(Roughly) Daily

Throughout history, artists have tended to cluster around centers of power and wealth… which is simply to observe that they’ve honored Willie Sutton’s wisdom: “that’s where the money is”; they’ve set up their easels (or pianos or footlights or whatever) where they can find patrons and customers.  But those centers of cultural gravity tend to be expensive places to live– increasingly, so expensive that aspiring artists can’t even afford a garret in which to starve.  E.g., aspiring artists who want to join the community that migrated from Greenwich Village to Soho to Tribeca, then to Brooklyn, and on to Hoboken are beginning to find even that Jersey shore too pricey…

At the same time, new centers of wealth and power are emerging around the world, and with them, new communities of artists and performers.  Indeed, as Richard Florida and others suggest, there’s a symbiotic relationship between the growth of a “Creative Class” in a community and that community’s ability to innovate and succeed commercially.  A rich artistic and cultural life doesn’t assure a city’s commercial success, but its absence is a pretty good indicator of commercial mediocrity (or worse).

So one indicator of areas that are contenders to be “the next hot region” is the sprouting of the arts there.    Consider, for example…

Brazil’s most creative neighborhood is far from the beaches of Rio, in loud and brash São Paulo, South America’s answer for New York City. And you can expect one thing from this loud, raw urban metropolis — a lot of really colorful, politically-charged street art. Large neon pieces of work show up everywhere from dilapidated buildings to enormous billboards, and in the ultimate nod to creativity, esteemed museum MuBE, the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture, hosted actual gallery space for some of São Paulo’s most well-known graffiti artists to promote their work. Unlike certain places, this is a city that fosters young talent.

If digital is your medium, you won’t find a better place to be right now than Jakarta. Indonesia has more Facebook users than Canada has people, and internet cafes are a daily visit. Investors from the West have their eye on mobile, broadcasting and start-ups, all growing trends across the country that make it easy for youngsters to take to their own businesses. Creative collectives like Askara, a bookstore where the hip commune, Serrum, a community for arts education, and Kampong Segart, a student art union, give the space and inspiration for this new wave of Indonesian trend makers.

Visit six other candidate cities– including two, Macao and Las Vegas, that are better known for shilling than selling– at Flavorwire’s “The Best Cities for Young Artists.”

As we get in touch with our inner expatriate, we might wish an elegantly-laid out and well-groomed Happy Birthday to Frederick Law Olmsted; he was born on this date in 1822.  A journalist, social critic, public administrator, Olmsted is best remembered as the greatest American landscape architect of the 19th century.  While the title “Father of American Landscape Architecture” probably belongs to Andrew Jackson Downing, Olmsted was unquestionably the primary agent of the discipline’s growth and adoption.   Olmsted’s most famous commission was Central Park in New York; but he also designed city parks in St. Louis, Boston, and many other cities; the grounds around the Capitol in Washington, D.C.; the Niagra Reservation, one the countries first planned communities; the master plans for universities including UC-Berkley and Stanford (among other universities); and private estates like George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore House in Asheville.

Olmsted at Biltmore House, by frequent house-guest John Singer Sargent (source)