Giel_Assignment 2

COMPILATION OF MATERIALS AND RESEARCH

MADELINE GIEL 2445039

THE ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW

ASSIGNMENT TWO:

WHERE IT STARTED AND WHERE ITS GOING

When first thinking about the topic I wished to approach I got drawn into the general topic of the arts. I wished to look into the importance of the arts in society and what comes as a result. I first began looking at articles and papers on the importance of the arts in general, as well as in education and society. Once this information was gathered, I then looked into why the arts may not be as prominent as it was in the past. It was here where I came across posts and articles circling the idea that the arts are dead. This is where the spark for where I wanted my assignment to go came from. From here I looked further into where this idea that art is dead. Not only did I look at this, but also the opposite which was creating art for arts sake aka L’art pour l’art. This is the philosophy that art can be art whether it has any didactic, moral or utilitarian function or not. I was interested in this as it connects with my earlier thinking that art is important no matter what you create.

It was through this research where I found what I wish to base my publication on. I am interested in documenting and making my publication on dada and surrislist art and artists.

ARTICLES SOURCED

WHY ARTS EDUCATION IS CRUCIAL, AND WHO’S DOING IT BEST

ART AND MUSIC ARE KEY TO STUDENT DEVELOPMENT.

By Fran Smith “Art does not solve problems, but makes us aware of their existence,” sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz has said. Arts education, on the other hand, does solve problems. Years of research show that it’s closely linked to almost everything that we as a nation say we want for our children and demand from our schools: academic achievement, social and emotional development, civic engagement, and equitable opportunity.

Involvement in the arts is associated with gains in math, reading, cognitive ability, critical thinking, and verbal skill. Arts learning can also improve motivation, concentration, confidence, and teamwork. A 2005 report by the Rand Corporation about the visual arts argues that the intrinsic pleasures and stimulation of the art experience do more than sweeten an individual’s life -- according to the report, they “can connect people more deeply to the world and open them to new ways of seeing,” creating the foundation to forge social bonds and community cohesion. And strong arts programming in schools helps close a gap that has left many a child behind: From Mozart for babies to tutus for toddlers to family trips to the museum, the children of affluent, aspiring parents generally get exposed to the arts whether or not public schools provide them. Low-income children, often, do not. “Arts education

enables those children from a financially challenged background to have a more level playing field with children who have had those enrichment experiences,’’ says Eric Cooper, president and founder of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education.

It has become a mantra in education that No Child Left Behind, with its pressure to raise test scores, has reduced classroom time devoted to the arts (and science, social studies, and everything else besides reading and math). Evidence supports this contention -- we’ll get to the statistics in a minute -- but the reality is more complex. Arts education has been slipping for more than three decades, the result of tight budgets, an ever-growing list of state mandates that have crammed the classroom curriculum, and a public sense that the arts are lovely but not essential.

This erosion chipped away at the constituencies that might have defended the arts in the era of NCLB -- children who had no music and art classes in the 1970s and 1980s may not appreciate their value now. “We have a whole generation of teachers and parents who have not had the advantage of arts in their own education,’’ says Sandra Ruppert, director of the Arts Education Partnership (AEP), a national coalition of arts, business, education, philanthropic, and government organizations.

The Connection Between Arts Education and Academic Achievement Yet against this backdrop, a new picture is emerging. Comprehensive, innovative arts initiatives are taking root in a growing number of school districts. Many of these models are based on new findings in brain research and cognitive development, and they embrace a variety of approaches: using the arts as a learning tool (for example, musical notes to teach fractions); incorporating arts into other core classes (writing and performing a play about, say, slavery); creating a school environment rich in arts and culture (Mozart in the hallways every day) and hands-on arts instruction.

Although most of these initiatives are in the early stages, some are beginning to rack up impressive results. This trend may send a message to schools focused maniacally, and perhaps counterproductively, on reading and math.

“If they’re worried about their test scores and want a way to get them higher, they need to give kids more arts, not less,” says Tom Horne, Arizona’s state superintendent of public instruction.

“There’s lots of evidence that kids immersed in the arts do better on their academic tests.”

Education policies almost universally recognize the value of arts.

Forty-seven states have arts-education mandates, forty-eight have arts-education standards, and forty have arts requirements for high school graduation, according to the 2007-08 AEP state policy database. The Goals 2000 Educate America Act, passed in 1994 to set the school-reform agenda of the Clinton and Bush administrations, declared art to be part of what all schools should teach.

NCLB, enacted in 2001, included art as one of the ten core academic subjects of public education, a designation that qualified arts programs for an assortment of federal grants.

In a 2003 report, “The Complete Curriculum: Ensuring a Place for the Arts and Foreign Languages in American’s Schools,” a study group from the National Association of State Boards of Education noted that a substantial body of research highlights the benefits of arts in curriculum and called for stronger emphasis on the arts and foreign languages. As chairman of the Education Commission of the States from 2004 to 2006, Mike Huckabee, then governor of Arkansas, launched an initiative designed, according to commission literature, to ensure every child has the opportunity to learn about, enjoy, and participate directly in the arts.

Top-down mandates are one thing, of course, and implementation in the classroom is another. Whatever NCLB says about the arts, it measures achievement through math and language arts scores, not drawing proficiency or music skills. It’s no surprise, then, that many districts have zeroed in on the tests. A 2006 national survey by the Center on Education Policy, an independent advocacy organization in Washington, DC, found that in the five years after enactment of NCLB, 44 percent of districts had increased instruction time in elementary school English language arts and math while decreasing time spent on other subjects. A follow-up analysis, released in February 2008, showed that 16 percent of districts had reduced elementary school class time for music and art -- and had done so by an average of 35 percent, or fifty-seven minutes a week.

Some states report even bleaker numbers. In California, for example, participation in music courses dropped 46 percent from 19992000 through 2000-04, while total school enrollment grew nearly 6 percent, according to a study by the Music for All Foundation.

The number of music teachers, meanwhile, declined 26.7 percent.

In 2001, the California Board of Education set standards at each grade level for what students should know and be able to do in music, visual arts, theater, and dance, but a statewide study in 2006, by SRI International, found that 89 percent of K-12 schools failed to offer a standards-based course of study in all four disciplines. Sixty-one percent of schools didn’t even have a full-time arts specialist.

Nor does support for the arts by top administrators necessarily translate into instruction for kids. For example, a 2005 report in Illinois found almost no opposition to arts education among principals and district superintendents, yet there were large disparities in school offerings around the state.

Reviving Arts Education In many districts, the arts have suffered so long that it will take years, and massive investment, to turn things around. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has made arts education a priority in his school reform plans, and the city has launched sweeping initiatives to connect more students with the city’s vast cultural resources. Nearly every school now offers at least some arts instruction and cultural programming, yet in 2007-08, only 45 percent of elementary schools and 33 percent of middle schools provided education in all four required art forms, according to an analysis by the New York City Department of Education, and only 34 percent of high schools offered students the opportunity to exceed the minimum graduation requirement.

Yet some districts have made great strides toward not only revitalizing the arts but also using them to reinvent schools. The work takes leadership, innovation, broad partnerships, and a dogged insistence that the arts are central to what we want students to learn.

In Dallas, for example, a coalition of arts advocates, philanthropists, educators, and business leaders have worked for years to get arts into all schools, and to get students out into the city’s thriving arts community. Today, for the first time in thirty years, every elementary student in the Dallas Independent School District receives forty-five minutes a week of art and music instruction. In a February 2007 op-ed piece in the Dallas Morning News, Gigi Antoni, president and CEO of Big Thought, the nonprofit partnership working with the district, the Wallace Foundation, and more than sixty local arts and cultural institutions, explained the rationale behind what was then called the Dallas Arts Learning Initiative: “DALI was created on one unabashedly idealistic, yet meticulously researched, premise -- that students flourish when creativity drives learning.”

The Minneapolis and Chicago communities, too, are forging partnerships with their vibrant arts and cultural resources to infuse the schools with rich comprehensive, sustainable programs -- not add-ons that come and go with this year’s budget or administrator.

In Arizona, Tom Horne, the state superintendant of public instruction, made it his goal to provide high-quality, comprehensive arts education to all K-12 students. Horne, a classically trained pianist and founder of the Phoenix Baroque Ensemble, hasn’t yet achieved his objective, but he has made progress: He pushed through higher standards for arts education, appointed an arts specialist in the state Department of Education, and steered $4 million in federal funds under NCLB to support arts integration in schools throughout the state. Some have restored art and music after a decade without them.

“When you think about the purposes of education, there are three,” Horne says. “We’re preparing kids for jobs. We’re preparing them to be citizens. And we’re teaching them to be human beings who can enjoy the deeper forms of beauty. The third is as important as the other two.”

11 FACTS ABOUT ARTS IN EDUCATION

Welcome to DoSomething.org, one of the largest orgs for young people and social change! After you’ve browsed the 11 facts (with citations at the bottom), take action and volunteer with our millions of members.

1. Students who study art are 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement and 3 times more likely to be awarded for school attendance.

7. Researchers find that sustained learning in music and theater correlates strongly with higher achievement in both math and reading.

2. Arts and music education programs are mandatory in countries that rank consistently among the highest for math and science test scores, like Japan, Hungary, and the Netherlands.

8. In a study of a high-poverty schools in Chicago, the schools that were participating in the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) made huge strides in closing the gap between high- and low-income students’ academic achievement.

3. Music programs are constantly in danger of being cut from shrinking school budgets even though they’re proven to improve academics. Show educators how important arts are in your community. Sign up for Music March Out. 4. The No Child Left Behind Act clearly mandates The Arts (music, art, foreign language, etc.) as a core academic subject.

5. One study group showed that 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students who were taught a foreign language every day in school outperformed the students who were not exposed to a foreign language on their Basic Skills Test.

6. Federal funding for the arts and humanities rolls in around $250 million a year, while the National Science Foundation is funded around the $5 billion mark.

9. Multiple studies have concluded that curricular and extracurricular art studies and activities help keep high-risk dropout students stay in school.

10. New brain research shows that not only does music improve skills in math and reading, but it promotes creativity, social development, personality adjustment, and self-worth.

11. Research suggests that studying a second language is essential to the learning process, creative inquiry and critical thinking.

Foreign language studies have proven to increase problem-solving skills and overall cognitive development.

THE ARTS IN EDUCATION

The Cultural Significance of the Arts The arts are vital to human existence. Throughout history, the arts have played a significant role in human life. They transmit culture across time and place, often serving as the only record of past civilizations.

Artistic experience is also an integral part of our present collective human existence, contributing to personal, social, economic, cultural, and civic aspects of our lives. In cultures around the world, life’s most important events—weddings, funerals, birthdays, graduations, religious holidays, and community occasions—are observed and celebrated through the arts. Whether we create works of art or enter imaginatively into the creative expressions of others, we experience the power of art to illuminate and extend our human experience.

The arts comprise a rich body of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and provide unique avenues to perception and expression. The ideas, feelings, and cultural/historical references inherent in the arts contribute to our understanding of the world. Through the arts, we can reflect, interpret, and shape our own and others’ experience and view of the world. In the process we extend our understanding of ourselves, deepen our empathy with others, and bring meaning and a greater range of emotional response to our lives. The arts also

enable us to respond to social issues, consider diverse views and possibilities, and create imagined realities.

The Arts in Education Artistic literacy contributes to success in learning and enriches students’ lives individually and as members of the local and global community. Learning through the arts enables students to rely on imaginative and creative processes, promotes open-ended, non-linear thinking, and encourages understanding and feeling mediated through the senses. It requires openness to new ideas, connections, and ways of seeing—a spirit of inquiry and exploration that leads to independent learning. An arts education provides balance in the overall school curriculum by developing many ways of knowing and by enhancing understanding of our cultures and ourselves.

The individual arts (music, dance, drama, and the visual arts) are characterized by unique forms, each employing a variety of media.

Students require substantive instruction and active participation in the arts to gain knowledge, skills, and understanding in one or more of the arts. Arts education is not limited to performance and artistic production; the process of learning about and through the arts also involves exploration and reflection, historical and cultural studies, and the search for value and meaning.

What Are the Goals of Arts Education?

The essential goals of all arts education are to develop artistic perception, creative expression, historical and cultural understanding, and aesthetic valuing:* • Artistic perception is the processing of sensory information through elements unique to the arts. The arts use both verbal and non-verbal languages composed of words, images, sounds, and movement. Artistic literacy involves learning to heighten sensory awareness of our surroundings and learning how to “read” the languages of the arts.

2002; Fiske, 1999). The arts accomplish these educational goals in various ways: • The arts release the imagination. We use the imagination, or the “mind’s eye,” to generate innovative ideas, to react spontaneously, and to extend ideas: “The role of the imagination is to awaken, to disclose the ordinarily unseen, unheard, unexpected” (Greene, 1995, 28). By fostering “possibility thinking,” the arts also help students to be flexible in formulating questions, solving problems, managing change, and empathizing with others.

• Creative expression involves communicating thoughts, feelings, and ideas through various artistic modes. By learning to use various forms of representation students become “multi-literate”— able to “say” more things in more ways. There is no exact linguistic equivalent to a musical composition, painting, dance movement, or dramatic performance. At times, we need the arts to express our most profound human experiences: “When words are no longer adequate, when our passion is greater than we are usually able to express in the usual manner, people turn to art” (Murray Sidlin, as cited in California Department of Education, 1996, 8).

• The arts awaken the senses. In developing the senses, the arts help us become more aware of and sensitive to all aspects of our surroundings in the constructed and the natural world. Through the senses, students engage with their surroundings, learn and recall concepts, and communicate their understanding: “Thinking is mediated through many sensory forms: visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic, for example. These sensory forms attain their most articulate expression in art, music and dance” (Eisner, 2002, 2).

Sensory awareness of our surroundings is particularly important in a world increasingly dominated by technology. It also enables us to improve and preserve our environment.

• Historical and cultural understanding means appreciating the arts in the time and place of their creation and understanding how the arts both reflect and influence cultures. Through the arts, we understand, preserve, and transmit our own culture, history, and identity. In addition, we learn to understand and empathize with people from other cultural backgrounds and groups (racial, religious, age, gender, and language) and to share common knowledge and experience. The arts can help students become more deeply aware of their own lives and cultures and create a larger, more conscious context for the plethora of media images, sounds, and messages that surround us.

• The arts engage the emotions. Emotions are the essence of the arts and a vital part of learning. Educators know that “students are more likely to recall information when it is embedded in an emotional context since neural circuitry is enhanced through emotions” (Daniel Goleman, cited in Rettig and Rettig, 1999, 21).

Affective education involves learning to recognize and express emotion, and to include feeling with thinking and doing. Participation in the arts helps students give form and meaning to ideas and emotions.

• Aesthetic valuing involves responding to and reflecting upon what is being “said” in the languages of the arts. By analyzing, interpreting, and making informed judgements in and through the arts, students develop critical thinking skills that help them to understand and analyze what they value. Aesthetic valuing includes both individual responses and the social and cultural contexts of those responses. The arts enable students to become part of a human tradition in the search for meaning.

Why Do We Need Arts Education?

The arts, taught with the essential goals in mind, contribute unique learning experiences that benefit students as individuals and as members of society. The imaginative, exploratory, active learning inherent in the arts enhances cognition, engages attention, motivates learners, and connects them to content emotionally, physically, and personally. Learning in and through the arts produces excitement, joy, and surprise: “The arts teach that surprise is the reward of the imagination” (Eisner, 2002, 4). Experience and research shows that the arts help enliven and energize the school environment, inspire confidence, help to reach hard-toreach students, and keep them in school (Upitis and Smithrim,

• The arts stimulate creative thinking. Creativity includes fluency in generating ideas, flexibility or divergent thinking, originality, elaboration, and the ability to see in multiple perspectives and imagine multiple solutions. The wonder of creativity can foster “an understanding of ironic uncertainty…, which aligns totally disparate ideas to find new answers” (Pitman, 1998, 23). The arts develop students’ abilities to observe, express, invent, organize thoughts and feelings, assess critically, and think in predictable and unpredictable ways. Through the arts, students develop the capacity to think within the possibilities and limitations of a medium.

• The arts involve multiple modes of learning—that is, many ways of thinking, knowing, and communicating. In his Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Howard Gardner (1999) suggests that human intelligence has more forms than linguistic/verbal and logical/ mathematical, the most common focuses in schooling. Other forms include visual/spatial, musical/rhythmic, bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist, and existential intelligences. The various arts engage these multiple intelligences profoundly.

• The arts develop independent thinking and meaning-making skills. The arts teach us that the world is complex and open to interpretation and that knowledge and meaning are humanly constructed. Through the arts, students learn to construct and dis-

What Are the Goals of Arts Education?

The essential goals of all arts education are to develop artistic perception, creative expression, historical and cultural understanding, and aesthetic valuing:* • Artistic perception is the processing of sensory information through elements unique to the arts. The arts use both verbal and non-verbal languages composed of words, images, sounds, and movement. Artistic literacy involves learning to heighten sensory awareness of our surroundings and learning how to “read” the languages of the arts.

• Creative expression involves communicating thoughts, feelings, and ideas through various artistic modes. By learning to use various forms of representation students become “multi-literate”— able to “say” more things in more ways. There is no exact linguistic equivalent to a musical composition, painting, dance movement, or dramatic performance. At times, we need the arts to express our most profound human experiences: “When words are no longer adequate, when our passion is greater than we are usually able to express in the usual manner, people turn to art” (Murray Sidlin, as cited in California Department of Education, 1996, 8).

• Historical and cultural understanding means appreciating the arts in the time and place of their creation and understanding how the arts both reflect and influence cultures. Through the arts, we understand, preserve, and transmit our own culture, history, and identity. In addition, we learn to understand and empathize with people from other cultural backgrounds and groups (racial, religious, age, gender, and language) and to share common knowledge and experience. The arts can help students become more deeply aware of their own lives and cultures and create a larger, more conscious context for the plethora of media images, sounds, and messages that surround us.

• Aesthetic valuing involves responding to and reflecting upon what is being “said” in the languages of the arts. By analyzing, interpreting, and making informed judgements in and through the arts, students develop critical thinking skills that help them to understand and analyze what they value. Aesthetic valuing includes both individual responses and the social and cultural contexts of those responses. The arts enable students to become part of a human tradition in the search for meaning.

Why Do We Need Arts Education?

The arts, taught with the essential goals in mind, contribute unique learning experiences that benefit students as individuals and as members of society. The imaginative, exploratory, active learning inherent in the arts enhances cognition, engages attention, motivates learners, and connects them to content emotionally, physically, and personally. Learning in and through the arts produces excitement, joy, and surprise: “The arts teach that surprise is the reward of the imagination” (Eisner, 2002, 4). Experience and research shows that the arts help enliven and energize the school environment, inspire confidence, help to reach hard-toreach students, and keep them in school (Upitis and Smithrim, 2002; Fiske, 1999). The arts accomplish these educational goals in various ways: • The arts release the imagination. We use the imagination, or the “mind’s eye,” to generate innovative ideas, to react spontaneously, and to extend ideas: “The role of the imagination is to awaken, to disclose the ordinarily unseen, unheard, unexpected” (Greene, 1995, 28). By fostering “possibility thinking,” the arts also help students to be flexible in formulating questions, solving problems, managing change, and empathizing with others.

• The arts awaken the senses. In developing the senses, the arts help us become more aware of and sensitive to all aspects of our

“When a student takes ownership by directing his or her learning in terms of what is personally meaningful, it is much more likely the student will be able to store the concept in memory, and then to retrieve the information or concept later.”

— Perry R. Rettig and Janet L. Rettig

surroundings in the constructed and the natural world. Through the senses, students engage with their surroundings, learn and recall concepts, and communicate their understanding: “Thinking is mediated through many sensory forms: visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic, for example. These sensory forms attain their most articulate expression in art, music and dance” (Eisner, 2002, 2).

Sensory awareness of our surroundings is particularly important in a world increasingly dominated by technology. It also enables us to improve and preserve our environment.

• The arts engage the emotions. Emotions are the essence of the arts and a vital part of learning. Educators know that “students are more likely to recall information when it is embedded in an emotional context since neural circuitry is enhanced through emotions” (Daniel Goleman, cited in Rettig and Rettig, 1999, 21).

Affective education involves learning to recognize and express emotion, and to include feeling with thinking and doing. Participation in the arts helps students give form and meaning to ideas and emotions.

• The arts stimulate creative thinking. Creativity includes fluency in generating ideas, flexibility or divergent thinking, originality, elaboration, and the ability to see in multiple perspectives and imagine multiple solutions. The wonder of creativity can foster “an understanding of ironic uncertainty…, which aligns totally disparate ideas to find new answers” (Pitman, 1998, 23). The arts develop students’ abilities to observe, express, invent, organize thoughts and feelings, assess critically, and think in predictable and unpredictable ways. Through the arts, students develop the capacity to think within the possibilities and limitations of a medium.

• The arts involve multiple modes of learning—that is, many ways of thinking, knowing, and communicating. In his Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Howard Gardner (1999) suggests that human intelligence has more forms than linguistic/verbal and log-

ical/ mathematical, the most common focuses in schooling. Other forms include visual/spatial, musical/rhythmic, bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist, and existential intelligences. The various arts engage these multiple intelligences profoundly.

• The arts develop independent thinking and meaning-making skills. The arts teach us that the world is complex and open to interpretation and that knowledge and meaning are humanly constructed. Through the arts, students learn to construct and discover meaning and they learn to recognize the validity of multiple interpretations of a work. They learn that “all perspectives are contingent, no one’s picture is complete” (Greene, 1995, 82).

In addition, they discover that the arts often create tension and dissonance that lead to discomfort or surprise, or to resolution and understanding. Grappling with these complexities in the arts fosters a capacity to strive for meaning and to live with life’s paradox and ambiguity.

• The arts develop critical understanding of the mass media, including a conscious awareness of their intent and techniques and the relationships between media, message, author/artist, and audience. Artistic literacy fosters a critical approach toward communications media, a skill that is increasingly essential in our fast-paced, media-driven, information-saturated, commercial, and technocratic society. It enables students to view and use technology and information as tools to extend understanding, rather than being unwittingly controlled by them. The arts help us to “resist the forces that press people into passivity and bland acquiescence” (Greene, 1995, 135). Arts education encourages students to observe, reflect, and make judgements about what they value in the context of society.

MYTHS, MISCONCEPTIONS, PROBLEMS AND ISSUES IN ARTS EDUCATION

Preamble For years more than any other endeavour or enterprise the arts in education have suffered from an over abundance of myths, misconceptions and problems in schools. Why is this so when the arts are as natural as living and breathing?

From the time that they are born children are introduced to the arts as the very foundation of their culture. The nursery is alive with aural sounds and pictorial visual imagery. Colourful mobiles are sometimes the first objects of scrutiny from tiny eyes, while the tinkle of a lullaby

by Brahms emanates from a small music-box. Parents sing with children, and sing them to sleep . During the early days of infancy parents read and act out traditional folk stories with laughter and in various tones of voice. Children respond by mimicking and playing. These sensory responses to the human experience are encouraged and rewarded by parents. Parents hang the child’s very first drawings and paintings on the refrigerator in the kitchen. The very first song that a small child sings is lauded and applauded. Tiny-tots are encouraged to dance and perform- stage mothers abound as tiny, pink ballet slippers are packed with costumes and make up.

The above are examples of ‘the-arts-in-action’ enacting body, spirit, intellect and emotion while the child comes to know and understand their world. The arts as purveyors of culture are valued and introduced to young children by parents and grandparents. Young children’s first attempts to communicate ideas and feelings are through one or more of the arts forms. A simple gesture is captured in dance, a mood is expressed through music, an idea is painted on paper and a response is mimed. It is impossible to imagine a child’s life and being without the arts.

Yet, as a child grows older and enrols in school, the arts, which are the very heart of our culture are undervalued. They become less important and less understood in educational contexts. The spontaneity of ‘home-taught arts’ which is meaningful and imaginative is lost. The rich tapestry of the arts as ways of knowing and feeling, and sources of delight and enjoyment are sacrificed for arts activities that are soul destroying and meaningless. Children are not taught the basic knowledge and skills in the arts and therefore their education lacks depth and dimension. Why is this happening?

There are many myths and misconceptions about the arts in schools as well as many problems with pedagogy. This paper sets out to identify some of the myths and misconceptions in arts education whilst identifying the conflicting pedagogical paradigms which impinge on arts teaching today.

The Dichotomy between Community Values and the Arts: The Report by the Senate Environment Recreation Communications and the Arts References Committee: Arts Education ( October 1995. p.7) suggests that the community is at odds with itself over its valuing of “an imaginative and creative life” which is fundamental to, and defines us as human beings. Society through the agency of schools is denying children the right to quality self-expression through the arts. Most submissions to the inquiry complained, more in sorrow than in anger that the arts in schools is widely regarded as a ‘frill’. A society that regards paid work as the ‘real thing’ and creative life as a frill, something that is carried out on behalf of the community by a special priestly class (the arts community), is an incomplete and unhealthy society.

Arts education is needed to foster a widespread creative life which

counterbalances the forces of mass production and mass consumption in a specialised materialistic society. Arts education is needed as an impetus for change, challenging old perspectives from fresh angles of vision, or offering original interpretations of familiar ideas. Paid work is seen as purposeful by the community, whilst artistic activities are not regarded as having any real purpose. Whilst consumers in society may value a marble sculpture it does not have the same purpose as an electric iron. Art, in this case. can be done without but the electric iron cannot.

From the point of view of the community the word ‘artist’ conjures a vision of a temperamental romantic leading a carefree life- a bohemian unencumbered by the mundane constraints that beset the

ordinary wage-earner. This ambivalent community attitude flows through to schools - there is uncertainty of what the arts are and what worthwhile outcomes they can produce:

Many teachers... tend to avoid or ignore the arts in their teaching or, worse still, confuse art with entertainment, regarding arts activity, like play, as a non-serious past-time and therefore to be accommodated only on the fringe the curriculum - (John Deverell, 1995, p.18) Furthermore, whilst the community does not seem to value artistic and creative processes, per se the school generally, and arts educators in particular, recognises that the arts assist with the development of high level skills such as the student’s ability to handle complexity and ambiguity, problem-solving, communication skills, self-discipline and team work. These skills are recognised as essential for success in the new high technology, high-information and inclusive world in which we live. The arts teach the life-skills of team spirit, character building, cultural benefits and the opportunity to express feelings, and mix with other people. They enrich educational experience and foster confident self -expression - the desire to have a go, and develop habits of being self-directed and being involved. Arts Training Australia sees the arts as being economically important:

Excellence and innovation are critical to our collective future in generating the industries we require to enhance the nation’s economic and social well-being.

Creativity and innovation drive not only the cultural industries, but also developments in science, technology, industrial and management practices, all major contributors to our continuing socioeconomic growth...

- (Submission 20 p.262.).

Creative, innovative, divergent, curious, critical thinking should permeate the school curriculum as well as our life in the community. Yet, the community is at sixes and sevens with itself regarding the ‘worthiness’ of the arts, and generally teachers as agents of the community, do not value the arts despite the fact that the arts contribute to the education of the individual child through: · developing the full variety of human intelligence · developing the ability for creative thought and action · the education of feeling and sensibility · the exploration of values · enhancing understanding of cultural changes

· developing physical and perceptual skills (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1982).

The arts are seen as cultural products which are indicators of our society being “cultured”. Arts which entertain tourists, indicate to the rest of the world that Australia is a “culturally”, civilised society which values esoteric aesthetics which are the heart and soul of long established traditional civilisations. In order to do this, Australian society has deferred to overseas artists and performersthe Hollywood actor, the Russian dancer and the European artist.

A ‘cultural cringe’ persists because many Australians themselves believe that our own arts’ performers are inferior to those from overseas. Misconceptions such as the belief that an arts education does not offer sufficient employment opportunities or economic benefits are still common.

In general our own arts are undervalued in both the community and school, and the artistic consumers of tomorrow will continue to be ignorant of the arts if creative life is not facilitated and encouraged in school settings and throughout life. The next generation of artistic consumers needs to be educated with the notion that the arts are more than just vocational training. “Arts education is twofold- it is the provision of education for practitioners and for audiences” (Creative Nation-Commonwealth Cultural Policy, October 1994, p.85).

However, caution is needed when the Arts are seen as only accepted for their role in improving the ‘tone’ of the school, but otherwise are marginalised as part of the regular curriculum. There is universal confirmation that such activities: promote social cohesion within the group and provide personally important experiences and improve individual self-esteem. Parents enjoy these activities and the Arts help to promote the school, but it is a two-edged sword which relies on extra-curricular activities which should be part of the everyday curriculum and tends to reinforce their ‘special’ or ‘outsider’ status. The Arts should not be seen as special ways of knowing but as a part of normal school life. For example the school musical and theatrical productions: band, choral or orchestral are educational experiences but the preparation for such events is not regarded as teaching.

Creative Life is Important for our Minds A creative life is just as fundamental for our minds as exercise is for our bodies. Human beings have always made art of some form or another, because it satisfies a human need to communicate experience, knowledge and ideas through aesthetic languages/symbols.

‘It is this artistic process which challenges people to engage in arts making, define their ideas, encounter unpredicted problems and explore a variety of expressive media and creative alternatives’ (Boyd, 1994, p.217). In the community there is the conception that the arts product is more important than the artistic process of creation. Both artistic product and process are important because one cannot exist without the other.Participation in the arts requires creative processes such as imagination and inventive problem-solving which are logical and rational, thinking strategies.

Engagement in the Arts is more than “hands on, minds off” activity and the community and schools must see it as such. Involvement in the arts (creative life) includes thinking skills such as:

· defining terms/classifying and categorising; · determining consequences/discovering alternatives; · becoming aware of complexity: seeing the ‘grey’ areas between black and white; · finding underlying assumptions/using analogies; · constructing hypotheses and generalisations/formulating and using criteria; · drawing inferences from one or more premises/assumptions; · enquiring and reasoning; · distinguishing between fact and fiction; · striving to be consistent and avoid contradictions; · respecting different ways of thinking and being; · tolerance of different viewpoints; · determining and articulating feelings, value judgements/likes/ dislikes; and · identifying examples and counter examples (Boyd, 1994, p.217).

The Arts have whole languages of meaning that have no direct need of words. These languages of creative life can be used for exploring, describing, interpreting, challenging, celebrating, mourning for, and reflecting upon the world in the form of: · receptivity to the sensory qualities of the world; · intuitive, global thinking as well as analytical, linear thinking; · attention to fine nuances; · the cultivation of aesthetic judgements; and the ability to cope with ambiguity-meaning in artistic works is multi-dimensional, offering a variety of interpretations. (P-10 Arts Framework, Education Queensland) Both education and the community appear to value verbal and mathematical thinking, and thereby undervalue and inhibit the development of artistic skills and / or thinking through sensory images and languages - those often used in creative life.

Eisner (1981), suggests that thinking through sensory images allows us to examine and explore information about the world. For example, drawing or painting allows us to re-structure and play with ideas and images found in our world without the use of verbal language. Music can be interpreted and enjoyed without resorting to words; while dance conveys meaning through gesture and movement. “Language is by no means the only route for making sense of the world” (Gardner, 1982, p.88). Creative and innovative thinking are not just confined to the Arts. The prime merit of arts education should be that nurturing creative thinking in a context where it is explicitly approved may give people the confidence to appreciate and develop habits of mind that will complement their learning in other areas of education and of life. Yet, male students participate far less in many forms of artistic activities.

The Arts, New Technologies and Resources The inferior status of arts education is reflected in the allocation of human, physical and financial resources and the continuity of funding. Arts funding by State and Federal Governments has decreased by 20% since 1987/88 (The Australian National University, 1995). Micro-economic reforms over the past decade have impacted on the education sector in general, with the impact on the Arts demonstrating the vulnerability of the field in times of rationalisation.

In the sphere of arts education, a diminishing resource base has contributed to an imbalance between the supply and demand of places in formal institutions, inadequate facilities and a lack of equipment, poor teacher/student ratios, and a lack of specialist and professional support. Disparities in funding allocation between various disciplines (for example between visual arts, and music, media and drama) and regions (urban and rural) are also evident.

Arts Queensland identified a lack of parity in resource allocation for teachers, trainers, practitioners and researchers in arts and cultural education. The ‘principle of equity’ in the National Arts Curriculum Framework does not always translate to equity at the school practice level. The NAAE National Arts Education Survey revealed that timetabling practices and elective groupings, as well as inadequate resourcing in terms of materials, spacing and personnel, produce inequitable outcomes in arts education. Insufficient working space, a lack of materials and equipment and time allocated to the Arts compared with other Key Learning Areas are frequent difficulties and contribute to stress experienced by educators. These problems are more evident in rural areas. There is an insufficient awareness of the physical and financial demands of an arts education.

Increasing participation rates in optional arts (Visual arts) courses and restrictive funding have limited access to new, sophisticated technologies, especially computer multi-media modes of learning.

It is vital for the arts to access CD-ROM technologies and be able to access resources on the World Wide Web, yet many arts departments do not have access to this facility.

In a free market situation, the arts cannot compete for funding whilst they are accorded such low priority and status. Many funding “pots” are for arts practitioners and not for educational purposes (Arts Council and Arts Queensland). The Australian Research Council, prefers to allocate funds to science and few, if any arts research projects are successful in attracting the necessary funds for research. The Arts in university contexts have pressure on them to justify their existence through their capacity to attract funds.

Creative Careers That Work 9 Dream Jobs That Actually Pay

By Anita Hamilton

Long to be an artist, but fear you’ll wind up an office drone instead? Making a living in a creative field is rarely easy. But it’s not impossible, either. To learn what it takes, TIME.com interviewed nine professionals across the country who are surviving and thriving as artists, designers and entertainers. Read on to find out exactly how they turned their creative aspirations into real jobs.

Stevie Boi, eyewear designer Sold under the SB Shades brand, Stevie Boi’s outrageous eyewear is a favorite of Lady Gaga, Diddy, and other celebrities.

Where do you live and how old are you?

Baltimore and London. I am 23.

How did you get your start?

I started designing in 2007, and I learned from experimenting with different materials I bought from craft shops. I do not have any formal training in fashion. In 2009 I created SBshades.

Who was your first paying celebrity client?

Lady Gaga. She ordered pieces from my site just like any other person. It was spectacular!!

Is your business profitable?

Yes How many pairs of glasses did you sell last year?

Over 100,000 pieces How many employees do you have?

Six How did you support yourself before your business became profitable?

I worked for the government. I purchased armory and tanks for the soldiers in Iraq. I also tested these weapons out with the soldiers.

It was a lot of fun.

What’s the best part of your job?

Having the freedom to do whatever I want with fashion! It’s amazing to create something and see people get a sense of emotion behind your product. That’s always refreshing for me.

What’s the worst part of your job?

Being the businessman and artist all at once. It’s kinda contradicting.

Would you recommend this line of work to anyone else?

I would only recommend this type of work to a sincere artist. Anyone can do what I do but may fail to market the product correctly.

It’s never a proper balance. And unfortunately a lot of people don’t have the eye for fashion.

Tig Notaro, comedian Raised in Pass Christian, Miss., Notaro released an album in October called Live.

It’s a surprisingly funny take on her recent cancer diagnosis.

Where do you live and how old are you?

Currently living in NYC, but I also have a place in LA. I’m 41 ½.

Or 8 ½ years from 50. However you want to look at it.

How did you get good at standup?

Doing it all the time. Non-stop. As well as putting on blinders and not paying any attention to what other comedians are doing.

Just focus and do what you think is funny.

For how long have you been able to support yourself as a comedian?

9 years. To supplement things along the way, I was an assistant at the director Sam Raimi’s production company, a barista at a coffee shop and probably a few other things I’m forgetting.

Do you have any employees?

I have one assistant. His name is Aaron. He’s the very best. His day at the office includes going through my mail, bills, getting my oil changed, making travel arrangements for me, updating website/ social media, grocery shopping, picking up my lunch, rides to and from the airport, returning things that are broken, listening to stories of my dating life, researching for my podcast and the list goes on…

How many copies of Live have been purchased since it went on sale in early October?

Around/over 100k How much did you make last year?

In 2011, I was not in debt, had excellent credit, a savings account, a retirement fund and could literally afford to tell people to “keep the change” when buying a sandwich and not think twice about it. So yeah, bigger than a breadbox, but less than 20 million cash.

What’s the best part of your job?

I love being my own boss, but to be honest, sometimes I think I can be a little too bossy. That being said, stand-up has still never felt like a job.

What’s the worst part of your job?

Endless situations where people at hotels, venues, car services, etc. feel like they have to make small talk. I cannot stand small talk.

“You ever been to Alaska? It gets cold here during the winters.”

Thanks for the inside scoop. “L.A., huh? Boy, the weather sure is warm there, isn’t it?” That’s correct. “So, what brings you to Des Moines?” Mainly just trying to catch up on some small talk with strangers. “Comedian? Tell me something funny.” Buy my CD. Would you recommend this line of work to anyone else?

If they’re naturally funny, don’t mind small talk with strangers and love sandwiches, I’d say go for it.

Ellen Forney, graphic novelist The cartoonist and comic book author’s new book, Marbles, chronicles her personal struggle with bipolar disorder.

Where do you live and how old are you?

Seattle, 44 Do you need any formal training to make comic books?

No. I’d be considered self-taught, though I consider all the cartoonists and comics I read as my teachers.

How did you get into this line of work?

I think I’ve always been a cartoonist. I remember even when I was little, telling myself stories as I drew pictures. I drew comics through high school, college but only decided to become a professional in my early twenties, after graduating from Wesleyan University with a degree in psychology. The first comics I did with the intent of getting it published was bought by Ms. Magazine, which then opened a lot of doors.

Are you self-employed?

Yes. For Marbles, I had a production assistant for six months and a couple of interns, but that’s unusual for me.

Do you need an agent to be a successful graphic novelist?

I don’t know if it’s necessary, but the cartoonists I know that have put out books do have agents.

Do you make a living as a graphic novelist or do you supplement with a side job?

Everything would go under the umbrella cartoonist/artist/professor. I teach comics at Cornish College of the Arts, and I’d still consider teaching comics as part of my being a cartoonist. I also do commissioned original art, illustrations. Some art miscellany, like I’m doing two large-scale murals for a light rail station here in Seattle, slated to open in 2016.

What does it take to be a great graphic novelist?

Dedication, passion, and a natural storytelling ability. A willingness to work hard, not knowing what lies in store—fame or obscurity—because the satisfaction of making comics might need to be enough. And networking helps!

What’s the best part of your job?

I get to make lots of comics! The creative pursuit I’m most passionate about. And getting to do them all the time allows me to perpetually hone my skills, which is very satisfying.

What’s the worst part of your job?

Not much pay, no group health benefits.

Would you recommend this line of work to anyone else?

I’d recommend it to people who are passionate about making comics, and probably already do them in their sketchbooks or journals.

Most of the cartoonists I know just couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Michael Allen, flute maker Known professionally as Coyote Oldman, Allen has published several music albums in addition to crafting wooden flutes like the one pictured at right.

Where do you live and how old are you?

I live in Alabama and I am 62.

How did you get into flute making?

Growing up I spent much of my time around the great rivers and beautiful forests of Alabama, always accompanied by a wonderful diversity of birds, reptiles and insects, plants, artifacts and fossils.

A plant that I felt a strong friendship with was the native bamboo.

I made my blowguns, bows and arrows and my first flutes from bamboo about 45 years ago.

You also make flute music. How do you split your time?

Over the years I drift deeper into music and then back into flute making, one powers me toward the other and each gives me a retreat.

What does it take to be a great flute maker?

You need to love the sound of your instrument and always find fresh comfort and inspiration in the voice and art of your flutes.

Know and respect your materials, lean toward their infinite potential. Care about the people you are making flutes & music for.

Don’t take yourself too seriously and always be a student.

Are you self-employed and do you have any employees?

Yes, I am totally self-employed and tolerate no one else in my workshop. Fortunately my wife Mary Jane works with me keeping taxes, keeping bills and check books under control, managing orders and shipping, customs forms, insurance and the many other things. My wife also helps me mix paints and music & we have great coffee breaks.

About how many flutes do you sell each year?

Perhaps 200, I am certainly making fewer than I used to, taking more time with each instrument.

What’s the best part of your job?

Inventing. I constantly design and build my own tools and processes & I invent new flutes with new scales that play new music.

What’s the worst part of your job?

I don’t really like performing (I have stage fright), but over the years I’m getting more comfortable. I pretend that I’m playing for frogs.

Would you recommend this line of work to anyone else?

Well, if you are a slightly obsessive-compulsive person with control issues and a need to actively avoid depression and channel nagging dysfunctionality into creativity, then I would certainly recommend this line of work. Know yourself, put your limitations to work, be generous and grow.

Betty Atchison, celebrity impersonator A life-long performer, Atchison impersonates both Cher and Lady Gaga—when she’s not stilt walking.

Where do you live?

Orlando, Florida Is there any formal training required to be a celebrity impersonater?

The only formal training was the dance classes I took as a child and voice lessons I took during college. I auditioned and was chosen for the college entertainment workshop program offered by Disneyland/Walt Disney World my senior year and have continued performing professionally ever since.

You impersonate both Cher and Lady Gaga—why them?

Both are incredibly talented, outspoken, empowered female icons of their generations. To impersonate them, one has to be able to sing, dance, and act well enough for audiences to feel close to them. They are both famous for wearing outrageous costumes, so it is imperative to recreate those outfits with excellence.

What’s your favorite Lady Gaga song?

Born This Way. I love the message, and it inspires me every time I hear it!

Do you make a living as a celebrity impersonator or do you supplement with a side job?

I make my living as a full-time performer. This includes being a celebrity impersonator, dancer, actress, balloon artist, and stilt walker.

How much do you make?

Enough that I don’t have to pursue other employment!

What’s the best part of your job?

The opportunity to perform. I really do love it!

What’s the worst part of your job?

Travel. It just wears me out!

Would you recommend this line of work to anyone else?

It is a tough business, so I recommend it only to those who have the right combination of talent, ethics, business savvy, and motivation. It looks easy, but most people do not realize the countless hours of training and rehearsals; the thousands of dollars spent on dance lessons, voice lessons, costumes, music, and wigs; the creativity needed to produce a product people are willing to pay money for; and the management skills needed to sell yourself to agents and clients. Not to mention the pressure of keeping yourself looking and sounding your very best at all times. We are judged instantly when we walk through the door. It is a lot of pressure—not for someone who has their feelings easily hurt.

Janet Hankinson, landscape artist After decades working in the restaurant business, Hankinson became a full-time landscape artist specializing in sustainable design and native plants in 2005.

Where do you live and how old are you?

I live in Richmond, California and I’m 61.

How did you get into landscape design?

I was teaching art at a junior college in Leeds (England), and I needed to get away. So I moved to Berkeley. But I didn’t want to do art. So I thought I’d try design. I got my Master’s in Landscape Architecture from Berkeley in 1984. I remember the first day I went out on a plant course and my professor gave me the names of about 50 trees. All of a sudden, there was a whole other world that I had never seen before and could relate to.

Do you really need a master’s degree to be a landscape artist?

No you can just get a bachelor’s of art. But with a master’s you don’t just get design. You don’t just get horticulture. You get the whole picture, how people relate to their space.

How did you get your first paying client?

I was the downstairs manager at a restaurant in Berkeley (Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse). A coworker bought a house, and he wanted me to landscape his garden. He had seen my garden.

Do you have employees?

No, I don’t really want employees. I don’t want to tell people what to do.

Can you support yourself?

Yes, definitely. Some months it is better than others. I don’t have a lot of overhead.

What’s the best part of your job?

The best part is turning people on. Helping them emotionally connect to their space is my greatest pleasure. They hire you to help them and make a lovely garden, but I encourage them to get involved. If they are not involved, it is just going to die. It doesn’t happen that often, but that’s what I get off on.

What’s the worst part of your job?

I don’t like to do a lot of hardscape, like driveways. I don’t want to build giant rectangular retaining walls to hold up soil. I don’t want to manipulate the land.

Would you recommend this line of work to anyone else?

Yes, it’s very satisfying because you are talking about something that potentially makes people happy. It’s not like they are calling you up to fix the washing machine. I think my success has been very slow. I wasn’t ambitious that way. I think people have to find something that really makes them evolved in their life. You kind of have to find what it is that makes you happy.

Tommy DeLorenzo, balloon sculptor Pictured at right with one of his creations, DeLorenzo began making balloon art in high school as a hobby. It’s been his fulltime job for the last four years.

Where do you live and how old are you?

I live in Chicago, IL and am 26.

How did you get into balloon art?

Even before I could walk, I was always fascinated with balloons.

When I was about 7 years old my parents took me to The Festival of Balloons, which is the final day of a worldwide balloon arts convention. I was so in awe by what could be created with something as simple as balloons. I went home and tried to make things with the balloons I had laying around. As soon as I could get a worker’s permit, I was twisting balloons at a local theme park, using the internet as a learning tool. I taught myself most of what I know, a lot of trial and error, but have learned so much by fellow artists.

What is the largest number of balloons you ever used for a single project and what was the project?

About 10,000 balloons for the Pride parade in Chicago. I had about 70 people, each wearing giant balloon “fireworks” on their back along with other displays such as giant letters spelling out PRIDE. What does it take to be a great balloon artist?

Don’t be afraid of popping balloons or of heights, keep up with trends, be innovative and think on your toes. There is a helium shortage in the world, so you have to work around using helium.

Most importantly, do something nobody has seen before!

Do you really make a living as a balloon artist?

Yes How much do you make? Some months are better than others, and I keep growing pretty rapidly every year, about 50% every year for the past 4 years.

What’s the best part of your job?

I love getting an idea in my head and seeing it come to life. It may be difficult to explain to the client how you are going to create a 30-ft. wide octopus, life-size sharks, or a giant “game” of Angry Birds, but when it starts to take shape, I get excited with them. I love breaking the stereotype that balloons are for children. 90% of my work is for adults.

What’s the worst part of your job?

The worst part of my job is battling the elements. Sometimes outdoors can be a nightmare with wind, rain, heat, cold, etc. Balloons are fragile so something as simple as an unswept floor can ruin an entire design.

Would you recommend this line of work to others?

Why or why not? If you don’t love balloons, you will hate this job.

It is a lot more work than some may think. You need a knack for it. You need to walk into a venue and suddenly have a million ideas and ways to execute those ideas. It truly is a rewarding job.

Pattie Yankee, nail artist Nail art has taken off in recent years, and Yankee—whose roster of celebrity clients includes Pink, Katy Perry and Giada DeLaurentis—is on the leading edge of the craft.

Where do you live and how old are you?

I live in Long Island and I am 51 (but I feel 30!)

Did you need any formal training to be a nail artist?

There is formal training required to be a nail technician. Every state (except Connecticut) requires a state license to work on nails.

As far as the artistry side goes, I learned from the nail technician who inspired me to get into the business and by attending several classes over the years. I also have some God-given artistic talent!

What does it take to be a great nail artist?

NEVER stop learning or improving!! At times even I get discouraged when I see new talented nail artists come along. Instead of dwelling in this state, however, I challenge myself to learn and recreate what they did, even improving on their design. Look for inspiration in everything you see and as my favorite celebrity client, Rachael Ray tells me, BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!!!

Are you self-employed?

Yes, I work for myself. I am also a salon owner (in Long Island), industry consultant, and proctor for the Nail Specialty Exams for the state of New York. I am also starting my own product line that will launch in December.

How much do you make?

My income ranges between $80,000 to $100,000 a year.

What’s the best part of your job?

I LOVE that every day is different, that each set of hands is a new challenge and a new palette to create an amazing work of art on.

I also love the fact that you can make a woman feel so good about herself and boost her confidence just by making her nails look beautiful.

What’s the worst part of your job?

My own self-inflicted lack of self-confidence. I always want to do better.

Would you recommend this line of work to anyone else?

100% YES!!! It is an amazing line of work! So fun and allows you to be creative and make your own schedule, basically. It worked out so perfectly for me as a single mom. I could arrange my schedule around taking care of my son. It also allowed me to raise him on my own and even send him to private school. Plus the amount of income you make is up to you.

Jessie Hemmons, yarn bomber A yarn bomber is a street artist who uses knitting to cover objects in public spaceswith bright colors. Hemmons recently quit her day job as a clinical research coordinator to pursue her art full-time.

Where do you live and how old are you?

I live in Philadelphia, Pa. and I am 26.

How did you get into yarn bombing?

I began knitting while I was in graduate school, finishing my degree in Clinical Psychology. I have had no formal art training, but I have always enjoyed street art and graffiti very much. The rebelliousness and the politics of street art have always resonated with me. When I saw photos of other individuals using knitting for projects in public, I fell in love with it immediately. I put up my first yarn bomb the very next day.

What’s the best part of your job?

Having the freedom to conceptualize projects on my own, and getting to see and hear the reactions of viewers. Usually I walk away from my work after I put up an installation, but I get to use social media to see photos of people with the project, hear people’s reaction to the work, and hear how a project was taken down.

What’s the worst part of your job?

The worst part of my job is that the commissions tend to be unreliable. I will receive a call about a project and find out a week, month, or months later that they aren’t interested anymore. It is as though they will lay a pile of money in front of me and then take it away. That can feel like an emotional roller coaster at times.

Do you have any employees or assistants?

I have worked with interns, but I complete most of my projects on my own because my work hours are unusual and I can also be very impulsive with my projects. I will come up with an idea and want to execute it within the next day or so.

How do you get paid for public art?

Most of my income has been from private or public commissions, meaning that a company or city will come to me with a project proposal.

How much do you earn as a yarn bomber?

I am in the beginning of my commercial art career and only make about $20,000 a year from art alone. I have been offered about $35,000, but as I mentioned before many projects fall through.

Would you recommend this line of work to anyone else?

I would definitely recommend this job to anyone with self-discipline, drive, and an ability to be flexible. It is a great career for anyone that feels more comfortable working for themselves than for someone else. You should also be comfortable with the unknown, financially.

WHY THE ART WORLD IS SO LOATHSOME

Freud said the goals of the artist are fame, money, and beautiful lovers. Based on my artist acquaintances, I would say this holds true today. What have changed, however, are the goals of the art itself. Do any exist?

How did the art world become such a vapid hell-hole of investment-crazed pretentiousness? How did it become, as Camille Paglia has recently described it, a place where “too many artists have lost touch with the general audience and have retreated to an airless echo chamber”? (More from her in a moment.)

There are sundry problems bedeviling the contemporary art scene. Here are eight that spring readily to mind:

1. Art Basel Miami.

It’s baaa-ack, and I, for one, will not be attending. The overblown art fair in Miami—an offshoot of the original, held in Basel, Switzerland—has become a promo-party cheese-fest.

All that craven socializing and trendy posing epitomize the worst aspects of today’s scene, provoking in me a strong desire to start a Thomas Kinkade collection. Whenever some hapless individual innocently asks me if I will be attending Art Basel—even though the shenanigans don’t start for another two weeks, I am already getting e-vites for pre-Basel parties—I invariably respond in Tourette’s mode:

“No. In fact, I would rather jump in a river of boiling snot, which is ironic since that could very well be the title of a faux-conceptual installation one might expect to see at Art Basel. Have you seen Svetlana’s new piece? It’s a river of boiling snot. No, I’m not kidding. And, guess what, Charles Saatchi wants to buy it and is duking it out with some Russian One Percent-er.”

2. Blood, poo, sacrilege, and porn.

4. The post-skill movement.

Old-school ’70s punk shock tactics are so widespread in today’s art world that they have lost any resonance. As a result, twee paintings like Gainsborough’s Blue Boy and Constable’s Hay Wain now appear mesmerizing, mysterious, and wildly transgressive. And, as Camille Paglia brilliantly argues in her must-read new book, Glittering Images, this torrent of penises, elephant dung, and smut has not served the broader interests of art. By providing fuel for the Rush Limbaugh-ish prejudice that the art world is full of people who are shoving yams up their bums and doing horrid things to the Virgin Mary, art has, quoting Camille again, “allowed itself to be defined in the public eye as an arrogant, insular fraternity with frivolous tastes and debased standards.” As a result, the funding of school and civic arts programs has screeched to a halt and “American schoolchildren are paying the price for the art world’s delusional sense of entitlement.” Thanks a bunch, Karen Finley, Chris Ofili, Andres Serrano, Damien Hirst, and the rest of you naughty pranksters!

“No major figure of profound influence has emerged in painting or sculpture since the waning of Pop Art and the birth of Minimalism in the early 1970s,” writes Camille P. But what about those annoying YBAs, the young British artists, the folks that noted U.K.-based art critic Brian Sewell has wickedly and accurately dubbed “The Post-Skill Movement”? Are they profound or influential?

Any taxpayers not yet fully aware of the level of frivolity and debasement to which art has plummeted need look no further than the Museum of Modern Art, which recently hosted a jumbo garage-sale-cum-performance piece created by one Martha Rosler titled “Meta-Monumental Garage Sale.” Maybe this has some reverse-chic novelty for chi-chi arty insiders, but for the rest of us out here in the real world, a garage sale is just a garage sale.

3. Art a la mode.

The growing mania for melanging fashion with art is great for the former, but it has been a gravitas-eroding catastrophe for the latter. The world of style is ephemeral and superficial by nature. Art, real art, fabulous art, high art, must soar and endure and remain unencumbered by the need to sell handbags and blouses. Example: Selfridges recently strapped a massive effigy of dot-queen Yayoi Kusama to the front of the store in celebration of her new collaboration with Louis Vuitton. Similar installations took place at Vuitton stores worldwide. There was no downside for the historic department store or for Maison Vuitton. From a fashion point of view the entire project was memorable and rather marvelous. But what about Art? Did the excitable hordes of tourists who were sticker-shocking their way through the spotty merchandise have any notion that they were scrutinizing the oeuvre of a so-called great artist? Did they, as a result, schlep to the Whitney to see the Kusama exhibit? And what of Ms. Kusama herself? How is the poor luv fairing after being dragged up Rodeo Drive and down 57th Street? Just as well she is already in a nut house. (She voluntarily committed herself to a psychiatric hospital in 1977 and has lived and made art there ever since.)

As a window dresser (recently retired) who pursued his craft for more than 40 years, I have always taken a keen interest in art. I have occasionally collaborated with artists—Warhol, Rauschenberg, Mapplethorpe, Candyass—all the while enjoying the freedom of not being an artist myself. I always saw my work as a combo of street theater and Coney Island sideshow. This allowed me to switch styles and try anything without ever feeling the need to create profundity or permanence. Example: I am probably the only person on Earth to have incorporated—back in the ’70s—colostomy bags into a designer clothing display. Did it mean anything? Was it ART? No, emphatically, no! A nurse friend gave me large stash of dead-stock unused bags, and I felt compelled to rescue them, which is another way of saying that I had not prepared anything for my window installation on that particular week and was glad to take receipt of a ready-made prop.

For years I happily free-associated with my papier-mâché, my props, and my found objects … and then something weird happened. Artists put down their brushes and stole my objets trouves, my staple guns and glue guns. I first noticed the trend at the 1997 Sensation show at the Royal Academy in London. Enter the Post-Skill Movement.

With its Damien Hirst vitrines, Tracey Emin camping vignettes, and Sarah Lucas found-object tableaux, this landmark show was like one giant Barneys window. This realization brought me no satisfaction: “If art is morphing into display, then what the hell are we window dressers supposed to plonk into our constantly changing vignettes?” I asked myself as I gazed at Jake and Dinos Chapman’s defiled window mannequins. I felt like a professional hooker who is no longer sure what to wear because all the regular respectable ladies are now dressing like sluts. (Which, by the way, they are.)

In a desperate search of some gravitas and some skill, I fled the Sensation tableaux and ran next door to the adjacent, and infinitely more artful, Victorian Fairy Painting exhibit. FYI, the catalog for this strange and significant show is still available and makes a lovely holiday gift.

5. The flight of craft.

As stated above, a lack of skill and craft among artists is sucking the life and the gravitas out of the art world. There are, thank God, still some artists and designers who are bucking this trend and making gorgeous stuff. You won’t find it at trendy galleries or at Art Basel. You are more likely to find it among the potters and craftsmen on Etsy. My favorite artists at the moment work in the field of illustration and applied art: Examples include Ruben Toledo, John-Paul Philippe, and Malcolm Hill.

6. Adderall a go-go.

Short attention spans have made art into one quickie sight gag after another. Is that an oversized Tiffany bag? No, it’s a metal sculpture by Jonathan Seliger. Gotcha! Clearly, in our frenetic, technology-obsessed age we have lost the ability to contemplate and are interested only in visual puns. Camille to the rescue: Glittering Images—I keep banging on about her book, but only because it’s so fantastic—is an invitation to think, to scrutinize, to gaze, to stare, to shut the fuck up, to learn, and to self-cultivate. La Paglia dares to take us beyond the high jinks of contemporary art and refocuses our Internet-scrambled brains on the pure uncynical contemplation of high art. Surrender to her!

7. Dollars and shekels and rubles.

My father-in-law, Harry Adler, was a committed, ferocious, lifelong passionate artist who produced a massive body of work in all mediums. However, I never once remember him holding up a painting or a drawing and asking, “How much d’ya think I could get for this?” Unfettered by the impulse to grease his creative journey with financial validation, he pursued his art with freedom and authenticity.

Today’s successful artists, on the other hand, seem obsessed with money. How, you may ask, does this jive with the artist’s bohemian esprit? In the age of Occupy, when the 1 percent are so reviled, how do groovy, liberal, and, one assumes, democratic dealers and artists rationalize their politician-like reliance upon, and coziness with, the super-wealthy?

“Aha!” I hear you artists say. “But what about fashion? Aren’t fancy designers and retailers reliant on exactly the same group?” To which I reply, “Exactly my point. Fashion has no lofty goals. It’s about buying a dollop of transformative glamour and a jolt of prestige. Should art not aspire to more than that?”

8. Cool is corrosive.

The dorky uncool ’80s was a great time for art. The Harings, Cutrones, Scharfs, and Basquiats—life-enhancing, graffiti-inspired painters—communicated a simple, relevant, populist

message of hope and flava during the darkest years of the AIDS crisis. Then, in the early ‘90s, grunge arrived, and displaced the unpretentious communicative culture of the ‘80s with the dour obscurantism of COOL. Simple fun and emotional sincerity were now seen as embarrassing and deeply uncool. Enter artists like Rachel barrel-of-laughs Whiteread, who makes casts of the insides of cardboard boxes. (Nice work if you can get it!)

A couple of decades on, art has become completely pickled in the vinegar of COOL, and that is why it is so irrelevant to the general population.

Enough kvetching. Let’s end on a positive note. Not every blue-chip artist today is shoving his poo into tins and calling it art. I love me a little Nick Cave and an occasional Jeff Koons. And here’s the great news: While we wait for the art world to change direction and seek out a more meaningful place in our lives, there are no shortage of chuckles to be had.

The landscape of art has never been more vast or intriguingly bonkers. The pretentions and foibles, to mention nothing of the gobbledygook theoretical justifications that accompany all the neo-Duchamp-ian bollocks, provide many occasions for amusement, mockery, and parody. If Jacques Tati were alive today he would have unwittingly blundered round that “Meta-Monumental Garage Sale” looking for a new raincoat.

On his way home, he would have popped into a travel agent and booked his flight to Miami.

THE DEATH OF THE ARTIST — & THE BIRTH OF THE CREATIVE ENTREPRENEUR Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it?

Pronounce the word artist, to conjure up the image of a solitary genius. A sacred aura still attaches to the word, a sense of one in contact with the numinous. “He’s an artist,” we’ll say in tones of reverence about an actor or musician or director. “A true artist,” we’ll solemnly proclaim our favorite singer or photographer, meaning someone who appears to dwell upon a higher plane. Vision, inspiration, mysterious gifts as from above: such are some of the associations that continue to adorn the word.

Yet the notion of the artist as a solitary genius—so potent a cultural force, so determinative, still, of the way we think of creativity in general—is decades out of date. So out of date, in fact, that the model that replaced it is itself already out of date. A new paradigm is emerging, and has been since about the turn of the millennium, one that’s in the process of reshaping what artists are: how they work, train, trade, collaborate, think of themselves and are thought of—even what art is—just as the solitary-genius model did two centuries ago. The new paradigm may finally destroy the very notion of “art” as such—that sacred spiritual substance— which the older one created.

Before we thought of artists as geniuses, we thought of them as artisans. The words, by no coincidence, are virtually the same. Art itself derives from a root that means to “join” or “fit together”— that is, to make or craft, a sense that survives in phrases like the art of cooking and words like artful, in the sense of “crafty.” We may think of Bach as a genius, but he thought of himself as an artisan, a maker. Shakespeare wasn’t an artist, he was a poet, a denotation

that is rooted in another word for make. He was also a playwright, a term worth pausing over. A playwright isn’t someone who writes plays; he is someone who fashions them, like a wheelwright or shipwright.

A whole constellation of ideas and practices accompanied this conception. Artists served apprenticeships, like other craftsmen, to learn the customary methods (hence the attributions one sees in museums: “workshop of Bellini” or “studio of Rembrandt”). Creativity was prized, but credibility and value derived, above all, from tradition. In a world still governed by a fairly rigid social structure, artists were grouped with the other artisans, somewhere in the middle or lower middle, below the merchants, let alone the aristocracy. Individual practitioners could come to be esteemed— think of the Dutch masters—but they were, precisely, masters, as in master craftsmen. The distinction between art and craft, in short, was weak at best. Indeed, the very concept of art as it was later understood—of Art—did not exist.

All of this began to change in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the period associated with Romanticism: the age of Rousseau, Goethe, Blake, and Beethoven, the age that taught itself to value not only individualism and originality but also rebellion and youth. Now it was desirable and even glamorous to break the rules and overthrow tradition—to reject society and blaze your own path. The age of revolution, it was also the age of secularization. As traditional belief became discredited, at least among the educated class, the arts emerged as the basis of a new creed, the place where

people turned to put themselves in touch with higher truths.

Art rose to its zenith of spiritual prestige, and the artist rose along with it. The artisan became the genius: solitary, like a holy man; inspired, like a prophet; in touch with the unseen, his consciousness bulging into the future. “The priest departs,” said Whitman, “the divine literatus comes.” Art disentangled itself from craft; the term fine arts, “those which appeal to the mind and the imagination,” was first recorded in 1767.

“Art” became a unitary concept, incorporating music, theater, and literature as well as the visual arts, but also, in a sense, distinct from each, a kind of higher essence available for philosophical speculation and cultural veneration. “Art for art’s sake,” the aestheticist slogan, dates from the early 19th century. So does Gesamtkunstwerk, the dream or ideal, so precious to Wagner, of the “total work of art.” By the modernist moment, a century later, the age of Picasso, Joyce, and Stravinsky, the artist stood at the pinnacle of status, too, a cultural aristocrat with whom the old aristocrats—or at any rate the most advanced among them—wanted nothing more than to associate.

It is hardly any wonder that the image of the artist as a solitary genius—so noble, so enviable, so pleasant an object of aspiration and projection—has kept its hold on the collective imagination.

Yet it was already obsolescent more than half a century ago. After World War II in particular, and in America especially, art, like all religions as they age, became institutionalized. We were the new superpower; we wanted to be a cultural superpower as well.

We founded museums, opera houses, ballet companies, all in unprecedented numbers: the so-called culture boom. Arts councils, funding bodies, educational programs, residencies, magazines, awards—an entire bureaucratic apparatus.

As art was institutionalized, so, inevitably, was the artist. The genius became the professional. Now you didn’t go off to Paris and hole up in a garret to produce your masterpiece, your Les Demoiselles d’Avignon or Ulysses, and wait for the world to catch up with you. Like a doctor or lawyer, you went to graduate school— M.F.A. programs were also proliferating—and then tried to find a position. That often meant a job, typically at a college or university—writers in English departments, painters in art schools (higher ed was also booming)—but it sometimes simply meant an affiliation, as with an orchestra or theater troupe. Saul Bellow went to Paris in 1948, where he began The Adventures of Augie March, but he went on a Guggenheim grant, and he came from an assistant professorship.

The training was professional, and so was the work it produced.

Expertise—or, in the mantra of the graduate programs, “technique”—not inspiration or tradition, became the currency of aesthetic authority. The artist-as-genius could sometimes pretend that his work was tossed off in a sacred frenzy, but no self-respecting artist-as-professional could afford to do likewise. They had to be seen to be working, and working hard (the badge of professional virtue), and it helped if they could explain to laypeople—deans, donors, journalists—what it was that they were doing.

The artist’s progress, in the postwar model, was also professional.

You didn’t burst from obscurity to celebrity with a single aston-

ishing work. You slowly climbed the ranks. You accumulated credentials. You amassed a résumé. You sat on the boards and committees, collected your prizes and fellowships. It was safer than the solitary-genius thing, but it was also a lot less exciting, and it is no surprise that artists were much less apt to be regarded now as sages or priests, much more likely to be seen as just another set of knowledge workers. Spiritual aristocracy was sacrificed for solid socioeconomic upper-middle-class-ness.

Artisan, genius, professional: underlying all these models is the market. In blunter terms, they’re all about the way that you get paid. If the artisanal paradigm predates the emergence of modern capitalism—the age of the artisan was the age of the patron, with the artist as, essentially, a sort of feudal dependent—the paradigms of genius and professional were stages in the effort to adjust to it.

In the former case, the object was to avoid the market and its sullying entanglements, or at least to appear to do so. Spirit stands opposed to flesh, to filthy lucre. Selling was selling out. Artists, like their churchly forebears, were meant to be unworldly. Some, like Picasso and Rilke, had patrons, but under very different terms than did the artisans, since the privilege was weighted in the artist’s favor now, leaving many fewer strings attached. Some, like Proust and Elizabeth Bishop, had money to begin with. And some, like Joyce and van Gogh, did the most prestigious thing and starved—which also often meant sponging, extracting gifts or “loans” from family or friends that amounted to a kind of sacerdotal tax, equivalent to the tithes exacted by priests or alms relied upon by monks.

Professionalism represents a compromise formation, midway between the sacred and the secular. A profession is not a vocation, in the older sense of a “calling,” but it also isn’t just a job; something of the priestly clings to it. Against the values of the market, the artist, like other professionals, maintained a countervailing set of standards and ideals—beauty, rigor, truth—inherited from the previous paradigm. Institutions served to mediate the difference, to cushion artists, ideologically, economically, and psychologically, from the full force of the marketplace.

Some artists did enter the market, of course, especially those who worked in the “low” or “popular” forms. But even they had mediating figures—publishing companies, movie studios, record labels; agents, managers, publicists, editors, producers—who served to shield creators from the market’s logic. Corporations functioned as a screen; someone else, at least, was paid to think about the numbers. Publishers or labels also sometimes played an actively benevolent role: funding the rest of the list with a few big hits, floating promising beginners while their talent had a chance to blossom, even subsidizing the entire enterprise, as James Laughlin did for years at New Directions.

There were overlaps, of course, between the different paradigms— long transitions, mixed and marginal cases, anticipations and survivals. The professional model remains the predominant one. But we have entered, unmistakably, a new transition, and it is marked by the final triumph of the market and its values, the removal of the last vestiges of protection and mediation. In the arts, as throughout the middle class, the professional is giving way to the entrepreneur, or, more precisely, the “entrepreneur”: the “self-em-

ployed” (that sneaky oxymoron), the entrepreneurial self.

The institutions that have undergirded the existing system are contracting or disintegrating. Professors are becoming adjuncts.

Employees are becoming independent contractors (or unpaid interns). Everyone is in a budget squeeze: downsizing, outsourcing, merging, or collapsing. Now we’re all supposed to be our own boss, our own business: our own agent; our own label; our own marketing, production, and accounting departments. Entrepreneurialism is being sold to us as an opportunity. It is, by and large, a necessity. Everybody understands by now that nobody can count on a job.

Still, it also is an opportunity. The push of institutional disintegration has coincided with the pull of new technology. The emerging culture of creative entrepreneurship predates the Web—its roots go back to the 1960s—but the Web has brought it an unprecedented salience. The Internet enables you to promote, sell, and deliver directly to the user, and to do so in ways that allow you to compete with corporations and institutions, which previously had a virtual monopoly on marketing and distribution. You can reach potential customers at a speed and on a scale that would have been unthinkable when pretty much the only means were word of mouth, the alternative press, and stapling handbills to telephone poles.

Everybody gets this: every writer, artist, and musician with a Web site (that is, every writer, artist, and musician). Bands hawk their CDs online. Documentarians take to Kickstarter to raise money for their projects. The comedian Louis CK, selling unprotected downloads of his stand-up show, has tested a nascent distribution model. “Just get your name out there,” creative types are told. There seems to be a lot of building going on: you’re supposed to build your brand, your network, your social-media presence. Creative entrepreneurship is spawning its own institutional structure—online marketplaces, self-publishing platforms, nonprofit incubators, collaborative spaces—but the fundamental relationship remains creator-to-customer, with creators handling or superintending every aspect of the transaction.

So what will all this mean for artists and for art? For training, for practice, for the shape of the artistic career, for the nature of the artistic community, for the way that artists see themselves and are seen by the public, for the standards by which art is judged and the terms by which it is defined? These are new questions, open questions, questions no one is equipped as yet to answer. But it’s not too early to offer a few preliminary observations.

Creative entrepreneurship, to start with what is most apparent, is far more interactive, at least in terms of how we understand the word today, than the model of the artist-as-genius, turning his back on the world, and even than the model of the artist as professional, operating within a relatively small and stable set of relationships. The operative concept today is the network, along with the verb that goes with it, networking. A Gen‑X graphic-artist friend has told me that the young designers she meets are no longer interested in putting in their 10,000 hours. One reason may be that they recognize that 10,000 hours is less important now than 10,000 contacts.

A network, I should note, is not the same as what used to be known as a circle—or, to use a term important to the modernists, a cote-

rie. The truth is that the geniuses weren’t really quite as solitary as advertised. They also often came together—think of the Bloomsbury Group—in situations of intense, sustained creative ferment.

With the coterie or circle as a social form, from its conversations and incitements, came the movement as an intellectual product: impressionism, imagism, futurism.

But the network is a far more diffuse phenomenon, and the connections that it typically entails are far less robust. A few days here, a project there, a correspondence over e‑mail. A contact is not a collaborator. Coleridge, for Wordsworth, was not a contact; he was a partner, a comrade, a second self. It is hard to imagine that kind of relationship, cultivated over countless uninterrupted encounters, developing in the age of the network. What kinds of relationships will develop, and what they will give rise to, remains to be seen.

No longer interested in putting in their 10,000 hours: under all three of the old models, an artist was someone who did one thing—who trained intensively in one discipline, one tradition, one set of tools, and who worked to develop one artistic identity.

You were a writer, or a painter, or a choreographer. It is hard to think of very many figures who achieved distinction in more than one genre—fiction and poetry, say—let alone in more than one art.

Few even attempted the latter (Gertrude Stein admonished Picasso for trying to write poems), and almost never with any success.

But one of the most conspicuous things about today’s young creators is their tendency to construct a multiplicity of artistic identities. You’re a musician and a photographer and a poet; a storyteller and a dancer and a designer—a multiplatform artist, in the term one sometimes sees. Which means that you haven’t got time for your 10,000 hours in any of your chosen media. But technique or expertise is not the point. The point is versatility. Like any good business, you try to diversify.

What we see in the new paradigm—in both the artist’s external relationships and her internal creative capacity—is what we see throughout the culture: the displacement of depth by breadth. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? No doubt some of both, in a ratio that’s yet to be revealed. What seems more clear is that the new paradigm is going to reshape the way that artists are trained. One recently established M.F.A. program in Portland, Oregon, is conducted under the rubric of “applied craft and design.” Students, drawn from a range of disciplines, study entrepreneurship as well as creative practice. Making, the program recognizes, is now intertwined with selling, and artists need to train in both—a fact reflected in the proliferation of dual M.B.A./M.F.A. programs.

The new paradigm is also likely to alter the shape of the ensuing career. Just as everyone, we’re told, will have five or six jobs, in five or six fields, during the course of their working life, so will the career of the multiplatform, entrepreneurial artist be more vagrant and less cumulative than under the previous models. No climactic masterwork of deep maturity, no King Lear or Faust, but rather many shifting interests and directions as the winds of market forces blow you here or there.

Works of art, more centrally and nakedly than ever before, are becoming commodities, consumer goods. Jeff Bezos, as a patron, is a very different beast than James Laughlin. Now it’s every man for himself, every tub on its own bottom. Now it’s not an audience you think of addressing; it’s a customer base. Now you’re only as good as your last sales quarter.

It’s hard to believe that the new arrangement will not favor work that’s safer: more familiar, formulaic, user-friendly, eager to please—more like entertainment, less like art. Artists will inevitably spend a lot more time looking over their shoulder, trying to figure out what the customer wants rather than what they themselves are seeking to say. The nature of aesthetic judgment will itself be reconfigured. “No more gatekeepers,” goes the slogan of the Internet apostles. Everyone’s opinion, as expressed in Amazon reviews and suchlike, carries equal weight—the democratization of taste.

Judgment rested with the patron, in the age of the artisan. In the age of the professional, it rested with the critic, a professionalized aesthete or intellectual. In the age of the genius, which was also the age of avant-gardes, of tremendous experimental energy across the arts, it largely rested with artists themselves. “Every great and original writer,” Wordsworth said, “must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.”

But now we have come to the age of the customer, who perforce is always right. Or as a certain legendary entertainer is supposed to have put it, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Another word for gatekeepers is experts. Lord knows they have their problems, beginning with arrogance, but there is one thing you can say for them: they’re not quite so easily fooled. When the Modern Library asked its editorial board to select the 100 best novels of the 20th century, the top choice was Ulysses. In a companion poll of readers, it was Atlas Shrugged. We recognize, when it comes to food (the new summit of cultural esteem), that taste must be developed by a long exposure, aided by the guidance of practitioners and critics.

About the arts we own to no such modesties. Prizes belong to the age of professionals. All we’ll need to measure merit soon is the best-seller list.

The democratization of taste, abetted by the Web, coincides with the democratization of creativity. The makers have the means to sell, but everybody has the means to make. And everybody’s using them. Everybody seems to fancy himself a writer, a musician, a visual artist. Apple figured this out a long time ago: that the best way to sell us its expensive tools is to convince us that we all have something unique and urgent to express.

“Producerism,” we can call this, by analogy with consumerism.

What we’re now persuaded to consume, most conspicuously, are the means to create. And the democratization of taste ensures that no one has the right (or inclination) to tell us when our work is bad. A universal grade inflation now obtains: we’re all swapping A-minuses all the time, or, in the language of Facebook, “likes.”

It is often said today that the most-successful businesses are those that create experiences rather than products, or create experiences (environments, relationships) around their products. So we might also say that under producerism, in the age of creative entrepreneurship, producing becomes an experience, even the experience.

It becomes a lifestyle, something that is packaged as an experience—and an experience, what’s more, after the contemporary fashion: networked, curated, publicized, fetishized, tweeted, catered, and anything but solitary, anything but private.

Among the most notable things about those Web sites that creators now all feel compelled to have is that they tend to present not only the work, not only the creator (which is interesting enough as a cultural fact), but also the creator’s life or lifestyle or process.

The customer is being sold, or at least sold on or sold through, a

vicarious experience of production.

Creator: I’m not sure that artist even makes sense as a term anymore, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it giving way before the former, with its more generic meaning and its connection to that contemporary holy word, creative. Joshua Wolf Shenk’s Powers of Two, last summer’s modish book on creativity, puts Lennon and McCartney with Jobs and Wozniak. A recent cover of this very magazine touted “Case Studies in Eureka Moments,” a list that started with Hemingway and ended with Taco Bell.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

A contact is not a collaborator. Coleridge, for Wordsworth, was not a contact; he was a partner, a comrade, a second self.

IS ART DEAD AND DOES IT REALLY MATTER?

By Will Baker Early this week I had a friend over for dinner. Actually he’s a dear friend who is also my daughter’s Godfather. It has been unusually hot here in Vermont. And as we sat in my dooryard, sipping Chardonnay, we talked about the demise of art. Thankfully a weather front was moving past while we talked, and a pleasant, seasonally cool evening breeze started to blow.

As far as access to art is concerned, I feel that I live in a fortunate place and time. True, I would have enjoyed playing the part of a Florentine Renaissance Man, but living in New England in the last part of the twentieth century has its advantages. It is a short drive or flight from here to many of the major galleries, museums and theaters in the country. And at this point in time, through technological advancements, art of all types is readily accessible. For instance, on this very web site a comprehensive library of painted images can be found. I feel fortunate that my schedule takes me to Boston and Washington D.C. on a fairly regular basis, and I can avail myself of the art that can be found there, not to mention New York City, which is only a hop skip and jump in this day and age.

Others and I have said before, due to the leisure time that is now available to many of us, never before has there been so many writers and musicians. My friend points out that there

are so many artists of all types among us now that they can not all be employed. So what is the problem? This doesn’t sound like the demise of art at all.

As I write I am a little disappointed. Due to business commitments I will be unable to take advantage of a “freebie” ticket to the New York City Ballet’s performance of Swan Lake, next Tuesday night, at the Saratoga Performance Arts Center across the lake in up state New York. I am disappointed on a couple of levels. As anyone that knows me can tell you, I am not a huge fan of the ballet. But I am a fan of the Performing Arts; therefore I would have enjoyed myself. I love music, even though classical is not my first choice, and I love the dance, even though ballet is not my first choice either, therefore I would not have been bored at the ballet.

I would have also enjoyed the company, had I been able to attend. The “freebie” ticket would have been courtesy of my above reference friend. And since the impetus for our discussion on the demise of art had been my friend’s announcement that he was going to see Swan Lake next week, I know that in addition to the ballet, the conversation would have been very good. It would have given me the opportunity to hear him develop an argument that he began while we were sipping wine in my dooryard, but not quite finished.

Unlike myself, my friend is an opera, ballet and classical music buff. Therefore it seemed natural for me to ask him some questions on the subject. I asked him if he thought that it appeared as though classical music and the opera had hit their “high-water” marks long ago. Although I am a fan of “popular music,” I was not baiting him. I have long wondered why it appears, from my limited perspective that contemporary classical pieces are being dismissed as lightweight, and the conventional wisdom is that they will not endure. I was surprised at his answer.

If memory serves, his argument was a variation on the themes of “throwing the baby out with the bath water,” and the possible loss of a global innocence brought about by advances in math and the sciences --although the Chardonnay may have clouded my recollection. It seems to me that art, by whatever definition one wishes to use, has to resonate with the individual. The point that I believe my friend was making is that over time, advances in math and the sciences have explained away much of what used to be mysterious to us. And in doing so has forced us to change our view of the world. This shift in consciousness has also changed the views of people towards other things, for instance, religion and art. The new information called for a new “world view.” So we threw out the old “world view” (the bath water), but maybe the baby also (things like artistic resonance and the importance of religion in our daily lives).

This was an interesting argument and one that I did not expect to hear. I must admit that I was thinking in simpler terms: perhaps linking the perceived problem to a creative dilemma: a sense that all has been done before, or maybe that we are caught in a transition of artistic mediums. Take for instance the current state of film. For several years I have marked the trend of the major studios to release an inordinate number of remakes. I could easily rattle off a dozen examples without straining my memory, and if you are a moviegoer, you could do likewise. Why all these remakes? Can it be that we are jaded and out of ideas? And in the early days of photography, picture taking was viewed more as a curious scientific hobby than an art form. The new technology made the medium possible, however there was a transition period before the issue of photographic artistic legitimacy was decided. Perhaps something of the same sort is occurring today?

It was getting on towards mid-night and the wine was nearly finished. I told my friend about an old college professor of mine who believed that as far as art is concerned; the bar should be dramatically lowered to the point where there would be no distinction between high art and popular en-

tertainment. My friend, who himself had taught at a university, just smiled. I could tell that he probably disagreed with my professor’s position, but he was too kind to mar what he could tell, for me, was a note-worthy recollection.

So I am left with the question, unanswered, and my own sense that there is art all around us. And of course only time will tell what endures and what does not. But I am not quite certain that endurance is all that matters. The performances of unknown, unrecorded musicians come to mind. I have seen brilliant performances of unrecorded original compositions that have moved me greatly. But they endure only in the memories of the audience. But I am certain that music that moved me nearly to tears, for me must surely be art. I’ll just have to think about this some more, and maybe share with my friend another bottle of Chardonnay over the problem.

THEY SAY ART IS DEAD IN NEW YORK THEY’RE WRONG

By ALAN FEUER The invitation came by email: I was to present myself at 9 p.m. that Saturday in the lobby of the New Yorker Hotel on Eighth Avenue and 34th Street. Without explanation, I was told to come alone, dress warmly, bring a bottle of bourbon and, on arrival, keep an eye out for a mysterious “agent” in a red beret.

I had received the note, in response to one of my own, from N. D. Austin and Ida C. Benedetto, the trespass artists who, to great acclaim last year, secretly — and illegally — turned a water tower in Chelsea into a speakeasy. The day before the invitation, I had written to them, as I had to others, with a question I’d been thinking about for weeks: Was the city’s creative underground really dead, as people often said?

What ended up happening that night was proof that it was not. At the appointed hour, 15 or 20 of us gathered in the lobby, eyeing one another and trying to blend into a crowd of innocent tourists. A few minutes later, the agent, indeed in a beret, rose from a sofa and strolled out the door.

All of us followed as she ducked around the corner and whisked us into a building — a large commercial structure, empty, dusty, obviously under construction. With no idea where we were going, we were led up 16 flights of stairs,

in the dark, and then out onto the roof. There we saw the elevator room, a small brick box, which had been converted into a cramped, clandestine jazz club. A barman in a trilby offered cocktails; a chandelier of candles dangled from the ceiling. As the night went on, musicians played, an illusionist performed and the assorted guests — painters, filmmakers, an aerialist just back from Brazil — stood among the huge industrial motors, talking about the only-in-New-York-ness of it all, which was, of course, the point.

Somehow, in the last few years, it has become an article of faith that New York has lost its artistic spirit, that the city’s long run as a capital of culture is over. After all (or so the argument goes), foreign oligarchs and hedge-fund traders have bought up all the real estate, chased away the artists and turned the bohemia that once ran east from Chumley’s clear across the Williamsburg Bridge into a soulless playground of money.

Last year, the foremost proponent of this doomsday theory was the rock star David Byrne, who complained in The Guardian that artists, as a species, had been priced out of New York. This year, others joined him. The novelist Zadie Smith lamented in October, in The New York Review of Books, that the city’s avant-garde had all but disappeared.

The musician Moby wrote a comparable essay in February, describing how creative types are fleeing New York and referring to his former home, accurately but narrowly, as “the city of money.” Just a couple of weeks ago, Robert Elmes, the founder of the Galápagos Art Space in Brooklyn, declared the indigenous “creative ecosystem” was in crisis — so, naturally, he was moving to Detroit.

the Brooklyn outpost of the blue-chip Chelsea show house Luhring Augustine. “The neighborhood is very much alive right now,” said Olivier Babin, Clearing’s French-born owner. “There’s literally hundreds of artists’ studios within blocks of here.” To Ms. Benedetto, the co-host of the jazz club, the rumors of New York’s demise aren’t only exaggerated — they’re completely wrong.

It would be foolish to deny that local housing prices are anything but larcenous, or that small arts venues, like Galápagos or Death by Audio, which closed last month, aren’t under assault by less than friendly real estate interests. You could also argue, as many have, that the city has been infected by a bland consumerism that has led to the pop star Taylor Swift being named as its official tourism ambassador and transformed SantaCon from an anti-corporate culture-jamming party into a pub crawl for intoxicated bros.

“I’ve been here for a decade and a half,” she said, “and I’m always finding something new. There’s an amazing productive energy here — it’s exciting, it’s refreshing. You never exhaust New York.”

But what you cannot argue — at least, not according to many artists — is that art in New York is dead. Yes, the rents are high, but people are adapting by living in increasingly inventive ways, at places like the Silent Barn, an arts collective in Bushwick, Brooklyn, or 3B, an artist-run bed-and-breakfast near Brooklyn’s Borough Hall. Yes, the finance economy has brought about the $50 entree and the $3,000 studio apartment, but it’s also provided decent-paying side jobs, not to mention an audience.

“It was that classic argument,” Mr. Stark recalled. “ ‘Where’s the city of Andy Warhol? Where’s the city of Patti Smith?

Why are artists even coming here today?’ I had to tell him people are coming here because it’s interesting.”

In terms of the work itself, the supremacy of real estate and capital that so many people carp about has helped define a new New York aesthetic, one that has moved away from traditional disciplines like painting and sculpture into a more itinerant, guerrilla-style version of performance art. Whether it’s the madcap anarchy of Brooklyn’s annual Bike Kill, in which tattooed lunatics joust on homemade cycles, or the Junxion, a secret cell of artists who drive school buses of marching bands and fire-spinners to remote locations (say, underneath the Kosciuszko Bridge), this wacky and transgressive method of creation is D.I.Y. in spirit and armed with tactics that draw upon graffiti, punk rock, the Situationists and the Occupy movement.

Acknowledging the city’s rising affluence in order to oppose it, this neo-New York School tends to look at obstacles like security deposits — or security guards — as potential opportunities, and does so with a rebel zeal for reclaiming the streets.

None of which means the visual arts no longer have a place.

It’s hard to imagine an up-and-coming painter showing in the megagalleries of Chelsea, but many emerging artists have found a home in Bushwick, where a few months ago the Clearing Gallery opened a 5,000-square-foot exhibition space in a former truck repair shop, around the corner from

In mid-November, the artist Jeff Stark took part in a panel discussion on performance at Parsons the New School for Design. During the Q. and A., a guy in the crowd raised his hand and started in on the arts scene in New York.

Mr. Stark would know. As part of his portfolio, he edits Nonsense NYC, an email list of artistic happenings around the city. Nonsense goes out weekly to hundreds of subscribers, calling attention to a movable feast of odd events — midnight concerts on basketball courts, a fixed-gear bike race in a repurposed Brooklyn church — curiosities to compete with anything that went on years ago at the Factory or CBGB. In recent years, Mr. Stark has also produced some of the city’s most innovative and logistically challenging theater pieces.

In 2013, he and a partner created the Empire Drive-In, a beneath-the-stars movie house complete with junked cars as seats and a 40-foot screen of salvaged wood. Just this fall, he mounted “The Dreary Coast,” an immersive retelling of the Persephone myth in which 20 or so audience members (after signing waivers) climbed aboard a motorized skiff and puttered down the Gowanus Canal to watch the show.

“Whenever people ask me if New York is over, my response is that the coolest stuff I’ve seen here has been in the last two years,” said Mr. Stark, who is 42 and has lived in the city since 1999. “Artists make art that reflects the space they’re in, and since we’re in New York, which is expensive, people have started making crazy outdoor art or temporary, pop-up stuff — weird, little culture happenings, sometimes in public places, sometimes in the middle of the night.”

Embedded in the premise that art in New York is dead is often a fetishized nostalgia for the 1970s and early ’80s, a cheaper, more chaotic time when high crime, civic neglect and the threat of bankruptcy opened whole neighborhoods

to artists. Ms. Smith indulged in this a few years ago when she declared at a PEN event that young artists shouldn’t bother moving to New York because the city wouldn’t support them now as it did in her day. And here’s what Moby wrote about a slightly later period: “AIDS, crack and a high murder rate kept most people away from New York back then. But even though it was a war zone, or perhaps to some extent because it was a war zone, Manhattan was still the cultural capital of the world.”

Setting aside the effect of that war zone on ordinary people, the hypothesis seems questionable. Is it really the case that public chaos inspires creativity? That art not only thrives, but thrives best, in an atmosphere of lawlessness and danger?

“When things are screwed up, when they are dangerous, it’s easy to be creative — because it feels like there are no rules,” said Chris Hackett, a dangerous artist if there ever was one.

(When I dropped by Mr. Hackett’s studio in Brooklyn last month, he was fabricating daggers and had just built a crossbow out of truck parts.) “But making creativity easier doesn’t necessarily make it better.”

What I heard time and again from the artists I talked to was that they were sick of being told how gritty and awesome the city used to be and how corporatized and boring it was now. Some said the complainers were simply looking back on their youth through rose-colored glasses. (“People get old,” Mr. Stark shrugged. “They don’t get out as much.”)

Some just didn’t believe the myth. (“I used to go to CBGB,” Mr. Hackett said. “CBGB was a rathole.”) Others were annoyed by the glamorizing of disorder, especially by artists who had escaped it into success, doubly-especially when so many younger artists are trying hard to subvert New York’s more regimented climate through their work.

Mike Tummolo, for instance, is a founding member of the Junxion, the group that drives around in school buses with Merry Prankster nicknames, like the Mighty Bird and the Music Wagon. Mr. Tummolo has been putting on events in the city for more than a decade, and acknowledged that things were simpler years ago when space was less expensive and even raucous gatherings were more or less ignored by the police. But it was only after he and his partners, in response to financial and security pressures, literally took their act on the road that they felt they had accomplished something.

laborates with Mr. Hackett, who has long known Mr. Austin, who, a few years back, held an illicit event atop the Williamsburg Bridge in partnership with the Brooklyn street artist who introduced me to Mr. Tummolo. And so on.

More and more, these casual friendship networks have started coalescing into formal structures, like, say, the Family, an under-the-radar, invitation-only downtown studio run by the French photographer J. R. Hoping to establish a freeform commune of ideas that focuses more on inspiration than production, J. R. hosts — free of charge — obscure creators visiting New York, like Os Gêmeos, the identical-twin graffiti artists from Brazil, and then brings in celebrities like David Blaine or Robert De Niro to enhance the mix.

One of the city’s most sophisticated arts collectives now is the Silent Barn, a work and living space in a former construction-company office in Bushwick. Its sprawling compound boasts not only apartments, a large kitchen, a performance stage, a recording studio, a barber shop and a public record store, but also a courtyard with a seasonal vegetable garden and a 1970s-vintage mobile home, the Canned Ham, that serves as a project space and a crash pad for out-of-town musicians.

When I went to talk with people at the Silent Barn this month, they told me the place was struggling but surviving, largely on the income from renting out artist studios and rooms (for about $800 a month) and from the bar, which, they joked, has taken the place of the traditional angel donor.

But they also said communal living wasn’t just about sharing groceries or the gas bill; it was, as well, a way of fending off the alienating aspects of the artist’s life.

“In some sense, the nightmare in New York isn’t being broke, it’s being stuck in a shoe box writing emails into the void asking to play at someone’s bar or to do a show at someone’s gallery,” said Joe Ahearn, a founding member of the space.

“There’s lots of things we don’t do well, but one thing we do do well is to combat that kind of isolation.”

You hear a lot these days about Detroit, New Orleans, Minneapolis — fresh new meccas where the rent is cheap and the cops don’t hassle you, man. They have that vibe, people say, that edge that New York used to have. There’s a real community thing going on.

Any number of alternative art spaces have died in recent years: Monster Island, the Hose, Goodbye Blue Monday. The turnover is itself evidence of the city’s fecundity, even if the Silent Barn is trying to escape a similar fate. Conscious of the role that artists often play in gentrification, part of their strategy is to build social capital and strengthen ties to their community through programs like Educated Little Monsters, which brings in neighborhood children for performance and art classes. Another part is to do things that artists aren’t supposed to do or to do well: make budgets, find investors, file certificates of occupancy, buy liability insurance.

But then, the community in New York, especially in the D.I.Y. arts underground, is pretty robust. The barman at the rooftop jazz club, for example, used to date a woman who is known for throwing Gatsby-era costume parties, who is herself friends with a film and theater designer who often col-

“To survive for the long term, we have to grow up and have adult conversations about stuff like loans and workers’ compensation,” said Nathan Cearley, a Silent Barn veteran, who also works as a schoolteacher, plays in a “void drone” band called Long Distance Poison and serves on the collective’s

working group for logistical issues, which is known as Risky Bizness.

“I don’t see David Byrne investing in real estate and trying to lower prices so that artists can stay here,” Mr. Cearley said.

(Mr. Byrne responded in an email that he failed to see how a real-estate investment, “even if I had the spare cash,” would lower rents for artists.)

Mr. Cearley then went on: “If David Byrne isn’t interested in art anymore” — in his email Mr. Byrne said that he was — “I suppose that’s good to know. But we are. So instead complaining about the end of art in New York, I’d love to see him save it. Because he can write us a check anytime he wants.”

MODERN ART CONCEPT: ART FOR ARTS SAKE

Art for Arts Sake Synopsys The phrase ‘art for art’s sake’ condenses the notion that art has its own value and should be judged apart from any themes which it might touch on, such as morality, religion, history, or politics. It teaches that judgements of aesthetic value should not be confused with those proper to other spheres of life. The idea has ancient roots, but the phrase first emerged as a rallying cry in 19th century France, and subsequently became central to the British Aesthetic movement. Although the phrase has been little used since, its legacy has been at the heart of 20th century ideas about the autonomy of art, and thus crucial to such different bodies of thought as those of formalism, modernism, and the avant-garde. Today, deployed more loosely and casually, it is sometimes put to very different ends, to defend the right of free expression, or to appeal for art to uphold tradition and avoid causing offense.

Detailed View Romanticism and the 19th Century The phrase ‘art for art’s sake’, or l’art pour l’art, first surfaced in French literary circles in the early 19th century. In part it was a reflex of the Romantic movement’s desire to detach art from the period’s increasing stress on rationalism. These forces, it was believed, threatened to make art subject to demands for its utility - for usefulness of one kind or another. The phrase was taken up by writer Theophile Gautier and subsequently attracted the support of figures such as Gustave Flaubert, Stéphane Mallarmé and Charles Baudelaire. When the phrase reached Britain it became popular in the Aesthetic Movement, which encompassed painters such as James McNeill Whistler and Lord Leighton, and writers such as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde.

Modernism and the 20th Century The association between the phrase ‘art for art’s sake’ and the Aesthetic Movement meant that, when that movement declined, the popularity of the phrase declined with it. Nevertheless, it contin-

ued to be used - though more casually and loosely - and the idea it compresses continued to be important. The idea likely contributed to the development of formalism as well. For example, Clive Bell’s notion of ‘significant form’ argued that form in art was expressive and meaningful apart from any objects it might serve to depict (and, therefore, it was of value regardless of the objects it depicted). In this respect ‘art for art’s sake’ was an important impetus behind the development of abstract art and Abstract Expressionism, and it had an afterlife in the high modernist theories of critics such as Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried.

Opponents of Art for Art’s Sake The idea that art should not be judged by other criteria, such as religion or politics, has inevitably attracted occasional opponents who either wished it to support a particular cause, or refrain from expressing particular views. But in the 20th century, ‘art for art’s sake’ attracted more consistent opposition from a series of avant-gardes who reacted against the perceived insularity of abstract art, and sought instead to reconnect art and life. One can

Most Important Art Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1874) Artist: James Abbott McNeill Whistler The American-born painter James Whistler was a central figure in Britain’s late 19th century Aesthetic movement, which made ‘art for art’s sake’ its rallying cry. Color and mood were crucial to his art, his paintings often bordering on abstraction. His titles, like that for Nocturne in Black and Gold, often emphasized these formal qualities, over and above the ostensible subject of the picture, which in this case is a fireworks display on the River Thames in London. His titles also often borrowed musical terms such as ‘nocturne’ and ‘harmony’, thereby insisting on painting’s relationship to the arts in general, rather than its relationship to the outside world. When he exhibited Nocturne at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877, the critic John Ruskin accused him of “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” Whistler famously responded by suing Ruskin for libel, and though he won the case, he was awarded only a tiny amount in damages, and the huge costs he incurred later led to his bankruptcy.

Fountain (1917) Artist: Marcel Duchamp Duchamp’s Fountain staged the 20th century’s most powerful attack on the notion that art can be judged separately from other spheres of life. Duchamp did not create the work so much as chose it, purchasing a conventional urinal and signing it with a pseudonym, R. Mutt. Submitted to the 1917 Society for Independent Artists, the object should have been included without debate in the Society’s annual exhibition, since membership alone entailed the right to exhibit. But Fountain was rejected on the grounds of immorality, proving that, despite assumptions to the contrary, other value judgements - such as, in this case, morality - did indeed inform aesthetic judgement. Curiously, however, Fountain’s supporters did employ a version of the notion of ‘art for art’s sake’ to defend the object, arguing that Duchamp’s choice of the object imbued it with special significance, hence making it eligible for consideration as art and putting it beyond the bounds of complaints about morality. So if the affair demonstrates the beginning of the end of ‘art for art’s sake’ in the 20th century, it also shows its strange tenacity. trace such opposition in movements as diverse as the Constructivism, Dada and Surrealism, and the many post-war movements that have revived earlier avant-garde strategies, such as Conceptual art and Pop art. For many of the Constructivists, for example, the doctrine of ‘art for art’s sake’ was a barrier to art being put in the service of social revolution. Meanwhile, many different artists, such as Marcel Duchamp, attacked the doctrine as a falsehood, arguing that it merely serves to conceal and protect a particular set of values. For Duchamp, the call for ‘art for art’s sake’ was merely a call to maintain a status quo: it maintained an art that had turned inward, and away from everyday concerns, and it maintained the traditional structure of the art world - the world of galleries and museums - that supported it. Duchamp’s attack on ‘art for art’s sake’ has perhaps been the most influential of the past century, and very few now believe that art does exist in a separate sphere from life’s other concerns. Given that it does not, and that art is entangled in all kinds of partisan issues, most now believe that making aesthetic value judgements - declaring one work of art to be better than another - is almost impossible.

Selection of Materials: Iron, Stucco, Glass, Asphalt (1914) Artist: Vladimir Tatlin Vladimir Tatlin was powerfully influenced by the reliefs he saw in Picasso’s studio in Paris when he visited in 1913-14. But upon his return to Russia he began to put the lessons of Cubist collage to very new uses, devising early Constructivist collages such as Selection of Materials. It deserves to be called Constructivist (i.e. a ‘construction’, not a ‘composition’) because, as contemporary critic Nikolai Tarabukin put it, “the material dictates the form, and not the opposite.” The doctrine of ‘art for art’s sake’ laid great emphasis on form and composition, and in that sense Tatlin opposed it, favoring instead an art that might act as a laboratory for the development of designs for everyday life. And indeed, eventually, this experimental period of Russian Constructivism gave way to one in which artists went to work designing objects such as packaging and advertising for the new Communist authorities - a far cry from ‘art for art’s sake.’

STYLE GUIDE: AESTHETICISM

Aestheticism was an approach to life based on the philosophy of ‘art for art’s sake’. It emphasised the importance of art above everything else and the pleasure to be found in beautiful things. Aetheticism was a complex mixture of a number of styles.

Classical and Japanese art were particular inspirations. It was fashionable from 1870 to 1900.

The peacock feather, previously thought to be a symbol of bad luck, became an icon of the Aesthetic style. Its use as a motif confirmed Aestheticism’s reputation for decadence.

Sunflowers Sunflowers were the most popular Aesthetic motif. With its bold colour and simple flat shape the flower had great appeal for Aesthetes.

Blue and white ceramics Human figures shown in Classical Greek and Roman art provided 18th century artists and designers with sources of both subject matter and style. The cameo format, where the figure is shown in profile, was particularly popular.

Strong colour The Aesthetic style favoured strong, simple colours. Bright blues, greens and especially yellows were very popular. Such colours were used in domestic interiors, often in combination with black furniture. Black was also a dominant colour of Aesthetic-style graphic arts Aesthetic dress Female followers of the Aesthetic Movement dressed in distinctive loose, flowing garments in subtle colours, which were modelled on medieval styles. Fashionable men favoured velvet suits with knee breeches.

People

Buildings and Interiors

James McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903) American-born artist James McNeill Whistler was an important figure in the Aesthetic movement. In his paintings Whistler aimed to express mood and atmosphere through simple shapes, fluid brushstrokes and subtle colours. Whistler and his fellow Aesthetes believed that art was an end in itself, with no wider moral or social implications. This attitude angered John Ruskin and those in the Arts and Crafts Movement who thought that art and morality were fundamentally connected. In 1877 Ruskin reviewed one of Whistler’s paintings, accusing the artist of ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face’. Whistler sued for libel and won.

The Peacock Room The Peacock Room was designed in 1876 -1877 for the London home of F.R. Leyland. Architect and designer Thomas Jeckyll adapted a dining room in the house to accommodate Leyland’s collection of blue and white porcelain and a painting by James McNeill Whistler. Whistler felt that the décor of the room did not suit his painting and without his patron’s knowledge he painted the entire room deep blue and gold and covered the window shutters and one of the walls with glorious peacocks. Whistler’s audacity, and a dispute over payment, caused a breach between artist and patron. However, despite his anger, Leyland kept the room as Whistler had left it.

Aubrey Beardsley (1872 - 1898) Aubrey Beardsley was one of the most original artists of the late 19th century. Principally a book-illustrator, Beardsley created striking black and white drawings in pen and ink. His expressive use of line and lack of shading showed the influence of Japanese prints. In 1894 Beardsley illustrated Oscar Wilde’s play Salomé and became the art editor of The Yellow Book. These publications, which were sexually and socially provocative, shocked the public and added to Aestheticism’s decadent reputation.

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) The poet and writer Oscar Wilde was the leading personality of the Aesthetic Movement. He promoted the philosophy of ‘art for art’s sake’ in a series of lectures in America and Britain. Wilde was a famous dandy and wit. He is best known for plays such as Lady Windermere’s Fan, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was later turned into a novel. In 1895, at the height of his success, Wilde was tried and imprisoned for homosexuality. With his downfall the Aesthetic Movement lost its popularity.

The Grove, Harborne The Grove was designed by J. H. Chamberlain in 1877-1878 for William Kendrick, a prominent Birmingham businessman. The ante-room of the house, which was acquired by the V&A just before the house was demolished, reflects the Classical and Gothic elements of the Aesthetic style. It is richly decorated with inlaid, painted and gilded wood. The room was used to display Kendrick’s collection of blue and white ceramics.

ART FOR ARTS SAKE

By the early 20th century, progressive modernism came to dominate the art scene in Europe to the extent that conservative modernism fell into disrepute and was derided as an art form. It is well to remember that for most of the 20th century, we have fostered a narrow view of the modernist period, one in which progressive modernism has received almost exclusive attention while conservative modernism has been largely ignored.

Conservative modernists, though, the so-called academic painters of the 19th and early 20th centuries, believed they were doing their part to improve the world. In contrast to the progressive modernists, conservative modernists presented images that contained or reflected good conservative moral values, or served as examples of virtuous behaviour, or offered inspiring Christian sentiment. Generally, conservative modernists selected subject matter that showed examples of righteous conduct and noble sacrifice that was intended to serve as a model which all good citizens should aspire to emulate.

Jean-Paul Laurens’s painting, Last Moments of Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico (1882; Hermitage, St. Petersburg), for example, shows the puppet emperor before his execution by firing squad in Querétaro, Mexico, on 19 June 1867. In contrast to Manet’s broadly painted, ‘unfinished’ picture, which depicts the event in unheroic terms and in a way that was construed by conservatives as critical of Napoleon III’s foreign policy (the painting drew official censorship as well as the disdain of conservative critics), Laurens presents the emperor as a noble hero, calmly consoling his distraught confessor while a faithful servant on his knees clings to his left hand. His Mexican executioners stand waiting at the door in awe of the emperor’s dignity and composure.

Such treatment was seen by the progressives as uncritical and as merely supportive of the status quo; it offered a future that was little more than a perpetuation of the present. Conservatives generally wished to maintain existing institutions; any change would be brought about gradually. Progressives, on the other hand, were critical of institutions, both political and religious, because they were restrictive of individual liberty; they wanted radical change.

Progressives placed their faith in the goodness of humankind, a goodness which they believed, starting with Rousseau in the 18th century, had become corrupted by such things as the growth of cities.

Others would argue that the rapid rise of industrial capitalism in the 18th century had turned man into a selfish, competitive animal whose inhumanity was increasingly apparent in the blighted landscape of the industrial revolution. Rousseau had glorified Nature, and a number of modernists idealized the country life. Thomas Jefferson lived in the country close to nature and desired that the United States be entirely a farming economy; he characterized cities as ‘ulcers on the body politic.’

In contrast to conservative modernism, which remained fettered to old ideas and which tended to support the status quo, progressive modernism adopted an antagonistic position towards society and its established institutions. In one way or another it challenged all authority in the name of freedom and, intentionally or not, affronted conservative middle-class values.

Generally speaking, progressive modernism tended to concern itself with political and social issues, drawing attention to troubling aspects of contemporary society, such as the plight of the poor and prostitution, which they felt needed to be addressed and corrected.

Through their art, the progressives repeatedly pointed out political and social ills which an increasingly complacent and comfortable middle class preferred to ignore.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want.

Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist.

Fundamentally, the intention was to educate the public, to keep alive in the face of conservative forces the Enlightenment ideals of freedom and equality through which the world would be made a better place.

effectively removed the question of meaning and purpose from consideration and permitted whatever social, political, or progressive statements the artist had hoped to make in his or her work to be conveniently ignored or played down.

The position taken by progressive modernism came to be referred to as the avant-garde (a military term meaning ‘advance-guard’).

In contrast to the conservative modernists who looked to the past and tradition, the avant-garde artist consciously rejected tradition.

Rather than existing as the most recent manifestation of a tradition stretching back into the past, the avant-garde artist saw himor herself as standing at the beginning of a new tradition stretching, hopefully, into the future. The progressive modernist looked to the future while the conservative modernist looked to the past.

This approach became pervasive to the extent that artists, too, certainly the weaker ones, and even some of the strong ones as they got older or more comfortable, lost sight of their modernist purpose and became willy–nilly absorbed into this formalist way of thinking about art. In defense of this attitude, it was argued that, because the function of art is to preserve and enhance the values and sensibilities of civilized human beings, art should attempt to remain aloof from the malignant influences of contemporary culture which was becoming increasingly coarse and dehumanized.

Today, we would characterize progressive modernism, the avant-garde, as politically liberal in its support of freedom of expression and demands of equality. Since the 18th century, the modernist belief in the freedom of expression has manifested itself in art through claims to freedom of choice in subject matter and to freedom of choice in style in terms of choice of brushstroke and colour. It was in the exercise of these rights that the artist constantly drew attention to the goals of progressive modernism.

Eventually there emerged the notion that modernist art is to be practiced entirely within a closed formalist sphere that was necessarily separated from, so as not to become contaminated by, the real world. The formalist critic Clement Greenberg, in an article first published in 1965 entitled ‘Modernist Painting,’ saw modernism as having achieved a self–referential autonomy. The work of art came to be seen as an isolated phenomenon governed by the internal laws of stylistic development. Art stood separate from the materialistic world and the mundane affairs of ordinary people.

As the 19th century progressed, the practice of artistic freedom became fundamental to progressive modernism. Artists began to seek freedom not just from the rules of the Academy, but from the expectations of the public. It was claimed that art possessed its own intrinsic value and should not have to be made to satisfy any edifying, utilitarian, or moral function. In editorials in the influential review L’Artiste, the progressive French novelist and critic Théophile Gautier believed the idea that art should be independent, and promoted the slogan ‘l’art pour l’art.’ It was claimed that art should be produced not for the public’s sake, but for art’s sake.

Art for Art’s Sake was a rallying cry, a call for art’s freedom from the demands that it possess meaning and purpose. From a progressive modernist’s point of view, it was a further exercise of freedom.

It was also a ploy, another deliberate affront to bourgeois sensibility. In his book, The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies, published in 1890, the progressive modernist painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler, proposed that ‘Art should be independent of all claptrap – should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye and ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it.’

However, Art for Art’s Sake was a stratagem that backfired. The same middle class whose tastes and ideas Whistler was confronting through his art, quickly turned the call of ‘Art for Art’s Sake’ into a tool to further neutralize the content and noxious effects of progressive modernist art. From now on, art was to be discussed in formal terms — colour, line, shape, space, composition — which

The underlying assumptions at work here first of all posit that the visual artist, by virtue of special gifts, is able to express the finer things of humanity through a ‘purely visual’ understanding and mode of expression. This ‘purely visual’ characteristic of art made it an autonomous sphere of activity, completely separate from the everyday world of social and political life.

The self–determining nature of visual art meant that questions asked of it could be properly put, and answered, only in its own terms. Modernism’s ‘history’ was constructed through reference only to itself. Impressionism, for example, gains much of its art historical significance through its place within a scheme of stylistic development that has its roots in the preceding Realism of Courbet and Manet, and by its providing also the main impetus for the successive styles of Post-Impressionism.

In the hands of the conservative establishment, formalism became a very effective instrument of control over unruly and disruptive art. Many of the art movements spawned in the first half of the 20th century can be seen as various attempts to break the formalist grip on progressive modernism. The system, though, articulated by the more academic art historians and critics, operating hand– in–hand with the art market which was only interested in money and not meaning, effectively absorbed all attempts at subversion and revolt into a neutral, palatable, only occasionally mildly offensive history of art of the kind encountered today in art history textbooks.

Unfortunately for the history of art, in the process of neutralizing progressive modernism, art historians had to neutralize also all other art from earlier periods and from elsewhere in the world. The same reductionist approach was employed across the board creating a history of art largely devoid of any real meaning original to the artwork. It was generally agreed that aesthetic quality would have priority in deciding the function of art instead of its social or political relevance.

performed by the Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky for the Ballets Russes in Paris. The following year, Nijinsky choreographed and danced in the ballet Le Sacre du Printemps by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, which, in its complex rhythmic structures and use of dissonance, together with Nijinsky’s radically unconventional choreography, shocked and scandalized both conservative critics and the public. The event, though, established the basis for developments of modernism in music.

Formalism, though, could also be turned to the advantage of the progressives who were able to use it in defense of modernism, abstraction in particular, which has been especially open to criticism.

Formalism also neatly dovetailed in the early 20th century with another goal of progressive modernism: universalism.

As in the visual arts, music also became less ‘representational’ and evocative (that is, associated with real–world themes, events, places, people, objects, ideas, or emotions) and more abstract and expressive. The Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg pioneered atonality, in which music is composed without a tonal centre or key, and later, in the early 1920s, developed the dodecaphonic or twelve–tone technique of composition.

For art to be an effective instrument of social betterment, it needed to be understood by as many people as possible. But it was not a matter of simply manipulating images, it was the ‘true’ art behind the image that was deemed important. Art can be many things and one example may look quite different from the next. But something called ‘art’ is common to all. Whatever this ‘true’ art was, it was universal; like the scientific ‘truth’ of the Enlightenment. All art obviously possessed it.

Some artists went in search of ‘art.’ From an Enlightenment point of view, this was a search for the ‘truth’ or essence of art, and was carried out using a sort of pictorial reasoning. The first step was to strip away distracting elements such as recognizable objects which tended to conceal or hide the common ‘art’ thing.

An example of this approach would be the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky who, in his Composition VII, for example, painted in 1913 and now in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, reduced his compositions to arrangements of colours, lines, and shapes. He believed colours, lines, and shapes could exist autonomously in a painting without any connection to recognizable objects.

A more radical approach was to reduce the non-recognizable to the most basic colours, lines, and shapes. This was the approach of the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian in his Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red, for example, painted in 1921 and now in the Tate Gallery, London, in which three colours plus black and white are arranged as rectangular shapes in a grid.

However, it is sometimes overlooked that for the artists who undertook this search, there was more at stake than the discovery of the ‘truth’ of art. For some, abstraction was a path to another goal. Both Mondrian and Kandinsky were keenly interested in the spiritual and believed that art should serve as a guide to, or an inspiration for, or perhaps help to rekindle in, the spectator the spiritual dimension which they and others felt was being lost in the increasingly materialist contemporary world. Abstraction involved a sort of stripping away of the material world and had the potential of revealing, or describing, or merely alluding to the world of the spirit.

New approaches to form and content were also being explored in music and literature. The French composer Claude Debussy explored unconventional harmonies in short compositions such as Prélude à l’après–midi d’un faune (influenced by Stéphane Mallarmé’s Symbolist poem), first performed in 1894, in which emphasis is placed on musical sound and tonal quality. In 1912, Debussy’s piece was made the basis for a ballet choreographed and

By this time, the supporters of progressive modernism had triumphed over the forces of conservative modernism. For the next fifty years, the ideals and practices of progressive modernism dominated European and American history.

ARTICLES CITED

THE ABCs OF DADA

If asked to explain the art movement known as Dada, I’d feel tempted to quote Louis Armstrong on the music movement known as jazz: “Man, if you have to ask, you’ll never know.” But maybe I’d do better to sit them down in front of the half-hour documentary The ABCs of Dada. They may still come away confused, but not quite so deeply as before — or maybe they’ll feel more confused, but in an enriched way. Even the video, which gets pretty thorough about the origins of and contributors to Dada, quotes heavily from the relevant Wikipedia article in its description, framing the movement as “a protest against the barbarism of World War I, the bourgeois interests that Dada adherents believed inspired the war, and what they believed was an oppressive intellectual rigidity in both art and everyday society.” They came to the conclusion that “reason and logic had led people into the horrors of war, so the only route to salvation was to reject logic and embrace anarchy and irrationality.” So there you have it; don’t try to understand.

Perhaps you remember that vintage Onion article, “Republicans, Dadaists Declare War on Art,” satirizing, among other things, the way proponents of Dada called its fruit not art, but “anti-art.”

They made it deliberately meaningless where “real” art strove to deliver messages, deliberately offensive where it strained to appeal to common sensibilities. The ABCs of Dada examines Dada through a great many of these Dadaists themselves, such as Sophie Taeuber-Arp, a teacher and dancer forced to wear a mask for her Dada activities due to the group’s scandalous reputation in the academy; architect Marcel Janco, who remembers of the group that “among us were neither blasé people nor cynics, actors nor anarchists who took the Dada scandal seriously”; and “Dada-marshal” George Grosz, who declared that “if one calls my work art depends on whether one believes that the future belongs to the working class.” You can find further clarification among UBUweb’s collection of Dada, Surrealism, & De Stijl Magazines, such as Zurich’s Cabaret Voltaire and Berlin’s Der Dada. Or perhaps you’ll find further obfuscation, but that aligns with the Dada spirit — in a world that has ceased to make sense, so the Dadaists believed, the duty falls to you to make even less.

schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen

"DADA, as for it, it smells of nothing, it is nothing, nothing, nothing."

TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM

Take a newspaper.

Take some scissors.

Choose from this paper an article of the length you want to make your poem.

Cut out the article.

Next carefully cut out each of the words that makes up this article and put them all in a bag.

Shake gently.

Next take out each cutting one after the other.

Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.

The poem will resemble you.

And there you are—an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.

- Tristan Tzara

DA DA

Synopsis

Key Ideas

Dada was an artistic and literary movement that began in 1916 in Zurich, Switzerland. It arose as a reaction to World War I, and the nationalism, and rationalism, which many thought had brought war about. Influenced by ideas and innovations from several early avant-gardes - Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, and Expressionism - its output was wildly diverse, ranging from performance art to poetry, photography, sculpture, painting and collage. Dada’s aesthetic, marked by its mockery of materialistic and nationalistic attitudes, proved a powerful influence on artists in many cities, including Berlin, Hanover, Paris, New York and Cologne, all of which generated their own groups. The movement is believed to have dissipated with the arrival of Surrealist in France.

Dada was born out of a pool of avant-garde painters, poets and filmmakers who flocked to neutral Switzerland before and during WWI. The movement came into being at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in February 1916. The Cabaret was named after the eighteenth century French satirist, Voltaire, whose play Candide mocked the idiocies of his society. As Hugo Ball, one of the founders of Zurich Dada wrote, “This is our Candide against the times.”

So intent were members of Dada on opposing all the norms of bourgeois culture that the group was barely in favor of itself: “Dada is anti-Dada,” they often cried.

Dada art varies so widely that it is hard to speak of a coherent style.

It was powerfully influenced by Futurist and Expressionist concerns with technological advancement, yet artists like Hans Arp also introduced a preoccupation with chance and other painterly conventions.

MARCEL DUCHAMP

Few artists can boast having changed the course of art history in the way that Marcel Duchamp did. Having assimilated the lessons of Cubism and Futurism, whose joint influence may be felt in his early paintings, he spearheaded the American Dada movement together with his friends and collaborators Picabia and Man Ray. By challenging the very notion of what is art, his first readymades sent shock waves across the art world that can still be felt today.

Duchamp’s ongoing preoccupation with the mechanisms of desire and human sexuality as well as his fondness for wordplay aligns his work with that of Surrealists, although he steadfastly refused to be affiliated with any specific artistic movement per se. In his insistence that art should be driven by ideas above all, Duchamp is generally considered to be the father of Conceptual art. His refusal to follow a conventional artistic path, matched only by a horror of repetition which accounts for the relatively small number of works Duchamp produced in the span of his short career, ultimately led to his withdrawal from the art world. In later years, Duchamp famously spent his time playing chess, even as he labored away in secret at his last enigmatic masterpiece, which was only unveiled after his death in 1968.

Coined by Duchamp, the term “readymade” came to designate mass-produced everyday objects taken out of their usual context and promoted to the status of artworks by the mere choice of the artist. A performative act as much as a stylistic category, the readymade had far-reaching implications for what can legitimately be considered an object of art.

Duchamp rejected purely visual or what he dubbed “retinal pleasure,” deeming it to be facile, in favor of more intellectual, concept-driven approaches to art-making and, for that matter, viewing. He remained committed, however, to the study of perspective and optics which underpins his experiments with kinetic devices, reflecting an ongoing concern with the representation of motion and machines common to Futurist and Surrealist artists at the time.

A taste for jokes, tongue-in-cheek wit and subversive humor, rife with sexual innuendoes, characterizes Duchamp’s work and makes for much of its enjoyment. He fashioned puns out of everyday expressions which he conveyed through visual means. The linguistic dimension of his work in particular paved the way for Conceptual art.

MAN RAY

Man Ray’s career is distinctive above all for the success he achieved in both the United States and Europe. First maturing in the center of American modernism in the 1910s, he made Paris his home in the 1920s and 1930s, and in the 1940s he crossed the Atlantic once again, spending periods in New York and Hollywood. His art spanned painting, sculpture, film, prints and poetry, and in his long career he worked in styles influenced by Cubism, Futurism, Dada and Surrealism. He also successfully navigated the worlds of commercial and fine art, and came to be a sought-after fashion photographer. He is perhaps most remembered for his photographs of the inter-war years, in particular the camera-less pictures he called ‘Rayographs’, but he always regarded himself first and foremost as a painter.

Although he matured as an abstract painter, Man Ray eventually disregarded the traditional superiority painting held over photography and happily moved between different forms. Dada and Surrealism were important in encouraging this attitude; they also persuaded him that the idea motivating a work of art was more important than the work of art itself.

For Man Ray, photography often operated in the gap between art and life. It was a means of documenting sculptures that never had an independent life outside the photograph, and it was a means of capturing the activities of his avant-garde friends. His work as a commercial photographer encouraged him to create fine, carefully composed prints, but he would never aspire to be a fine art photographer in the manner of his early inspiration, Alfred Stieglitz.

André Breton once described Man Ray as a ‘pre-Surrealist’, something which accurately describes the artist’s natural affinity for the style. Even before the movement had coalesced, in the mid 1920s, his work, influenced by Marcel Duchamp, had Surrealist undertones, and he would continue to draw on the movement’s ideas throughout his life. His work has ultimately been very important in popularizing Surrealism.

ANDRÉ BRETON

André Breton was an original member of the Dada group who went on to start and lead the Surrealist movement in 1924. In New York, Breton and his colleagues curated Surrealist exhibitions that introduced ideas of automatism and intuitive art making to the first Abstract Expressionists. He worked in various creative media, focusing on collage and printmaking as well as authoring several books. Breton innovated ways in which text and image could be united through chance association to create new, poetic word-image combinations. His ideas about accessing the unconscious and using symbols for self-expression served as a fundamental conceptual building block for New York artists in the 1940s.

Breton was a major member of the Dada group and the founder of Surrealism. He was dedicated to avant-garde art-making and was known for his ability to unite disparate artists through printed matter and curatorial pursuits.

Breton drafted the Surrealist Manifesto in 1924, declaring Surrealism as “pure psychic automatism,” deeply affecting the methodology and origins of future movements, such as Abstract Expressionism.

One of Breton’s fundamental beliefs was in art as an anti-war protest, which he postulated during the First World War. This notion re-gained potency during and after World War II, when the early Abstract Expressionist artists were creating works to demonstrate their outrage at the atrocities happening in Europe.

HUGO BALL

In 1916, Hugo Ball created the Dada Manifesto, making a political statement about his views on the terrible state of society and acknowledging his dislike for philosophies in the past claiming to possess the ultimate Truth. The same year as the Manifesto, in 1916, Ball wrote his poem “Karawane,” which is a poem consisting of nonsensical words. The meaning however resides in its meaninglessness, reflecting the chief principle behind Dadaism.

Some of his other best known works include the poem collection 7 schizophrene Sonette, the drama Die Nase des Michelangelo, a memoir of the Zürich period Flight Out of Time: A Dada Diary, and a biography of Hermann Hesse, entitled Hermann Hesse. Sein Leben und sein Werk (1927).

As co-founder of the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, he led the Dada movement in Zürich, and is one of the people credited with naming the movement “Dada”, by allegedly choosing the word at random from a dictionary. He was married to Emmy Hennings, another member of Dada.

His involvement with the Dada movement lasted approximately two years. He then worked for a short period as a journalist, for Freie Zeitung in Bern. After returning to Catholicism in July 1920, Ball retired to the canton of Ticino where he lived a religious and relatively poor life. He contributed to the journal “Hochland” during this time. He died in Sant’Abbondio, Switzerland of stomach cancer on September 14, 1927.

His poem “Gadji beri bimba” was later adapted to the song “I Zimbra” on the 1979 Talking Heads album Fear of Music; he received a writing credit for the song on the track listing. A voicecut-up collage of his poem “Karawane” by German artist Kommissar Hjuler, member of Boris Lurie’s NO!Art Movement, was released as LP at Greek label Shamanic Trance in 2010.

DESIGN DECISIONS

THINKING ABOUT ASSIGNMENT THREE:

WHERE ITS GOING

When thinking ahead to the next assignment, I wish to create a printed publication.

When thinking about the content of the publication, I wish to highlight the different artists/ designers and their artwork in each publication. The work shown in the publication will be presented thematically by artist.

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“11 Facts About Arts in Education.” <i>11 Facts About Arts in Education</i>. Web. 9 Mar. 2015. &lt;https://www.dosomething.org/ facts/11-facts-about-arts-education&gt;.

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Boyd, Janis. “Myths, Misconceptions, Problems and Issues in Arts Education.” Griffith University. Web. 9 Mar. 2015. &lt;http://www. culturarecreacionydeporte.gov.co/sites/default/files/myths_misconceptions_problems_and_issues_in_arts_education.pdf&gt;.

“Dada Movement, Artists and Major Works.” <i>The Art Story</i>. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. &lt;http://www.theartstory.org/movement-dada. htm&gt;.

Deresiewicz, William. “The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur.” <i>The Atlantic</i>. Atlantic Media Company, 28 Dec. 2014. Web. 9 Mar. 2015. &lt;http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-death-of-the-artist-and-the-birthof-the-creative-entrepreneur/383497/&gt;.

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“Why Arts Education Is Crucial, and Who’s Doing It Best.” <i>Edutopia</i>. Web. 9 Mar. 2015. &lt;http://www.edutopia.org/arts-music-curriculum-child-development&gt;.

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