The Warhol Economy:
How Art Works
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett
Associate Professor
Price School of Public Policy
University of Southern California
Some basic questions
• Do art and culture really matter to the growth
and prosperity of cities?
• If so, why does creativity and art happen
where it does? How does creativity “work”?
• What does this mean for artists’ careers?
First, art and culture matter….
•
4th Largest Employer in NYC and LA
•
3rd Largest Employer in London
(Arts Council of England)
•
Most represented of all industries in NYC and LA
•
$21 billion impact on New York City’s economy.
•
£25 billion - £29 billion annually in revenues for London’s economy.
•
$733 million generated from NYC’s Fashion Week alone
….and generate real money
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Alliance from the Arts, NYC, Arts Council of England and GLA, Robert Kloosterman, University of
Amsterdam
But how do they work?
The importance of the “scene”
Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Tim Buckley, at Max's
Kansas City, NYC, 1968.
Where creativity thrives: The
social scene
“One night these dudes invited me out for drinks. I didn’t
want to go, then I said [to myself] ‘go, so you’re in their
sites’, that’s business for me but it’s fun”
– Ricky Powell, photographer
•
Three types of social scenes that
facilitate the cultural economy
– Nightlife
– Industry Events
– In situ interactions; Spatial Proximity
(Neighborhoods)
The economics of a social
scene
• Artists use their social lives for career
mobilization (sometimes consciously,
sometimes not)
• The social scene offers the perpetual
possibility to advance their careers
I. Networking:
Getting a job
“I was out on a date three weeks ago, I was
really bored. I went to get another drink and
ran into someone from Creative Time [a public
art organization] and he put me in touch with a
music house, a place I was going to contact. I
got in touch with them and now I am going to
send a demo….Where you socialize, your
social life completely determines your worklife
and vice versa…[We] all go to the same
places after a gallery opening, [we] go to the
artist’s dinner [etc.].” – a DJ
I. Networking:
Access to gatekeepers
“Artists go to shows to meet people who write
about art, meet them again and again [at gallery
openings and shows], pretty soon call them up
and invite them to their show.” – artist
“I was really hoping Jeffery Deitch would be here
tonight so that I could talk to him about my
upcoming show.” - artist
II. Interlocking creativity
The clustering of cultural industries to
constantly engage each other across
separate fields resulting in new combinations
of jobs, products and evaluation.
Three approaches:
–
–
–
Flexible career paths
Cross-cultural gatekeepers
The “commodification of cool”
Flexible career path:
Andre the Giant has a posse
Shepard Fairey’s graffiti art has turned into a
major clothing, design and music
conglomerate
…To painting the portrait of
Barack Obama for the
Smithsonian
II. Interlocking art worlds:
Cross-cultural gatekeepers
“It used to be the real fashion press that makes or breaks your
career. Now it’s if Lindsey Lohan wears your dress”
– Cynthia Rowley, fashion designer
• Established and successful artists often act
as gatekeepers in defining what “good art” is
– Occurs across industries (e.g. Marc Jacobs
as fashion designer and purveyor of cool
music)
III. Transaction costs: Less
trouble is less trouble
“When I lived in San Diego and I would bring my
stuff to New York, no one would ever call. It’s so
much by chance, by running into people….It’s
quick when people need things they pick up the
phone and call but so much is just instantaneous
and [they] need it now and it’s just too much work
to contact that guy in San Diego….They may
have the sincerest effort to call me but why would
they when they can just find someone on the
street?” –graphic designer
EVENT ENCLAVES
Why are they there?
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A few takeaways:
Why place matters to artists
•Artists need their social lives to further their careers and
thus need to locate themselves within rich artistic
communities.
• The social mechanisms reinforce themselves: The more
artists come to be a part of the social scene the more
effective the social scene locking in the advantage of LA for
film, New York for fashion, Nashville for music and so
forth…
A few takeaways: Creative
place making and artistic
careers
• Nightclubs can shape a city’s creative
fortunes
– Unconventional policies and zoning
…Creative place making and
artistic careers
• Artists not institutions drive creativity
– Museums house dead artists; art districts
house future generations
“I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I
know there's a subway handy, or a record
store or some other sign that people do not
totally regret life.”
– Frank O’Hara, Meditations in an
Emergency