Urban Art

From the time that Jason was starting the site, one of the ideas I wanted to probe more was the effect a city has on art. Every time I see an article or blog post about how uncool DC is (or how uncool it was until Obama blessed us with his presence) I think about it.

DC is always trying to fight above it's weight class with New York and we're always going to lose in that cultural battle. Hell, Sirius, the smaller-slower-comelier of the two Satellite radio stations somehow was able to make itself the dominant partner of their new, and in the long run doomed merger with XM.

I don't think I have any definitive answer, but I'd like to pose a few questions and knock down a few straw man arguments.

* DC is a capital city, and places with "The Government" are never cool.
As I look around our area this is pretty true. Annapolis and Richmond are really really uncool. I'm not saying Annapolis isn't a nice place to visit, but it's just a city with old buildings and boats, and that will never ever be cool. But look at the big non-governmental cities in other states, has St Louis contributed much to our culture? What about San Diego, or Charlotte, or any city in Florida? Even a city like Philly hasn't had an overwhelming impact.

But then there's Europe, which shoots this theory down. London is an art center, Paris is too, and Berlin ain't bad. You could say that these countries operate much like New York state, there's the big city and then everything-else, but that's too easy. Federal governments brings in an incredible mix of people, you've got kids of diplomats, kids of scientists, kids of politicians and their staff from all over the country. Shouldn't all these teenagers be getting together and forming bands, or putting on art shows?

* DC doesn't have the space, attitude, affordable-housing, etc for poor artists.
You could call this the Baltimore theory - it's cheap in Baltimore so all the artists and musicians are there. But that also seems like a cop out. Even as gentrification spreads through the city there are still places that are livable but affordable. It's just a matter of staying a few steps ahead of the gentrification. And there's also Anacostia, I hadn't really thought about it until this post, but there's no great reason why artists couldn't stake out an affordable location in South East and set up shop.

* DC has already contributed a lot, don't get greedy.
I think it's worth saying that DC has been responsible for plenty of great music, and a lot of fantastic art (see even in Wikipedia we don't get enough credit for our own damn art). Still, the great cities - New York, London, Chicago keep cranking out great art. Scenes come and go, but it's a vibrant community that allows new ones to emerge. I think, as I said above, the constant churn, should be good for creating new art, but it often feels like artists tend to leave more than arrive (Marvin Gaye and Duke Ellington, for example).


That's all I've got for now. I'm curious for folks thoughts on things like the theater scene, which from my outsider perspective seems pretty strong.