Filling this frame with more than a casual snapshot offers something to culture beyond a simple image. It declares that the act itself of creating something new matters as an act worthy of time and effort.
I promise not to drift into a political hijack of this space. Nonetheless, I think it’s safe to say that recent history has been particularly hard on artists, with political unrest, economic uncertainties, and global health pressures unrelenting for longer than anyone wants or needs. Audiences have disappeared, venues closed, funding evaporated, social pressures intensified, colleagues dispersed, all shrouded in a fog of torpor and stress.
That’s not to say consumer desire for divertissement has waned. Plenty of people have dented permanent divots into their couch cushions binging Netflix and HBO Max. Microwave popcorn manufacturers are clearly out in front of the next boom in consumer stocks. People are looking for something to distract them from the challenges of their days.
Art is not necessarily the same thing as popular entertainment. Not all art becomes streamable either.The creation process for both art and entertainment sometimes share traits and sometimes share space. But since it often emerges without big corporate promotional campaigns, lots of artistic invention and experimentation are struggling for air now more than ever. The broader cultural risk is that when the majority of creative enterprise gets moderated by corporate budgets aimed at common denominators, we all become culturally impoverished. It’s one thing to share a common frame of reference about some things. It’s totally another thing to have all of our creative consumables dictated from a dozen interlocking corporate directorates.
Here’s what I think is going to happen. There will not be a substantial boom in compelling creative work until the pandemic is really and truly and solidly receding into history. That accelerating process will be camouflaged, however by the sheer tonnage of stuff pumped out of industrial media. Big commercial producers of music and television and film and even Broadway will rush to the fore almost immediately—many already have—satisfying early demands for people who simply want to get out, get out, GET OUT of their overly lived-in homes. The process of making new stuff will happen immediately, and in fact, that process has already started. Superficially it feels like artists are, once again, back in business. It’s true: some are. To be clear, I’m no elitist here: I’ll be standing in line for many of those things, just like you will. But I like chocolate chips, too, and I’m not about to satisfy my nutritional needs on those alone.
After the pandemic fades, there will be a lull in new voices for a while. It will take some time until sustaining, lasting, resonant works start to emerge. Sure, there may be a few awesome expressions immediately—I’m not counting those out—but distance from the COVID crisis will be the catalyst for creative expressions. Art often speaks loudest when ignited by tumult or, ironically, contemplative reflection. These are certainly tumultuous times, and in our shared COVID-induced isolations, there’s been time aplenty to reflect. But reflection does not demand hermetic containment, and not all tumult results in art. It also bears stating, despite romantic inclinations to pretend otherwise, that social upheaval and singularly focused intentions may spur invention, but they often struggle for oxygen even in the best of times. Arts require stability as much as they require energy, and for new voices to speak, the people who propel those voices must be able to stand, to eat, to think, to dream.
In other words, these are shaky times for artists. That means these are shaky times for art, and that means these are shaky times for polyglot culture writ large. Will patrons actually pay money for small theatrical productions again? Will quiet gallery spaces for emerging visual artists manage to keep their demure recessed lighting lit so visitors can see what’s on the walls? Will painters and writers and choreographers find enough support —not just financial support, but interested, invested cultural support—to keep them engaged in the hard work of creating new, fully realized things built from the intangibilities of ideas?
I don’t think the answer is clear, at least not in the short term. Art exists and persists despite political forces, wars, illness, and heartache; it is often the response to the hardest parts of life. But art requires something in return. It requires a cultural headspace in which to exist purposefully. It requires consideration and conversation. It requires other artists in communities and it requires patrons who seek sustenance from creative souls around them.
Art lives outside of individual lives. It speaks across time. It shapes our view of the past, in informs the present, it provokes the future. But art also demands the real, practical efforts of actual, individual, specific lives. It requires dedication and resources. It requires pride of place. A culture impoverished from creative work is a culture destined to amuse itself to death, destined to self indulgence, simplistic emotions, and a loss of critical thinking capabilities. That’s would be a depressing outcome, in my opinion, but not an unrealistic one. Fortunately, there are alternatives to allowing corporate media dictate the entirety of your intellectual, emotional, and creative life. You just need to ask yourself once in a while if you might consider—just consider—stepping out of your comfort zone and taking in someone’s work in a format or venue that you might never have considered before.
Then, y’know…actually try it.