3 ms·

I wish for the cynics and for the literary connoisseurs that the next James Joyce comes out of this programme. Norway has had a stipend programme for writers f

by jll29 5y ago

I wish for the cynics and for the literary connoisseurs that the next James Joyce comes out of this programme. Norway has had a stipend programme for writers for some time. Interesting question: how does not "prove" to be an artist, and a needy one at that? At the moment it's a lottery.

inglor_cz 5y ago
How often does a new James Joyce arise out of government subsidies? We spend much more money on art than in 1920, yet the art quality does not seem to have improved proportionately, indeed it possibly went down. That might or might not be causal (possibly talented people do not choose to be artists anymore), but it is still worrying. There is a lot of gatekeeping around art and professionals tend to declare opinions of amateurs for null and void, but as a reader I still miss a new Oscar Wilde.
- petercooper 5y ago
  We spend much more money on art than in 1920, yet the art quality does not seem to have improved proportionately, indeed it possibly went down. I think it's hard to say because there's so much art above a basic quality bar now that it's next to impossible to experience, curate or judge a significant amount of it, even within a category. We are so overwhelmed with creative output that even watching every "highly recommended" TV show or movie we're recommended on Netflix would be a fulltime job, let alone the hidden gems, or the millions of books published each year. You'd hope that someone would find the next Oscar Wilde and shout about it, but I don't like the odds.. especially as the gamut of what is considered good literature is now broader than ever before. I frequently find some amazing new music that isn't popular and shout about it a bit but no-one really cares. There's too much music, tastes vary too much (what I find amazing could well seem like total crud to everyone else), and most people prefer to listen to what they already know over and over rather than keep digging for something new.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  I mean, commercial art today is a lot better than commercial art in the 20s. Find some old radio recordings if you don't believe me. And that's where the money goes. We don't spend dramatically more on, say, literary novelists than they did in the 20s; that continues to be a thing that people do out of passion rather than for money, so you wouldn't expect the rate of production to have gone up very much.

by jll29 5y ago

inglor_cz 5y ago

How often does a new James Joyce arise out of government subsidies? We spend much more money on art than in 1920, yet the art quality does not seem to have improved proportionately, indeed it possibly went down. That might or might not be causal (possibly talented people do not choose to be artists anymore), but it is still worrying. There is a lot of gatekeeping around art and professionals tend to declare opinions of amateurs for null and void, but as a reader I still miss a new Oscar Wilde.

petercooper 5y ago
We spend much more money on art than in 1920, yet the art quality does not seem to have improved proportionately, indeed it possibly went down. I think it's hard to say because there's so much art above a basic quality bar now that it's next to impossible to experience, curate or judge a significant amount of it, even within a category. We are so overwhelmed with creative output that even watching every "highly recommended" TV show or movie we're recommended on Netflix would be a fulltime job, let alone the hidden gems, or the millions of books published each year. You'd hope that someone would find the next Oscar Wilde and shout about it, but I don't like the odds.. especially as the gamut of what is considered good literature is now broader than ever before. I frequently find some amazing new music that isn't popular and shout about it a bit but no-one really cares. There's too much music, tastes vary too much (what I find amazing could well seem like total crud to everyone else), and most people prefer to listen to what they already know over and over rather than keep digging for something new.
rsynnott 5y ago
I mean, commercial art today is a lot better than commercial art in the 20s. Find some old radio recordings if you don't believe me. And that's where the money goes. We don't spend dramatically more on, say, literary novelists than they did in the 20s; that continues to be a thing that people do out of passion rather than for money, so you wouldn't expect the rate of production to have gone up very much.