[contextly_auto_sidebar id="QRGZQv2nVOSC4XC8B8Ht1HMnBnYyaFZJ"] IF you've been following the creative economy lately, it's hardly a surprise, but this makes for dispiriting reading: A New York Times story chronicles how American groups are responding to tough times. Through the 19th century, orchestras got bigger. But as some American orchestras struggle in the post-downturn economy, they are … [Read more...]
Real Estate (the Band) on Tour
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="wRRw3JLQoSxprdFO5k1TrAn3nktFHxu3"] LAST night I had the pleasure of seeing of my favorite current indie-rock groups play at the Belasco Theater in downtown Los Angeles. They remind me of several bands of past and present -- The Velvet Underground, the Feelies, Luna, the Clientele -- and have these gently transporting guitar harmonies. It will be hard to hear on a … [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...]
Will Indie Film Survive?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="u8nyNEUGiw9T3t2MS4otkepc3HaoApPt"] ONE of the casualties of our current cultural situation is the erosion of the middle -- the middle class, the midlist author, the middlebrow, and the mid-budget film. Independent film, with its interest in boundary pushing and risk-taking, may not seem to belong in that company, but it's vulnerable to all the same forces. The New … [Read more...]
How Do Writers Make Their Living?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="7bGpqAdbG8eEXFCQfCXKxBmqMplgXX5l"] AFTER a long period in which authors and other scribes shied away from going public with their finances -- perhaps not wanting to seem like they were "in it for the money" -- the economics of the literary life have become more transparent lately. This is partly, I suspect, because of the greater concern for economics that arrived … [Read more...]
How Do Visual Artists Survive? A Conversation
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="bf0FrQh0qNpnPUaXjMY1eGrcVaOQV5gc"] IT’S never been easy to make a living as a creative being, and recent years have made it even more difficult for anyone without a trust fund. So I’m quite cheered by the recent appearance of a handsome, useful book, Living and Sustaining a Creative Life. Edited by the Brooklyn-based, Yale-educated artist Sharon Louden, it's … [Read more...]
Moonlighting in the Arts, and Indie Bookstores
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="YLE8JYvI5WjT9s4HqFR2NBxgeIk5XA2Y"] A NEW survey from the National Endowment for the Arts shows that alongside the 2.1 million people who work as "artists" (broadly defined) another 271,000 work as artists on the side. While not quite shocking, there's some useful data in the report, including the fact that artists continue to be unemployed at twice the level of other … [Read more...]
Where Are Steinbeck’s Heirs? Literature and the Recession
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="7Ob2euleB2pS7V1InChacTlQDk4kH4s8"] ONE of the things that's most baffled and frustrated me over the last few years has been our collective inability or unwillingness to grapple with the recession and the growing crisis on inequality in a meaningful, imaginative way. Journalism has not done a great job, on the whole, and the movies have almost completely whiffed on … [Read more...]
What’s the Matter With San Diego, and a Deadly Impostor
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="uXOtZCit5zazXO6t0Ht1wwihD894I3a9"] EVEN in an arts world familiar with groups going belly-up, this one surprised people: The San Diego Opera's board voted last week to call it a day, effective at the end of the current season. No pleading with donors or subscribers to pitch in, no Chapter 11 filing, just an abrupt, "Closed For Business" sign. Now the group's … [Read more...]
Novelists in the New Economy, and a National-ist Goes Classical
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="hPd2FVtPIrH02PAHBYXfxFyuIQJdbTd3"] HOW are novelists doing in the post-recession, Internet-besotted world? In Britain, apparently, even purportedly successful and well-reputed writers are hanging on by their fingernails. That's the conclusion of a nuanced and well-reported piece by Robert McCrum in the Observer. The story starts by describing Rupert Thomson, an … [Read more...]