Big City Dreams
The Observer reports on London’s struggling artists:
We’ll get to that creative critical faculty in a second.
We’ll get to that too.
The cost of renting a studio in which to be abuzz with creativity is, we’re told, a major issue:
Ah yes, the engine room. Powering the city of London with their ceaseless shovelling.
The indignity.
Indeed, of those surveyed, only 12% “can support themselves solely through art.” Given such difficulties, the words supply and demand spring to mind, and readers may wonder whether a different, more viable line of work may be in order. Or at least some relocation – say, to a place where studio rents and general living expenses are much more affordable. However, Ms Kwan, our successful artist, is having none of that:
At which point, readers may suspect that the imperative is not so much being creative, but being creative in London, a notoriously expensive city, but in which one can draw attention to the fact that one lives and works in London, a notoriously expensive city. Thereby glowing with a kind of location status.
That bottom of the pile business must really chafe.
Readers may also note the article’s, shall we say, coyness regarding the art on offer – all that cruelly underfunded creativity. None of which is displayed to sway readers of the Observer. The nearest we get is a photo of Ms Kwan standing next to a creation that we cannot actually see, and a photo of Grayson Perry in a hideous frock.
Poking about elsewhere reveals that Ms Kwan’s area of expertise is “political and ecological positioning through fine art practice,” as seen so boldly here:
It’s a “sensory banquet,” the creation of which “had a profound emotional and conceptual effect on my sense of the relationships between objects, personhood, and ancestral and collective meaning.”
As you can imagine.
Other dizzying creations can be seen – nay, beheld – here and here.
Given the aesthetic uplift conjured into being via piles of plastic milk cartons, it is of course astounding that Ms Kwan and her equally high-minded peers, all doubtless schooled in political “positioning,” aren’t feeling sufficiently rewarded.
“It is like a hostile environment now,” says Ms Kwan. A sentiment that may conceivably be shared by those members of the general public who venture to art venues in search of aesthetics and objects of wonderment, but who find only unattractive tat, ponderous press releases, and piles of plastic milk cartons.
If the basic thrust of the Observer article sounds familiar – the need to be seen being creative in a suitably happening city, while living above one’s means – you may be thinking of this Guardian article. In which, a self-exalting novelist named Brigid Delaney tells us that creative people, people much like herself, must live in locales befitting their potential and importance, not their budget. And hence the imperative for public subsidy.
You, taxpayer, come hither. And bring your wallet.
And especially attractive is squatting while the owners are elsewhere: Imagine being sent overseas for a year only to return to find your home occupied by strangers. Now imagine finding that the law protects those squatters: I have been told that in parts of Western Europe it is in some circumstances necessary to hire house-sitters to keep a home occupied, as otherwise squatters may be legally entitled to break in after which they can be removed only after long legal processes.
What struck me, re-reading the piece, was the attempt to frame a recipe for freeloading, theft, and irresponsibility as somehow being the opposite of selfishness. Rather than, say, selfishness writ large.
Oh, and the claim that not wishing to live in squalor, like a perpetual teenager, is merely “political apathy.”
Artists would do well to get some kind of marketable skill to support themselves while they do art as a hobby.
Also this WRT degrees in Intersectional Poetry and the like. If the subject interests you, good. But if it doesn’t put food on the table, it’s a hobby, and you’ll have to buy groceries some other way.
Not entirely unrelated: Do a quick Google search for the day jobs of famous writers before they hit it big (and often afterwards). My favorite is ‘Kurt Vonnegut, manager of a SAAB dealership.’
Squatters: to keep homes occupied, my niece travels the world house-sitting while working from her laptop. The law is an ass but in the case of squatters, a particularly ugly ass.
Huh. I had assumed that people just hired locals to do that.
I’m not clear on the details of these European laws, such as how many days of vacancy are needed to make it legal for squatters to break in.
The vibrancy intensifies.
Someone did that “ART” graffiti on an advert poster on the wall in the basement room of an engineering building that was a sort of grad student lounge where we had a microwave and a table and chairs. I added an “F” to the “ART” on the poster, and labeled that as “performance art”. I was a fledgling visitor to this fine establishment, and at the time, performance “art” was a regular feature here and so was the source of inspiration for my defacing the defacing of the original poster. Someone else changed my “F” to a “P” and I’m not sure if they found the word offensive or they were correcting the abbreviation, since P ART could also mean Performance ART.
I’ve been an artist all my life, in an, ahem, traditional, a.k.a., figurative vein. I was, in fact, at one time, pursuing a Master’s in Fine Art at an academy in San Francisco well known for its high standards in the craft of art. I gave off the attempt after completing a signiifcant part of the degree because of 1) the time constraints of a career in IT, which paid the bills and 2) the gradual wokening of said academy, ultimately ending in the inclusion of a required DEI course for graduation, at which I balked. Having thus been involved with art at a fairly high level of instruction and practice, I can say with some assurance that there are, in fact, plenty of artists making a decent to fine living from their art, while living and working pretty much anywhere, particularly in the age of the Internet. These are artists who actually qualify as makers of art, as opposed to makers of “statements”. Strangely enough, there are still many people who find room on their walls for art, and reserve their bumpers for statements. I should also add that some of the greatest artists to have ever lived made their living doing something aside from, at least, the main stream of their art.
I may have to borrow that one.
Remind me who said, “If you want to send a messzge, use Western Union.”
She has made landscapes out of rotting food
Before or after the sensory banquet?