For a while, I have avoided the word crisis as it refers to our ecological condition because it seemed to provoke an intellectual standstill, the kind of dismay that concludes effort or even further consideration. Recent chatter about the AI crisis appeared similar. The crisis in arts funding did the same. There are even claims of a crisis in any social imaginary. Recently, however, I have begun to wonder if the permanent crisis of the humanities might not provide a different attitude towards crisis across these different areas.
In a complex of dozens of studios and thousands of works of original art, the most impressive maker in the lot might be the proprietor himself, who happens to be the only one in the building who doesn’t call himself an artist.