First off, I have to acknowledge that I have no statistics to support this narrative. I'm sure artists struggle in every region and throughout time. There are certainly conditions that allow artists to make a living and even thrive, and it is productive to explore those conditions, so that we could even mimic them in NYC today.
I first became truly interested after attending a fundraising and promotional event for a nonprofit that raises money to support theater spaces in NYC. Many many theater spaces in NYC closed over the past several years, as property owners and developers decided that a theater wasn't the best and highest use of a property. I was told at this event that young actors and writers regularly choose Detroit over New York (I do believe however that the draw of New York would continue for generations even if this worrying real estate trend continued unchecked).
I recently read a NY Times article on "Athens, Rising" after the economic crisis it has experienced for the last decade. According to the author, art spaces and a vibrant restaurant and nightlife scene have emerged in the wake of the crisis. Has the economic difficulty of the crisis facilitated the artistic and creative vibrancy we see today?
It's hard to say. The author and those he interviews do question this narrative, but it remains compelling for me.
'We all got fired or we quite because we weren't getting paid,' he [Theodosis Michos, founded of an online magazine called Popaganda] said, and yet in 2013, arguably the lowest point of the crisis, Theosis was part of a collective that covers culture and city lie through an Athenians lens. 'The first thing we did to resist the crisis psychologocially was to tell ourselves again and again: O.K., we are artists, we are writers, this is the best time for us, because when artists have nothing, the can do anything,' he said, adding that this isn't actually true. 'We told ourselves this so many times, that we started to believe it'
(This alludes to another theory, that art may thrive in resistance -- psychological resistance -- to economic, political, or cultural forces that appear to inhibit the artist.)
Continuing to question this theory of art thriving in economic crisis:
'It's not like, oh, the crisis, I'll start painting. That's not happening!' said Konstatntinos Dagritzikos, who opened [a nightlife spot] ... in 2009... And yet the place they launched at the start of the crisis did evolve into the amibitious cultureal venue they imagined, which now attracts droves to shows by Greenk artists like the fuzz-rock outfit the Noise Figures and the chill-wave duo Keep Shelly in Athens, as well as interantional acts.
...
Fotis is now often on the road, explorinig those destinationa dn the many inventive restaurants and visitor attractiions that have emerged in Greece since the crisis, from a wave of young chefs using Nordic, French and East Asian cooking techniques on local ingredients, to a multitude of 'second-act producers,' people left unemploye or underemployed who returned to the villages where they grew up and began to sell homemade, organic, artisanal Greek products -- to phenomenal results.
'I think everybody became more creative after the crisis, more cooperative,' he said.
""
Certainly the philanthropic and corporate world plays a role in Athens, as we see in NYC. The author closes with the story of an epic all night party (or maybe normal by Greek standards) put on by the Onassis Foundation. He also talks about the rivalry with the Niarchose Foundation Cultural Center, and how the former business rivals now have dueling cultural legacies in Athens.
The author also highlights the ongoing problem of poverty, crime, and drugs in Athens, which is not to be forgotten in this discussion of whether certain economic circumstances facilitate art. In fact, these consequences of economic crisis perhaps highlight the importance of studying this issue, to identify how to mimic conditions that facilitate a thriving art scene within a thriving economy.
I think we are a long way from understanding this, and I'm not sure if anyone is studying the conditions that facilitate a thriving arts scene.
However, I still wonder where internationally, and in the U.S., the arts are thriving? It seems that Athens is one such place.
