This episode is a deep dive into the “creative city” model of urban planning. We talk about the ways that influential urban planners like Richard Florida and Charles Landry have promoted investment in the arts as a way to solve urban problems. We will answer the question, can art solve poverty? (Answer: No).
Key Sources:
Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class.
Landry, Charles. The Creative City A Toolkit for Innovators.
Melamed, Samantha. “Can this tiny storefront save Philly’s most drug-ravaged neighborhood?” Philadelphia Inquirer. March 30, 2017.
Denmead, Tyler. The Creative Underclass: Youth, Race, and the Gentrifying City.
Mould, Oli. Urban Subversion and the Creative City.
Montgomery, Alesia. “Reappearance of the Public. Placemaking, Minoritization, and Resistance in Detroit.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 2016.
Honestly, we just wanted to do a normal episode that didn’t react to current events. We thought that the War on Terror would be a somewhat stable historical artifact. – Then Trump invaded Venezuela, kidnapped its president, and stole its oil. So this episode is unexpectedly relevant. While we don’t comment on Venezuela directly, there are some important themes in thinking about the aesthetics of war that are unfortunately topical.
“It’s Brutal!” Trump, Architecture, and American Authoritarianism. (Weird Little Architects Part II). E08.
In this follow up to our episode on Trump’s “Weird Little Architects” (E06) we examine the ways that architecture has been instrumentalized by the Trump administration. Through a close look at the Executive Order “Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again,” and at administration comments around the renovation of the White House, we show how architecture is used by the administration to advance its authoritarian and white supremacist projects.
Major sections include:
Trump’s Architecture Program. 00-37:00
Fascist Aesthetics and the Demolition of the White House. 37:00-56:00
Brutalism and Modernism as a Contrast to the Trump Agenda. 56:00-81:00
Benjamin, Walter. 1935. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”
Medovoi, Leerom. 2012.
“Dogma-Line Racism: Islamophobia and the Second Axis of Race.” Social Text. 30 (2 (111)): 43–74. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-1541754
We used a quotation: “The Democrat Party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals,” which should be attributed to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Colin and Mariel watch “Style Wars,” a classic documentary about New York City graffiti in 1982, and explore what this documentary can tell us about the politics of today.
In this episode, we examine the ways that major funders of public art in the US have often sought to use public art as a tool of social engineering. What did these funders hope that public art would achieve? And were they successful in their efforts to transform the social life of American cities? We will look at a number of high profile public art projects and controversies and attempt to evaluate the goals and impacts of public art in the US.
On Trump’s obsession with and confederate statues. Recorded before the announcement that Trump would restore the confederate monument at Arlington and other monuments taken down in 2020.
References:
Cox, Karen.2019. Dixies Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and The Preservation of Confederate Culture. UP Florida. https://upf.com/book.asp?id=9780813064130
