In George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), a character posits that the zombies are flocking to the mall because of “[s]ome kind of instinct. Memory. It’s what they used to do. This is an important place in their lives.” As Romero’s zombies siege the mall, the filmmaker critiques consumerism and how it has penetrated the human condition. The mall acts as a refuge, housing[…..]

#art #class #wealth #access #innovation #middleclass Writing for Artnet in January, Ben Davis’s “Do You Have to Be Rich to Make It as an Artist?” raised an important question about the relationship between privilege and access to a life in the arts. Examining the upbringings of a number of artists currently or recently on view at museums in New York, Davis drew the conclusion that if[…..]

Help Desk is an arts-advice column that demystifies practices for artists, writers, curators, collectors, patrons, and the general public—and today we’re celebrating our 100th installment! Submit your questions anonymously here. All submissions become the property of Daily Serving. The problem: sincere offers, from sweet, well-intended people, to show my work without compensation. The result: My polite refusal is taken as a slight and I’m sometimes thought of[…..]

Curator Tyler Cann’s In ___We Trust: Art and Money is a fresh and imaginative approach to exhibition making. The title definitively removes higher moral or spiritual motives—so often claimed in art making—from the framework of the exhibit, and it seems especially fitting that Andy Warhol, a lover of all things material and monetized, opens the show. Hanging on the first wall are three works: the print[…..]