world right now is the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and its new, uh arrangement. There are several ways to look at this, but I'm persuaded by a strong piece that calls this the effective end of an institution that was the city's first art museum (founded 1869.) This from Philip … [Read more...]
Week in Review: The Life and Death of Cities, More on NEA
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="PafOG3MPyZj6bmDJpEFc7L4n3rZYgP8V"] ONE of the topics that's fascinated me for decades, as I've moved from Baltimore to New London, Conn., to Los Angeles -- and in visits to Mexico City, Berkeley, Manchester, and Rome -- is how cities work, and how they stop working. No one has the entire answer to this, but one thing we can all pretty well conclude by now is that … [Read more...]
New NEA Chair and More on Starving Artists
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="0LTdLuqZwPqtzeNA2d7ehmGpnFkQovIb"] AT long last, we have a National Endowment for the Arts chair. The president has nominated Jane Chu, who runs Kansas City’s Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Chu and has also been a performing pianist; she seems to be well-liked among people I know, considered “low key,” and capable. (This story, from Chu's hometown paper, … [Read more...]
“The Creative Economy,” and Malcolm Cowley
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="d46qMqunSiyQZaayiQ00FiACRUSOSiOO"] AN important survey has just come out from Otis College of Art and Design – its annual report on the “Creative Economy.” Previously concentrated on the Los Angeles area, the survey is now statewide. What motivates this study, and reports on things like "cultural tourism," is the urge by arts and culture types to show that we’re … [Read more...]