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Steven D. Lavine. Failure is What It's All About: A Life Devoted to Leadership in the Arts
Walt Disney's vision for an art school located before the gates of Los Angeles became a Opened 50 years ago, the California Institute of the Arts had long been in crisis, before 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, 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.
168 pages, Hardcover
Published September 21, 2020
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About the author
Jörn Jacob Rohwer
5 booksAward-winning author Jörn Jacob Rohwer is well-known for elegantly merging elements of literature and journalism in his wiritings. Widely published since 1995, his lengthy profile conversations with luminaries from the arts, science and society are best represented by his book of nearly 900 pages, "Die Seismografie des Fragens" (Salis, Zurich - currently in English translation).
Rohwer was born in 1965 in Rendsburg, Germany, and graduated with distinction from UCL. London University. He received numerous international fellowships and foundation grants, lectured and read in Germany, Swizterland and the USA. His subsequent book is intended to comprise a collection of essays. Rohwer lives and works in Berlin.
Rohwer was born in 1965 in Rendsburg, Germany, and graduated with distinction from UCL. London University. He received numerous international fellowships and foundation grants, lectured and read in Germany, Swizterland and the USA. His subsequent book is intended to comprise a collection of essays. Rohwer lives and works in Berlin.
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August 6, 2025Quotes
I often felt that I was not good enough and likely to fail… I feared I would end up defeated and sunk in depression like my mother. This fear of failure fed my leadership style and my passion for CalArts students to be educated to accept failure as a necessary step in producing genuinely original and important art.
I was aware of winging it every day, and failing a lot of the time … you would try one thing, and it wouldn’t work. And you just have to say, okay, that didn’t work. I failed at that. I got to try another way.
Failure is an integral part of any creative person’s life ... unless you are experiencing failures, you are probably not pushing yourself hard enough to get it right.
At CalArts no alumni portraits were hung on the walls because … it is far too easy to be intimidated by one’s predecessors’ accomplishments … Hanging the art of their predecessors … would valorize that work in a way that can be harmful.
Most important is persistence. Often things won’t work out as you intended. You need to learn to live with failure and learn from it and persist. That’s what the title … refers to.
First, don’t wait for opportunity but create it for yourself.… very few artists make it alone. You need to help others and they need to help you.… generosity is almost always rewarded.
Keep your eyes open. … Seek out those people and places [who share the concerns that drive your art].
Artists need to know … the skills that lead them to create something unique are equally the skills … that other areas of work require.
I often felt that I was not good enough and likely to fail… I feared I would end up defeated and sunk in depression like my mother. This fear of failure fed my leadership style and my passion for CalArts students to be educated to accept failure as a necessary step in producing genuinely original and important art.
I was aware of winging it every day, and failing a lot of the time … you would try one thing, and it wouldn’t work. And you just have to say, okay, that didn’t work. I failed at that. I got to try another way.
Failure is an integral part of any creative person’s life ... unless you are experiencing failures, you are probably not pushing yourself hard enough to get it right.
At CalArts no alumni portraits were hung on the walls because … it is far too easy to be intimidated by one’s predecessors’ accomplishments … Hanging the art of their predecessors … would valorize that work in a way that can be harmful.
Most important is persistence. Often things won’t work out as you intended. You need to learn to live with failure and learn from it and persist. That’s what the title … refers to.
First, don’t wait for opportunity but create it for yourself.… very few artists make it alone. You need to help others and they need to help you.… generosity is almost always rewarded.
Keep your eyes open. … Seek out those people and places [who share the concerns that drive your art].
Artists need to know … the skills that lead them to create something unique are equally the skills … that other areas of work require.
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