Independent Art

From an article by Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post:

In a culture that processes information through controversy -- through the conflicts set up in reality television, through punditry, gossip, scandal and gotcha journalism -- independent art thrives and fails and is reinvented to thrive again. Arts that are fast on the uptake, that can react to political and cultural news with speed and without fear of being edited, bleeped or otherwise censored, are rewarded with substantially more attention than the old-guard arts can generate. Much of the visual arts, alternative music, contemporary dance and theater and all the unclassifiable Web-based and performance arts, are culturally vibrant. They give us plays about the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay (the play "Guantanamo" opened in New York last month); or lampoon the obfuscations of major-party politics (in a media installation called "The Experimental Party Disinformation Center," also in New York); or all the lovely games and provocations dealing in gender, sexuality, race and class that fill out the major visual-art biennials, year after year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11345-2004Sep10.html