"There has been a lot of talk about the Foster Prize lately, which is better than no talk at all. In the process of putting my thoughts about the whole thing into some sort of shape, I came across a bit of writing by Jon Blackwood about biennial culture. Even though he is talking about former Yugoslavia, it feels to me like he might just as well be talking about Boston here: "In a society where all but a tiny percentage of people active in culture live from week to week, often buying themselves time to produce culture by working jobs in another sector altogether, the notion of a ‘biennale’ with no relationship to the local grass roots, is of highly questionable value. Before biennales can meaningfully develop within Bosnia and Hercegovina, a whole new cultural infrastructure has to either emerge organically, or be put in place. Holding a biennale in the Bosnian context, is like owning a Porsche in a country with no roads." (The full text of Jon Blackwood’s excellent talk on art in Bosnia and Hercegovina can be found here.) While I can’t possibly compare the political landscape in Boston to Bosnia and Hercegovina, I think Mr. Blackwood is dead on about the perils of biennial culture, especially when he talks about our lack of any really meaningful cultural infrastructure. The back and forth about this year’s Foster Prize has questioned the curatorial methodology, who was (or should have been) selected, who won (or who should have). I prefer to look at the Foster Prize as an integrated part of a cultural ecosystem; to me the more meaningful question to be asked is: does the Foster Prize increase the freedom and agency of artists across Boston? I would argue that it does little on that front. It turns out a Porsche is a bad investment just about anywhere in the world, unless you also put in the time to build the roads for it."
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 19:13:54 +0000
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