Doodling on the Titanic: The Making of Art in a World on the Brink

DOODLING ON THE TITANIC examines the fate of art in a world falling apart at the seams. Multiplying crises threaten the biological basis of human life on the planet. Neumann asks us to consider whether we are reaching the end of art as we know it, just as we are reaching the end of so much we take for granted. Art appears to be flirting with anti-art. As it stumbles forward uncertainly, media and entertainment relentlessly churn out art-like images by which we are seduced and abandoned. Neumann approaches the question of the future of art from his experience as a painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. He begins with a meditation on the urge to doodle. From there, he demonstrates step by step what happens as artists struggle to make a work of art, and describes the forces that may be making that struggle more difficult. In the end he concludes that whether art has a future is a question that only art can answer.