the creative city

charles landry at the much hyped lecture at the bcl. everyone turned up. and for what? a corporate power point presentations illustrated with photographs of text from around the world. very childish and rather naïve. if the idea was to ask governments to increase funding for the arts it was unnecessary for us to be there. also, the very idea of ‘public art’ as a collection of ancient pottery in the lobby of a subway station is ridiculous. it misunderstands or rather dumbs down fundamental concepts of art and the city; and especially the idea of creative practice in the city. after all is it not that living in the city is in itself a creative act. it makes the idea of creativity into yet another r commodity for the city to use to sell itself in the global marketplace. but what is the kind of art that then is given space is itself rather debatable. art as advertising. when rahul dacunha began extolling the virtues of the great british roads that we have completely destroyed, it all got rather cringe worthy. kiran nagarkar continued the rant about the awful state of the city slightly more articulately but still in that judgmental and gloomy tone. things got marginally more bearable when sridhar spoke about art that emerges out of the periphery and swhen sudhir patwardhan shoed his work as a creative practice which embraces the everyday creativity of the people of the city.