Ep. 136: A Defense of the Arts with Jed Perl

Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk

“There’s this kind of visceral dimension to art that is at the core of art. Understanding the why and how is very important too, but we all want to keep in touch with that immediate pow—that thing that art does for us.”

Art critic Jed Perl is here, to talk defense of the arts and why now more than ever the arts need defending. Radical, liberal, conservative, reactionary—through decades and centuries people try to push the arts into one of these boxes to fit certain social or political agendas. But Perl argues that the arts inhabit their own sphere and operate with their own set of rules. As he says, figuring out the politics of Mozart or Jane Austen would be a fool's errand. But in a time of increased pressures, identity politics, and certain "box checking," can art have the freedom it needs to thrive and grow in modern day America?

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JED PERL is the author of the two-volume biography of Alexander Calder. For twenty years, he was the art critic of The New Republic. His previous books include Magicians & Charlatans, Antoine’s Alphabet, and New Art City. He lives in New York City.