Desperation in Detroit but out in the world of culture and influence it’s about the art. Street lights, we don’t really care, but if all that art goes on the market at the insane prices we’ve been claiming on our tax forms, the whole phony cultural philanthropy racket comes apart like a rotten undervest. Siphoning off mom and pop’s tax money while looking like black-tie patriots and civic silver-backs has been a class act all along, but loud voices behind slammed doors indicate some two-bit municipal bankruptcy could cast the unfortunate light of day on our thing.
From HL, lex, jan 15 -- “Detroit: National and local philanthropic foundations have committed $330 million toward a deal that would help preserve the Detroit Institute of Arts’ renowned collection by bolstering the city’s employee pension funds.....” You don’t say. Civic minded of the Ford Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, et al, to ease the latter years of garbage collectors, but why you may ask. To keep that load of burlap off the open market is the short and only answer, and you can smell the fear. If the oxygen of the free market ever hits their hermetically sealed, institutionally incestuous game of enormously inflated trademark trading, esteemed assets will begin to brown and wither, and commercial interests with warehouses full of phony investment will go down with them. Sorry fellas, 330 isn’t going to be enough.
Turns out this is remarkably good news for communities with an appetite for art produced by thoughtful and accomplished artists residing in their own region, and for independent artists everywhere. When the stink of hucksterism blows away, common folk will come to see in the individual expression of area artists an enduring and friendly reminder of why they like living around here, and want to own some.
