The Art World’s Class Problem

December 15, 2022

Good morning. 🌧️ Shoutout to Morocco's soccer team for making history as the first African and Arab team to make it to the semi-finals in the men's World Cup. They gave France, the defending champion, a good fight before losing 2-0 yesterday.

In today's news, a study finds that less than 10% of creatives in the United Kingdom come from working-class backgrounds. And that you're four times more likely to be in a creative job if you come from a higher middle-class family. Okay, it may not be surprising but it's still depressing, and wrong.

Also today, Nicolás De Jesús's remarkable etchings on amate paper, paintings made with wildfire ash, and a scorching review of a new documentary about the male gaze, among other stories.

— Hakim Bishara, Senior Editor

The Stirring Political Etchings of Nicolás De Jesús

The Mexican artist’s works reveal the radical possibilities of an indigenous sensibility charged with a keen awareness of politics and art history. | Faye Hirsch

SPONSORED

Jerry Saltz Shares Five Things He’s Learned About Where Art and the Art World Are Now

Join Pulitzer-Prize winning Jerry Saltz online this Sunday. Discover five things he‘s learned about the remarkable advances refashioning the art world — and why we‘re living in one of the most momentous moments in art since the Renaissance.
Almost as good: View Jerry‘s personal video invitation to this live class.

WHAT'S HAPPENING

An artist sketching at Tate Britain (via Flickr)

A new study making waves in the UK finds that people from low-income backgrounds are less likely to become artists — but that’s always been the case.

“Overall, people from the higher middle classes are four times more likely to be in a creative job than people from the working class, and this hasn’t changed over 40 years,” Andrew Miles of the University of Manchester, lead author of the paper, told Hyperallergic.

SPONSORED

National Museum of Singapore Presents the First Doraemon Exhibition Held Outside of Japan

Contemporary art, original sketches, and more explore how the Japanese character sprung from the pages of a manga and became a global cultural sensation. Learn more.

LATEST IN ART

Murals in LA Lift the Voices of Iranian Protesters

Murals by Iranian-American artists across the city are inescapable reminders of the regime’s ongoing brutality. | Matt Stromberg

Wildfire Ash as a Medium

Meet the artists who use ash and residue from natural disasters to send an urgent message about the environmental calamity unfolding before us. | Scotti Hill

SPONSORED

RISD Pre-Collegiate Programs Now Enrolling for Summer 2023

Rhode Island School of Design opens registration for its residential summer Pre-College program and year-round online intensive Advanced Program Online. Learn more.

FILM & DOCUMENTARY

Six Films That Plumb the Possibilities of Prison Abolition

The shorts will be screened as part of XO & Struggle: An Evening of Abolitionist Cinema at the Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem, New York. | Elaine Velie

Is There Anything Left to Say About the Male Gaze?

Nina Menkes’s Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power wants to join the ongoing conversation about gender and film. The trouble is that it has nothing new to say. | Sophia Stewart

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IN MEMORIAM

Angelo Badalamenti (1937–2022)
Composer known for Twin Peaks theme | New York Times

Daniel Brush (1947–2022)
Painter, sculptor, and jeweler | Washington Post

Judith Lauand (1922–2022)
Brazilian modernist painter | Artnews

Lee Lorenz (1932–2022)
New Yorker cartoon editor | New York Times

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