Ann Markusen
Date: Saturday December 04
Time: 9:00 a.m.
Place: Regis Center for Art - Influx Auditorium
Born: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Lives: Minneapolis, Minnesota
See bio on: Ann Markusen
Introduction: Lynn Lukkas, Associate Professor of Art, University of Minnesota
"An Economy of Artists: How Space and Material Life Shape Artists' Commitment"
Synopsis:
How do material realities shape artists' work? How do the artistic choices
that artists make shape their careers and livelihoods? What is the impact
of artists' presence and their work on community viability? How can we
nurture the spaces and networks that enable artists to work more critically
and be engaged in the community with their work?
Artists make large material sacrifices to pursue artistic work, and the need to invest time and resources early in one's career make it particularly difficult for lower income and minority aspirants. Many artists struggle over the trade-offs between different types of work and material aspirations, in terms of both time and the critical nature of their work.
Although their major role in society may be aesthetic, political and even spiritual, artists also make significant contributions to their regional and neighborhood economies. Their roles in regional and neighborhood economies are under-appreciated because artists are often self-employed and not included in regional job counts or arts impact analysis. By being present by living and/or working in a community, artists can stabilize neighborhoods and inspire young people. Cities and neighborhoods that are successful in home-growing artists and attracting and keeping them are not necessarily the largest, fastest-growing, or wealthiest. Many smaller towns and working class and ethnic urban neighborhoods have figured out ways of nurturing artists in their midst. Artists' attentiveness to their host neighborhoods is mixed- some are relatively reclusive and unattached while others are strongly committed to their environment and community.
The talk will focus on how artists' careers evolve, how they cope with the challenges of making a living, press the margins in their work and find peer groups and mentors. Three types of artistic settings are explored: artists clubhouses - dedicated spaces where artists come together to vet their work, find encouragement and feedback, view masters in their fields, share studio space and equipment, and interact with audiences; artists' live/work buildings; and smaller performing arts and visual arts spaces. The roles of each of these in enabling artists' commitment to both their work and social change and in stabilizing and enlivening local economies is explored.
Biography: Ann Markusen
Professor
Fesler-Lampert Chair in Urban and Regional Affairs and
Director, Project on Regional and Industrial Economics,
Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs,
University of Minnesota
Markusen has served as a Brookings Institution Economic Policy Fellow and a Fulbright Lecturer in Brazil and has consulted for the Clinton Administration, the World Bank and the OECD. She has served as a consultant to the cities of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Berkeley, and Chicago, and to the states of Michigan, Ohio, and California on industrial retention and economic development efforts. Her work on industrial development includes a major study of the mid-western steel industry, Betting on the Basics, for the City of Chicago, and a study on The California Software Industry for the California Commission on Industrial Innovation.
Markusen served as Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York (1995-2002) and as an Executive Committee and Board member for the Economic Policy Institute (1994-2002). In October of 2000, she was appointed by the President and approved by the Congress to serve on the ten-member National Commission on the Use of Offsets in Defense Trade and its companion President's Council on Offsets in Commercial Trade. In 1999, she complete two terms as Chair of the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 2000, she served as President of the North American Regional Science Association. Markusen was a participant in President-elect Clinton's Economic Summit in 1992.
Markusen is the author of dozens of articles and book chapters and a dozen books, including From Defense to Development (Routledge, 2003), America's Peace Dividend (Columbia International Affairs On-line, 2000), Second Tier Cities (University of Minnesota Press, 1999), Arming the Future (Council on Foreign Relations, 1998), Trading Industries, Trading Regions (Guilford, 1993), Dismantling the Cold War Economy (Basic Books 1992), The Rise of the Gunbelt (Oxford 1991), Regions: the Economics and Politics of Territory (Rowman and Allenheld 1987), High Tech America (Unwin Hyman 1986) and Profit Cycles, Oligopoly and Regional Development (MIT Press 1985). She frequently writes for a broader public, including in magazines such as The American Prospect, Harper���s and Foreign Policy, and op eds in major newspapers including The International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Duluth News-Tribune, Los Angeles Daily News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Christian Science Monitor. Her most recent public policy work includes The Case for a Substantial Increase in the Minimum Wage (Humphrey Institute, 2003) and The Artistic Dividend (Humphrey Institute, 2003).
At the Humphrey Institute, Markusen teaches Introduction to Urban and Regional Planning; Regional, Economic Development and Workforce Planning; Writing for Planners; and Current Planning Practice. She also recently completed a three-year term as Director of the Institute's interdisciplinary Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree. Her current research focuses on artists' livelihoods and their contribution to local economic development and communities.
Ann Markusen is an economist and Fesler-Lampert Professor of Planning and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, where she also directs the Project on Regional and Industrial Economics.
Education: Professor Markusen received a Bachelor's Degree in Foreign Service at Georgetown University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics at Michigan State University, and has held faculty positions at the University of Colorado, University of California Berkeley, Northwestern and Rutgers Universities.
Curriculum Vita (download .pdf)Bibliography (download .pdf)