WSJ.comExtra, Extra! The locked-out Minnesota Orchestra is all but dead. New York City Opera has filed for bankruptcy. I know, you've heard it before, but bear with me, OK? What we're seeing here is not a string of isolated high-culture horror stories but something far more significant—something that requires a different kind of response.
6 comments:
This is a depressing yet accurate account of the arts organizations situation in America today. The basic rules of economy dictate that if demand is decreasing, supply can't effectively keep up at the current rate. If the number of art patrons interested in attending and funding large arts organizations truly is decreasing then yes, some institutions WILL have to fail.
The second part of the article about the need to constantly innovate and self-assess is especially important. If certain organizations are doomed to fail because of a lack of demand, then the ones who want to stay afloat need to evaluate WHAT the demand is, and fit themselves to that model. In order to succeed, an art institution must tailor its content and approach to its subscriber base, and build upon that to launch innovative initiatives that will bring in new audiences and patrons.
I completely agree with Camille, but what I found most interesting about the article was it's comment on technology. It was only a small paragraph, but I think it is an important aspect in the failure of live performances. The 21st century was truly an explosion of technology, making information easier to acquire for everyday use. iTunes, Google, Youtube, etc allows people to view or listen to these "live" performances, which fits in with our fast-paced lives. After I read this article, I also thought back to a previous article about why artists need to be more accepting of audiences. I'm not going to lie, artists are pretentious and probably snooty, so why would people want to support this? Yes, some of these institutions deserve to fail because they are so immersed in themselves. I hope that current and future institutions will learn from these mistakes, and perhaps, they will begin a new art movement instead of reviving the same-old-past.
With the increase of digital downloads and personal access to art I think it is important to draw the line to or redraw a line to the question "what is art?". Surely it would be wrong to discount pop art as something that is not art however maybe we are experiencing an access to the arts that allows everything created to be popular and therefor subjected to personal objectification. However I do not want to delve into that but instead I wish to talk on the idea of art in the mechanical age of replication and reproduction. This idea that I am drawing on come from Walter Benjamin the author of "The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". He wrote that art's level of exact replication has been growing to greater and greater levels to the point where there are only on characteristic that can separate an original copy to that of an imitation. He writes "Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element:its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be." (Benjamin 2) So yes as art ordinations begin to fail probably because of the ability of technology to replicate that time and space it can still never replace the original time and performance. Perhaps that would mean for a call of new works of art. Where the time and space of that work is contemporary and with a great influx of original work, the recordings of classics will stay recordings. We can no long view the original performance of Handel's "Messiah" However we can travel to and original run and performance of a brand new musical. If arts organization keep preforming the classics than failure could be inevitably the end of that organization, however new works could also run an organization into the ground with lack of marketing and interest. Either way failure still presents it self as an option despite technology and poor management. We as a culture decided what is valuable and invaluable art, and therefor which ordinations will succeed or fail.
I think Camille makes an excellent point. And as much as I didn't want to, I agree with some of what this article is pointing out.
However, what stood out most to me about this piece is a point he kind of glosses over: the separation of high-culture and pop-culture as though they are mutually exclusive entities. I agree that's probably mostly true, but don't we find commercial success where those two overlap? Isn't that a strategy to be employed here? This juxtaposed idea gave me a lot to consider in this regard.
This article is sad, but its a hard problem to resolve. These kinds of arts organizations are struggling because there isn't enough interest in them anymore. And without enough interest to keep them going, there isn't going to be enough interest to save them. Opera especially comes to mind. I have not seen an opera, but it doesn't heavily interest me although I would like to see one. It makes me sad though that our generation is so disinterested in opera, but I am a part of that. In the article when the author talks about orchestra, it is worrying to think that because we can access so much art online, we don't need to go out and experience it.
Maybe the arts should die. It seems like people only want to pay for film, tv, and spotify. So maybe those are the only things that should exist. Maybe live performance is not made for our new digital age where everyone just sits on their computer all day. But it's just so ironic because this is why I think it needs to exist, it is what makes us human and helps us to escape everyday life. With live performance can get away from electronics and just enjoy a story and real human connection.
Post a Comment