Digital City

Last week a new book by the abstract painter Ted Mikulski hit the shelves and e-readers of culture sponges everywhere. Subtly titled Art Is Dead, it obvious that Mikulski is being deliberately polemical, and attempting at least to provoke some kind of discussion about contemporary art and its reception in mainstream America, if not bring about an actual change.

Whether or not art is empirically dead is of course, a non-issue. Art continues to be produced by professionals, amateurs, and millions of art school students. However, this book probes the minds and frames of reference of a general audience, one that can barely make out the palpitations at the heart of contemporary cultural production.

We have seen claims like this throughout the 20th century and into our present moment, but to affirm his point, Mikulski is careful to employ familiar techniques, including an ambush-documentary style (a la Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock) video, and a pithy, honest writing style.

The idea for the book stems from an experience Mikulski had while teaching an undergraduate course in art education at a community college in Connecticut. When he inquired who the students' favorite living artist was, their responses ranged from silence, to "a friend," to "Van Gogh." He conducted the experiment several more times and found the responses to be similar, prompting him to get the other side of the story and speak with his living-artist contemporaries.

The book is comprised of interviews with 16 working artists, as well as anecdotes and theories posited by the author. The aim of the book is to spark an awareness at the gaping holes between art production and art appreciation. Perhaps Art Is Dead is an overblown title, but the notion that there is a vacuum between production and reception, and a general lack of mainstream knowledge about contemporary art seems a solid premise for any investigation of the state of the arts today.

To purchase a copy of the book from Artoholic Publishing, please visit their website. To view the promotional video, read the premise and brief profiles of the contributors, or buy a copy, follow the links above to the Art Is Dead site. Please let us know in the comments below what you think about the life and death of the arts in America today.