Laurie Anderson’s Vision of Art in the Future

“The main thing that attracts me to Buddhism is probably what attracts every artist to being an artist—that it’s a godlike thing,” performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson says in an interview in the January 2012 issue of Believer magazine. In addition to that interesting take on the godhood of the creative artist, Anderson (shown above, in concert) sees a future in which “[w]e’ll be able to be in the present more effectively” and no longer need to make art or have museums, say five thousand years from now. Anderson, always a provocative and controversial artist in whatever medium, raises interesting questions for modern (and post-modern) artists. Will art still be made in the future? If so, what will it look like? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Laurie Anderson’s Vision of Art in the Future."

How Zoe Strauss Flips Urban Stereotypes on Their Head

Using money she had received for her 30^th birthday, Zoe Strauss bought a camera in 2000 and began shooting a 10-year project that had previously existed only in her imagination. The urban landscape of Philadelphia and its inhabitants soon found a new herald and champion in Strauss, who dreamed of creating “an epic narrative about the beauty and struggle of everyday life.” In Zoe Strauss: Ten Years, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through April 22, 2012, Strauss invades the rarified world of the culture industry and injects the gritty reality of the deindustrialized inner city, thus sending sparks flying from that clash and reenergizing both worlds. Strauss flips all the dehumanizing stereotypes of urban life in America on their head and restores the human face and indomitable spirit behind the façade of decaying infrastructure. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Zoe Strauss Flips Urban Stereotypes on Their Head."

[Image: South Philly (Mattress Flip Front), 2001 (negative); 2003 (print). Zoe Strauss, American, born 1970. Chromogenic print, Image: 6 7/8 x 10 1/8 inches (17.5 x 25.7 cm), Sheet: 8 x 10 3/8 inches (20.3 x 26.4 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with funds contributed by Theodore T. Newbold and Helen Cunningham, 2003.]

[Many thanks to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for providing me with the image above, a review copy of the catalog to, and other press materials related to Zoe Strauss: Ten Years, which runs through April 22, 2012.]

Is the Editorial Cartoonist Dead?

My first introduction to newspaper reading was the Sunday comics. Stretched out on the floor beside my Dad, both of us propped up on our elbows, we read everything from Andy Capp to Ziggy. But my first introduction to reading a newspaper like an adult was the editorial cartoon. Pat Oliphant, Jeff MacNelly, and others soon became heroes as big to me as Spider-Man and Batman. Alas, with the death of the American newspaper comes the collateral damage of the demise of the editorial cartoon. The Golden Age for Editorial Cartoonists at the Nation’s Newspapers is Over, a report recently presented by The Herb Block Foundation (founded by legendary editorial cartoonist, Herbert Block, aka, Herblock), gives the grisly details and sad statistics behind the extinction of that now rare animal, the flourishing editorial cartoonist. Is the editorial cartoonist really dead? What does that mean for American politics and culture, today and tomorrow? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is the Editorial Cartoonist Dead?"

[Image: Herblock. “YOU MEAN I’M SUPPOSED TO STAND ON THAT?” (detail). A 1950 Herblock Cartoon, copyright by The Herb Block Foundation.]

[Many thanks to The Herb Block Foundation for providing me with the image above.]