Musea E-mail Club #367 Year End Art Roundups
musea/Tom Hendricks
talk about the best of the arts of 2006.
When you listen to them think about this.
The Big handful of media/art conglomerates of
Disney, Warners, Viacom, NewsCorp, Bertelsmann, CBS, NBC, and
a few other smaller players, control the bulk of production of these
art types:
Publishing, Music, Film, and TV.
AND they also control (either directly through ownership or
through their massive advertising dollars) much of the media
that talk about the arts.
At the end of the year you hear an arts round up that,
not surprisingly mostly talks about corporate controlled arts:
Best films, books, music, and tv.
What you will NOT hear a lot about , if at all, is
1. Best of the arts not controlled by these behemouths like
theater, dance, architecture, photography, sculpture, etc etc etc.
2. Any artists not controlled by them : zines, mail art, indie film
makers
( when was the last time you heard a show on the best indie films
of the year), etc.
3. Any advocates against the art conglomerates ( like my art revolution
work, or the work of the writers advocacy group the ULA, etc.)
4. Any advocates for anything new in the arts - Its a New CENTURY
and yet how much coverage have you heard of anyting New in the Arts.
Six full years - and no new arts covered period!
You would think that this would be confined to media outlets owned
by the conglomerates or commercial outlets, that depend on their
advertising dollars.
But it goes deeper. Even the so called 'PUBLIC' Broadcasting System
(PBS)
follows the same bought off path.
It's time to reconsider our donations to PBS. If they are nothing but
shills for corporate art - why not let them get their funding from
corporate
art (which they already do to some extent. Listen to who supports
them).
It's a new year - yet for the bulk of the country its nothing but
old art from old dinosuars from old conglomerates, reported by old
media.
Yourjob, should you accept, is to join me and help change that in the
coming year!
___________
Also this quick salute. James Brown died this week. He put on the
best concert I saw in the 60's, and I saw Jimi, Rolling Stones, Doors,
Cream, Led Zeppelin and more. But none did what James could do.
He was an incredible recording artist, he recorded the best live album
on disc, he put on the best live shows (and this was in a football
arena in Tyler, Texas - not exactly the big city), he initiated a lot
of whats supposedly new in music trends now, and he helped
others a lot - a whole
lot. Thanks James Brown, for all you did.
Tom Hendricks
ed. of the 14 year old zine Musea
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musea/Tom Hendricks
UPDATE
Readers,
Wednesday I sent the above e-mail about how too many mainstream
media outlets (or those that depend on corporate art ad dollars)
reduce their coverage to those arts they control : movies, music,
books, and tv.
Hours later, as if to prove my point,
the new Dallas Observer came out (it's our
pretend alt, weekly). The only headline on the cover was:
THE YEAR IN MOVIES AND MUSIC.
(didn't make that up, didn't plan it)