Arte Povera

watching the patter and flow of nyc craigslist, an increase in the desperation evident amongst the art professions seems to mirror the bleak financial news outlets. Over the past month there has been an increase of two or three posts a day detailing a cursorily  statistical Munch’s scream:  “artist desperately needs to “, “artist needs agent”, “help starving artist, buy my work”, “NYC Fine Art/Abstract Painter: Collection for SALE”, “Buy me please – support my habit of painting”, “Support a starving art dealer in  *****”, “Starving artist sale!”, “Artist studio sale – close out”. It was pretty evident during the crunch of the early 1990s when the problem manifested in the humanities departments of most academic institutions in the US, as their funding did battle against the sciences, and the humanities lost. Are we heading for a similarly bleak outlook of arte povera, or is something different now? I propose a difference. Today, the trash is different. There are more modular consumer electronics, for example, and a greater awareness amongst youth for the integration of modularity in production. So while oil painting and writing a novel on an electric typewriter may be even more things of the past, naught but antiquated techniques moving into museums and libraries special collections departments, the new stuff can be, well, scientific.  um. apparently the humanities lose. again?