You have stated it perfectly seven. It is wonderful yes that these big institutions exist, the Met, the Museums, etc. But being a consumer of art and high end artistic product is NOT the same issue as BEING an artist who has to LIVE in a place without being a slave.
Who will be working for these great institutions, creating product for the future? Who will have the time, energy, leisure and freedom to WORK towards that level of artistic relevance and acceptance? I don't care HOW many trust funds you have, you have to be bloodie HUNGRY to work like that. And NYC is starving the artists.
You don't wake up one morning as an accomplished painter and have a 57th Street gallery. You have to live, sweat it, work in a specific place, and go to the parties and meet the people and engage with your peers. So where are they now.
Vogue magazine can indeeed go mine St. Louis or Santa Fe or anywhere but Manhattan and not Vancouver either it seems. NEW WORLD ORDER! We're all clones in a box.
I rented one of my rooms here to Jessica and Modera who had posted about the space. I just can't take the thought of poor artists dying on the vine. Maybe I am simply extending the torture.
Today's wonderful discovery: there's the new "Rule of Thumb" for realtors. Multiply a rent by 45, and that's how much you should be making to get your new Manhattan apartment. In other words, if I want an apartment in NYC for $2,000., multiply that by 45, and I should show an income of $90K. If I can't, I will be asked for a "guarantor." Now if you somehow find an apartment for $1,200. you still would have to show an income of $47,000. I mean where are these people getting off.
So the big cities are driving the artists out? We can go somewhere else.
Put the word out! Stay away from the big cities, stay in your small hometown and create your culture there, unimpeded by real estate gouging and soulless jobs you must do to pay the rents in this town. May your only impediment be writer's block from too much quiet, or having to drive into town to buy more paint.
Of course if your hometown is NYC... and it pretty much IS my home town! you just have to get used to saying good-bye. It's not going to get better. The real estate bubble is not going to burst.
Well anyhow I'm going to go look at that cool building on 28th Street on Monday. I'll try until the last minute. Que sera sera.