Steven D. Lavine —
Failure is What It's All About
We are glad to start promoting and publicizing Steven D. Lavine — Failure is What It’s All About by award-winning author Jörn Jacob Rohwer, to be published by Deutscher Kunstverlag on November 17, 2021.
About the book:
Walt Disney’s vision for an art school located before the gates of Los Angeles became a reality: Opened 50 years ago, the California Institute of the Arts had long been in crisis, before Dr. Steven D. Lavine led it to financial prosperity and international acclaim. Today, CalArts is the cradle of many Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize winners, of Mellon and Guggenheim Fellows – a hotspot of American creativity.
In personal conversations with Jörn Jacob Rohwer, Dr. Lavine tells his life story for the first time, talking about cultural politics, philanthropy, the avant-garde and Los Angeles at the centre of his life. Spurred on by self-doubts and a desire to learn from failure, he proves to be a sensitive thinker, visionary and transatlantic mediator between the worlds of art, politics and education.
About the author:
Jörn Jacob Rohwer is an award-winning author known for elegantly merging elements of literature and journalism. Widely published since 1995, his lengthy profile includes conversations with luminaries from the arts, science, and society. Besides writing, Mr. Rohwer works in arts communications and lives in Berlin.
Dr. Steven Lavine has been an artistic, educational, and community leader in Los Angeles and nationally for four decades. From 1988 to 2017, he served as President of the California Institute of the Arts, a period of sustained growth in programs, community engagement, enrollment, reputation, and financial stability for the progressive multi-disciplinary arts college. Shortly after stepping down, he was recruited as Founding Director and then Chair of the Los Angeles Advisory Council for the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles, which is devoted to bringing creative thinkers from Germany and the United States together around urgent contemporary issues, particularly the future of liberal democracy. Today, Dr. Lavine divides his time between the Thomas Mann House and consulting with a broad range of progressive not-for-profit organizations. He has co-edited two influential books about museum practices: Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display and Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture.
