[contextly_auto_sidebar id="E5qNaI36069IPjIw5lgPIe3Zh8gOxJpu"] FEW writers have penetrated the macho, risk-taking culture of finance like journalist Michael Lewis, who worked on Wall Street and in the City of London in the late '80s. His first book, the colorful, high-octane Liar's Poker, has just been reissued for its 25th anniversary, and it describes the birth of the sort of casino … [Read more...]
When Music Sounds Like a Cash Register: Taylor Swift
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="z9vqtTIKWYYE4qjmn9I73sMygRd2LrTi"] WHAT happens when a society gets obsessed with those who win at the capitalist game, when marketing becomes the new religion, and the gatekeepers of art and music stop caring ab0ut the fields in which they labor but get hypnotized by the machinery of star-making? We get "artists" like Jeff Koons or Taylor Swift. The onetime … [Read more...]
The Winner-Take-All Culture: Beyonce’ Edition
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="s7QjDjoKc7tKlcAxYUDRApP9riUN4cz9"] NO, you're not reading an article from the Onion, but rather a news report of an an extreme and literal instance of the winner-take all culture. This brief story from Poynter, "News station lays off journalists, will play Beyoncé songs instead," quotes Houston Chronicle reporter David Barron: Radio One owns the station, known as … [Read more...]
The Big Lie of Jeff Koons
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="vgKZ6xRHRblYrS2DIdm6RSmRakPmvRv4"] IS it possible that the most characteristic artist of our time could also be almost entirely full of b.s.? From what I can tell, that's exactly what we've got. Over the last week or so I've been underlining lines from Jed Perl's New York Review of Books piece on the art world's Gilded boy, thinking and talking about Perl's argument, … [Read more...]
Art for the Uber-rich
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="9cukHwn37jIza9qSYJkcWoPfxa124uvq"] DESPITE the struggles of many visual artists, not to mention the stagnant middle class in the Anglo-American world, art's auction market continues to boom. The latest story from the New York Times, on the London auction season, has some interesting details. “The sleepy days of collecting are over,” said Amy Cappellazzo, the … [Read more...]
Publishing’s Shrinking Attention Span
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="CAxR2RewOYpbx08DLip9Jb3pvG0eQ2Sw"] THE Scottish novelist Val McDermid, who has sold 10 million books, says she wouldn't have a career in today's relentless marketplace. One of the things the Internet and the superstar economy have done is to shrink our already shrunken attention spans further, and that's doubly true in the culture industries. Crime writer … [Read more...]