Quote:
Originally Posted by marothisu
Point is - there's tons of people walking around who are artists not just here, but pretty much everywhere.. but we all have the idea of what an artist should look and act like, and we just assume there's not as many as the reality. The important thing to do in the city is give outlets for people of all types of art persuasions whether museums, organizations, studios, music venues, practice spaces, meeting spaces, etc. It's easy to make a catalog of those things as they operate as businesses and whatever, but assessing a place's art prowess based on anything else is a really slippery slope expecting artists to magically look and act a certain way. Outlets are important though, and also having inspiring places is important too.
As someone else mentioned too, it has to be an organic thing. But remember art is also very personal to everyone. Just because I am a musician for example doesn't mean that all I want to do with my time is be outside of home at a music venue or playing in front of an audience anymore. Just as well at home drawing, playing guitar/piano or singing.
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I think of the relationship between art and cities from this perspective:
Suppose Chicago went gaga over neo-swing dancing and local stick figure Mona Lisa paintings, and it became the national craze. What would stop NYC, LA, Dallas, Miami, etc. from following up with their own swing dancing venues and stick figure portraits 6 months later?
There wouldn’t likely be inordinate gains to the city from the art alone besides a historical footnote. Maybe if the city sponsored some niche local artists, a few hundred additional people would seek them out.
Realistically, big immediate cultural gains would require founding a record label or an independent movie studio - huge institutional backing with lots of money. That’s not going to happen.
Much of the widespread cultural changes in Chicago are going to depend on the desire for the current infrastructure. Big downtown theaters, small affordable corridor retail fronts, and logistics/warehousing for production — for stuff that other cities can’t easily imitate.