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作者

Michael Frisch

来源

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS,Vol.41,Issue1,P.147-148

语言

英文

关键字

作者单位

University of Missouri–Kansas City

摘要

Art districts come in many forms in contemporary cities. They may be planned around large art institutions such as museums and performing arts centers or they may develop organically from the actions of artists working within the community. An artist enclave represents this organic form where artists create, produce, and sell their work. Such an enclave gives artists the benefits of community where both formal institutions and informal interactions further the artists’ collective interests. Richard Florida (2002 Florida, R. (2002). The rise of the creative class. New York, NY: Basic Books. [Google Scholar]), in his book The Rise of the Creative Class, argues that such artistic enclaves are necessary to attract and retain the “creative class” necessary for economic growth. In Artistic Enclaves in the Post-Industrial City, Geoffrey Moss provides a case study of Lawrenceville, an artistic enclave in Pittsburgh, the city from which Richard Florida developed his original thesis.Moss uses three methods of gathering data on Lawrenceville and Pittsburgh artists. First, he made a limited number of visits to the neighborhood over a 6-year period from 2006 to 2012. He strategically observed the artist community in galleries, coffee shops, and artist hangouts. Second, during these trips, he conducted unstructured interviews with 42 of the artists. Finally, he carried out an online artist survey of 271 participants in a major all-night arts festival in 2009. Results from the participant observations inform discussions of the survey results. Quotes from interviews illustrate artist experiences.The mixed-methods approach produced some interesting results. Artists responding to the survey derive less than 10% of their income from art. Consequently, most Pittsburgh artists then have a job separate from their creative work. Living in Pittsburgh allows artists to find cheap housing while still being only 6 hours away from New York, America’s major art market. Moss finds that artists in Lawrenceville survive by “collaborating with the larger creative class” (p. 29). This collaboration occurs through participation in community art events, the development of galleries and commercial spaces, and the support from community development organizations, government and local foundations. Artists in Lawrenceville are mostly not bohemian. Moss concludes that Lawrenceville is an “artistic creative class enclave” with a “creative ethos” that appeals to the larger creative class (p. 94).The case study results get to the central problem of this work. Two chapters describe the historic rise of bohemias as context for this case study. The rise of bohemia in 19th-century Paris and in prewar Greenwich Village as described in Chapter 4 have little to do with Lawrenceville. The discussion of more contemporary conceptions of bohemia in 1970s New York (Zukin, 1982 Zukin, S. (1982). Loft living, capital and culture in urban change. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers. [Google Scholar]) and 1990s Chicago (Lloyd, 2005 Lloyd, R. (2005). Neo-bohemia, art and commerce in the post-industrial city. New York, NY: Routledge. [Google Scholar]) might provide more parallels. In both of these examples, artists bargained away some of their counterculture in order to receive the benefits of housing in the case of New York and work in the case of Chicago. If artists are not part of the counterculture (bohemia) in Pittsburgh, then why compare this case to these other examples?I recommend this e-book only to scholars examining contemporary artists’ communities in cities outside of the art markets of New York and Los Angeles. Many of the problems of this text probably stem from the author’s and the publisher’s decision to publish this manuscript as an e-book rather than a traditional-type book. If the author had attempted to publish this manuscript as a traditional book (or even as one or more peer-reviewed articles), I believe that reviewers would have insisted that Moss provide more information about the survey instrument. A well-written case study of an artist community would interest many readers of this journal. However, I believe that JUA readers would not be happy with the e-book option if it meant lower quality editing by the publisher.ReferencesFlorida, R. (2002). The rise of the creative class. New York, NY: Basic Books. [Google Scholar]Lloyd, R. (2005). Neo-bohemia, art and commerce in the post-industrial city. New York, NY: Routledge. [Google Scholar]Zukin, S. (1982). Loft living, capital and culture in urban change. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers. [Google Scholar]