Make art great again

Or at least interesting

Photo by Callum Shaw on Unsplash

Hello,

Welcome to Known Unknowns, a newsletter about that promotes creativity for everyone, from artists to actuaries.

Why art is bad

I went to the Whitney Biennial a few weeks ago and it was, to my untrained eye, pretty bad. I don’t mean the art was too edgy for me, it was just really boring and predictable. First, everyone who works there wears conspicuous buttons that announce their political views and sexuality. Everyone is entitled to express themselves and I am glad they feel they can do so at work, but I am not sure why this needs to be part of the ticket buying process.

Then you go to the floor where the Biennial begins, being greeted with a word salad explaining that the art reflects the risks of AI and also highlights the plight of various identity groups. Not the most interesting to me (though the AI premise was intriguing), but I figured maybe the art would be compelling or help me understand a new perspective. Nope. One video installation easily could have doubled as my HR training video.

My Bloomberg column explores why art has gotten so bad. I suppose part of the problem is that artists have traditionally been very left-wing and spoke for marginalized communities. Now, many major institutions in our society have not only adopted their view, but even surpassed them in their zeal. So if you’re an artist—what’s left to say that will shock people and make them view our culture and world from a different perspective? Perhaps art that expresses sympathy for the participants of January 6? Now that would be edgy.

But as I think of it, if great art reflects our society and the shortcomings of the economy, then the Biennial did succeed. The works at showed how our institutional gatekeepers quash anything creative or provocative and prevent it from entering the mainstream. Becoming a successful artist these days takes jumping through a series of hoops: the Yale MFA, showing at the right galleries, and—if you are lucky—being featured at events like the Biennial. It is hard to imagine that anyone who works at any of these places would indulge an artist who doesn’t adhere to the doctrine.

But that is also the case for many of our most elite institutions, in consulting, media, academia…—pretty much everywhere. And the result is more predictability and less creativity. Don’t take this as an anti-woke rant. Some of the institutions I have in mind are not woke by any stretch, but they still demand a certain type of employee who went to a certain type of school and is conformist in nature. And this really matters in a winner-take-all economy, because climbing to the top of these institutions, or affiliation with them, is important, at least more important than it used to be. No wonder productivity is down.

However, not all hope is lost. Many art critics’ trained eyes had the same concerns as I did. But they often noted you can find more interesting and better art online. The Internet is full of artists who have forged their own path and promote themselves on social media. You can say the same about many industries—Substack is one example. Creativity still exists, and in many ways it has never been easier to do your work your own way while still finding an audience. But in a winner-take-all economy, it may be harder to earn a living that way. In art, collectors value work that has been vetted by the institutions—how else do they know what’s good? Institutions, with the training and infrastructure they offer, always have value when you are learning as an up-coming artist.

And let’s be honest, it is hard to negotiate institutions when you are learning a trade.

A truce on generational warfare

Peace feels elusive these days, but the least we can do is to end the generational warfare. It is such a tedious conversation that does no one any good. On the one hand, we hear young people today have it uniquely hard (at least economically—I am not sure about socially), with the student debt, expensive housing, bad job market, etc., while older people control and are given all the resources. Meanwhile, older people complain about the ungrateful young people lazing around their office.

If you look at the data, young people have never had it so good—more wealth, more education, and high wages. They are more likely to live in big cities, which is expensive but also useful for developing social and human capital. Sure, rent is high, but these places are fun and encourage a prolonged adolescence.

But even if things are a bit better, this does not take away from the fact that establishing yourself as an adult is hard. You don’t have skills or money (unless you understand social media) and that makes life hard. Also, acquiring these things is hard. Is it harder now than before? No, not really, but it’s still hard. And I think we confuse that difficulty with it being easier previous generations.

For that reason, we should be more patient with each other. More cooperation and sympathy is better, because the economy is not zero sum and works better with less strife. And besides most young people become old people.  The more productive we are and the more we can nurture their creativity as they learn skills—and the more wealth there will be for them when they retire.

Doing my part

When I testified before the Senate Banking Committee, I explained that “greedy” corporations are not the reason we have inflation and why price discrimination is actually good for consumer welfare. It’s sometimes nice to revisit basic micro, which sometimes we all need to review.

Until next time, Pension Geeks!

Allison