“The superstar phenomenon is pervasive in the art market. My research of the last few years has documented the increasing dominance of the top end of the market. A very small number of artists, and the galleries representing them, drive the bulk of sales value, while others struggle to survive.
While this top-heavy bias has increased over the last 10 years, the superstar effect has been observed for at least a century.”
Blog
Curse Of The One-Hit Choreographer
For choreographers, the postpartum pangs that follow a big triumph can summon doubts about their ability to duplicate a career’s artistic zenith. Critics sneer, ballet masters and directors stifle skeptical looks, audiences question, producers pressure and choreographers agonize about the label of “one-hit wonder.” Has he backed himself into a corner? Has she burned out on ideas? How do you bring something original to the stage without copying yourself or experimenting with disaster?
Why Some Bad Movies Become Cult Classics (And Others Just Don’t)
“Not all bad movies are entertaining. To be worthwhile, they require a sense that someone was actually trying. … Making a purposefully lousy movie is like wearing a Female Body Inspector T-shirt: You might get a cheap laugh, but ultimately, you’re just a guy with questionable taste.”
Good Readers Versus Bad Readers
The good reader’s cultural elevation always relied on his oppositional relationship to the curiously undifferentiated mass of bad readers, who struck Nabokov—and have struck many teachers and literary scholars since—as a kind of irritating background noise; always already present and unworthy of any serious or systematic consideration.
The Long, Surprising History Of Dinosaur Art
“Works of paleoart – a genre that uses fossil evidence to reconstruct vanished worlds – directly shape the way humans imagine the distant past. It’s an easy form to define but a tricky one to work in. Paleontological accuracy is a moving target, with the posture and life appearance of fossil species constantly reshuffled by new discoveries and scientific arguments. Old ideas can linger long after researchers have moved on, while some artists’ wild speculations are proved correct decades after the fact.”
James Salter: Why I Became A Writer
“Why was I writing? It was not for glory; I had seen what I took to be real glory. It was not for acclaim. I knew that if the book was published, it would have to be under a pseudonym; I did not want to jeopardize a career by becoming known as a writer. I had heard the derisive references to “God-Is-My-Copilot” Scott. The ethic of fighter squadrons was drink and daring; anything else was suspect. Still, I thought of myself as more than just a pilot and imagined a book that would be in every way admirable.”
How Dana Gioia Composes His Poems (Very Physically)
BBC World Service’s In the Studio visits the California poet laureate and former NEA chairman at his hilltop retreat, where he talks about how he feels a poem coming on physically and has to walk around as he’s composing it – as well as the origin of the ballad he wrote about the death of his Mexican-American cowboy grandfather in Wyoming. (audio)
Survey: 75 Percent Of Artists Make Less Than $10,000 Per Year (And It’s Getting Worse)
“In the UK survey of 823 artists, 55.1% say they earn between £1,000 and £5,000 net per year while 17.7% earn between £5,000 and £10,000. At the raw end, 9.3% of UK artists state their income as zero. This combined figure of 82.1% is worse than the findings of a previous survey of 1,061 artists, conducted by a-n, an artist data company, which in 2013 found that 72% of artists earned under £10,000. Of the US respondents, 75.2% make less than $10,000, with the majority (48.7%) in the $1,000 to $5,000 bracket; 5.1% in the US stated their income as nothing.”
The Dining Car Could Heal America: Composer Gabriel Kahane’s Amtrak Odyssey
“On Nov. 9, 2016, I boarded the Lake Shore Limited, Amtrak’s overnight service from New York to Chicago. … Over the next 13 days, I would log 8,980 miles aboard six trains, traversing 31 states, subsisting mainly on Three Cheese Tortellini with Creamy Pesto Sauce and Vegetable Medley. During this time, I had conversations with upward of 80 strangers, almost all of whom I met over meals in the dining car.”
‘The Music Of The Plants’ Is A Real Thing (Meaning Plants Are Really Playing Music)
“During a small lecture at a private residence in Delray Beach earlier this month, I watched a houseplant play music, unabashedly and beautifully. Potted and still, it was hooked up to a MIDI machine via electrodes, its bio-emissions creating twinkling melodies. Attached to the same machine, an orchid and rosemary plant played nothing, but this one was active and virtuosic, as though it enjoyed playing.” A reporter talks to a leader of the Music of the Plants project about how all this works.