Want to Be an Artist in NYC? Move to SoHopeless

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (Skull)

In the early '80s, just about everyone I knew wanted to be an artist in NYC. It was cliche, de rigeur, and a la mode all in one. Of course, most of us lived about 20 minutes away, so running across the GWB wasn't a huge leap. But back then it also seemed feasible. People were doing it, often in grand style. Look at Basquiat, Schnabel, Haring. There was art to be made, and even money to be made as an artist. Obviously not for the many, but for the few, and for most of my friends, those were good enough odds. But as journalist Christopher Ketcham points out in "Gilding the Big Apple" (March/April 2012 Utne Reader/ Orion), http://www.utne.com/politics/income-inequality-zm0z12mazwar.aspx, NYC's circa 2012 demographic no longer holds much room for those willing to trade "salad days" for pursuing creative dreams. NYC's population has radically changed, and for these F-the-poor alterations, we can tip our threadbare hats to the One Percenters.

Ketcham's fascinating statistics include one that made my blood boil: 11% of NYC's population (~900,000) live in "deep poverty," earning $10,500 for a family of 4. I have no idea how ONE person can survive on that salary in NY, forget 4, forget nearly a million. In contrast, the average One Percenter household earns that much for a single day's "work" (72-point quotes there). These are of course the finance industry suits, who do nothing but shift money around without designing, building, or selling anything at all, as their predecessors felt at least occasionally compelled to do. A vampirized state that has taken down the masses for the solipsistic pleasures of a few. The net result is a near-cultural genocide, as the bright, talented, and creative are left by the roadside, having to struggle so hard to earn a living that there's neither the time nor space to give the world art.

Soho loft of artists Bill and Yvonne Tarr circa 1970
(Photo: John Dominis/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Ketcham's article is well worth reading not only for its ghastly stats, but also for historical perspective on the city (which has endured this kind of ugliness before) and where it's ended up today: a place where artists, intellectuals, and sundry creatives can no longer afford to live and work. A city where the cast of Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids never could have honed their craft. A locus of metaphor for early 21st century American values.

A quote:

" 'If you want to know what's really going on in a society or ideology, follow the money,' writes author Jaron Lanier. 'If money is flowing to advertising instead of to musicians, journalists, and artist, then a society is more concerned with manipulation than with truth or beauty. If content is worthless, then people will start to become empty-headed and contentless... Culture is to become precisely nothing but advertising." No surprise then that the most lucrative 'creative' jobs in New York for the 'aggregating' of 'content' are not in journalism but in corporate media, advertising, and marketing--the machines of manipulation and deceit."

The Lanier quote is from a fascinating sounding book entitled You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. Buy from your local independent bookstore, as an act of rebellion.

If you do feel inclined to order from Amazon, may I suggest reading this Mother Jones cover story first?

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor.

It's the kind of real journalism that seldom is seen anymore: Mac McClelland's firsthand reportage about how online retailers submerge their warehouse workers in Dante-esque Infernos in the name of offering you free! lightning-fast! shipping.