This past week, A.O. Scott of The New York Times curated a conversation between a group of nine contemporary artists ranging from rapper J. Cole to poet Patricia Lockwood in order to ask the question: is our art equal to the challenges of our times? In his piece introducing the conversation, Scott was less interested in what constitutes the challenges of our times and more interested in what he calls “the political economy of art,” that is “how artists are affected by changes in the distribution of wealth and the definition of work.”
In response to Scott’s question, playwright Lisa D’Amour and writer Eddie Huang each posited a different response to the climate for artists today.
Lisa D’Amour: “It is nearly impossible now to live in a city with a part-time ‘money job’ and the rest of your week to discover your art. If you wake up every morning in a panic about money and security, it shuts down a lot of opportunity for creativity. This sentiment, of course, opens up a whole can of worms about privilege and who is allowed to take the risks of art making.”
Eddie Huang: “A lot of the things we’ve hung onto and leaned on, thinking they were forever, are falling apart, and people are being forced to think for themselves. For a while, Americans felt invincible, or that our economy was forever, but it’s not. We gave up a lot to the idea of trickle-down economics, intellectual property law, the market, neo-liberalism, and look where it’s gotten us? There is no middle class, there are no safe jobs, and when it’s cold outside, people start to develop skills. They start to question, and that’s when a society becomes dangerous in a good way.”
These perspectives seem to represent two seemingly contradictory, yet co-existing ideas of how to make art: the time and space to create art often requires financial security, yet often art relevant to the challenges of our times is born from social, political and economic insecurity.
As I noted in a meditation on the novel last year, those who are most socioeconomically privileged in society are the ones who have the resources not only to create, but to market and sell their work. Artistic movements from marginalized identities are often public or freely available, such as graffiti, mix-tapes, zines or fan-fiction.
Each of these forms of art concern creating a space for those who are not given their own place in already-existing spaces. Graffiti can be a claim from those who lack positions of power in that space, like Palestinian graffiti on the Separation Barrier. Mix-tapes often consist of the sampling of popular songs in order to re-contextualize them to a new understanding. Zines are an alternative to mainstream magazines, just as fan-fiction is often about the inclusion of new narratives, like that of LGBT individuals or people of color, into mainstream series like Harry Potter, Star Wars or True Blood. But often these forms of art receive little to no financial compensation.
At lunch with students a few weeks back, writer Eula Biss discussed the different economy at play in the creative industries, describing it as an economy of kindness rather than financial compensation. According to her, we pay for art not in money, but in recognition. We see this at work in our own lives whenever we share a particularly good article on our Facebook feed or when we snap at a great line from a slam poet. At an artistic protest last week in response to the situation in Ferguson, I saw Durham residents paying local artists with their presence. However, Facebook shares, snaps and attendance hardly feed or shelter artists, particularly those in already underprivileged communities.
I feel caught between my belief that art ought to be considered a public, freely-available good, but that, pragmatically, artists deserve and need compensation in order to make a living within our current society. The aim of art should not be capital gain, but I do believe that creative work should be as valued as other forms of work.
In answering to the challenges of our times with art, I think that different modes of resistance must emerge. For underrepresented artists, resistance is in creation and claim to artistic space, but for those of us who are privileged by virtue of identity or class, I think there is a greater responsibility. We must not only be receptive to these stories, but we must also commit ourselves to valuing and paying for this creative work, both in money and in advocacy for social and artistic programs within underprivileged communities. Not only most our art rise to the challenges of our times, but we must too.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.