Apparently it was New York’s complexity that made it impossible for any artistic institution to establish a dominant aesthetic style in the age of the New York Modern. The complex mix of cultures, class and training backgrounds of the innumerable amount of artists in the early and mid 1900s celebrated diverse creativity and chaos. The stubborn artists, each as passionate about preserving their unique style as the next, could not be tamed. Although there are many differences between artistic styles found in New York during this time, with each clique of artists came the same issue: making money.
I have always known NYC to be a place for starving artists (after working at a real estate office for two years I can advise any starving artists reading this to find a different city with lower property values) but how did they survive in their rebellion? Along with selling out their artistic talents to design firms advertising the wealth of the city, society began encouraging (and financing) the ‘rebellious’ artists to speak up about their own individual interpretation of the modern...
Should the rebellion against conforming to a single artistic style be celebrated? There seems to be a reoccurring theme of closed cultural communities throughout New York where each cultural group seems to have claim (or at least dominance) over a particular neighborhood… I suppose the art world here should be no different. The loss of New York’s dominance over modern art could be the result of a natural, economic or political shift in the global art community but I am wondering if it was the lack of collaboration and unity within the New York art world itself. Perhaps it was my father, a rebellious artist in his university years (purple mohawk and all), who has put it into my head that when it comes to art, boundaries need to be pushed in order for it to survive. Perhaps the Neo-New York Modern will push the boundaries of cultural confinement; still celebrating the beautiful diversity that is New York but doing so together.
I think the New York art world reflects the same conflicting impulses -- the desire for cultural purity versus the desire for cultural mixing, miscegenation, and "contamination" -- that mark the rest of the city. I do think that the story that Scott and Rutkoff tell in New York Modern is very much about pushing boundaries, even by artists who don't consider themselves "avant-garde." And as for making money: I think most artists would probably stay that starving is probably over-rated a component of the artistic condition!
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