6 ms·

> Its very hard to make a living off bad or average art. If your implication is it's easy to finance good art, I disagree. Where I live, most good theater prod

by dmos62 3y ago

> Its very hard to make a living off bad or average art. If your implication is it's easy to finance good art, I disagree. Where I live, most good theater productions are state funded. Production costs a lot. People aren't lining up around the block. Those who are lining up aren't willing to pay that much. A new wave of art marketing is improving things, but not enough. End of the day, art isn't very popular. The options are to subsidize, or let the industry die. If the art industry is as good as the money it brings in, then let it die. If its value to society is more than that, subsidize it. The commercial or non-state-funded theater productions (where I live) generally have little artistic value. They're populist and safe. Their priority is to be easy to market and to be a safe investment (think marvel movies).

willcipriano 3y ago
> People aren't lining up around the block. Art that doesn't move people isn't good art. You can argue all day long how great a show is but if nobody wants to see it (or at least enough to cover the cost of creating it), it isn't. (Sometimes things are discovered posthumously sure, but that's a rare exception) We would never subsidize a restaurant that served food nobody wants to eat, why subsidize art that nobody wants to see?
- Fricken 3y ago
  Orson Welles couldn't get his movies funded. Van Gogh never sold a painting. Mozart was near broke most of his career. The list of great artists who struggled to fund/sell and generally make a living off their work is so long it's a cliche. It can take a generation or several for this kind of work to matriculate into greater culture. Their value is immeasurable and uncapturable. Artistic and cultural works precede market economies by tens of thousands of years. A restaurant meal has an audience of 1 and is gone forever a half hour after it has been made.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    > Orson Welles couldn't get his movies funded. I've seen his films, were they made without funding? Of course not, so what you are really saying is Orson Welles didn't have a unlimited bucket of money to do anything with. > Van Gogh never sold a painting Van was profoundly mentally ill. It's not surprising he wasn't able to make a living doing anything let alone art. > Mozart was near broke most of his career. This was a long time ago prior to industrialization. The alternatives available to Mozart would've been much worse and paid much less. Poverty was much higher back then, Mozart did well.
- dmos62 3y ago
  Plain wrong. Art in our stage of society is inherently unpopular, not inherently bad.

by dmos62 3y ago

willcipriano 3y ago

> People aren't lining up around the block. Art that doesn't move people isn't good art. You can argue all day long how great a show is but if nobody wants to see it (or at least enough to cover the cost of creating it), it isn't. (Sometimes things are discovered posthumously sure, but that's a rare exception) We would never subsidize a restaurant that served food nobody wants to eat, why subsidize art that nobody wants to see?

Fricken 3y ago
Orson Welles couldn't get his movies funded. Van Gogh never sold a painting. Mozart was near broke most of his career. The list of great artists who struggled to fund/sell and generally make a living off their work is so long it's a cliche. It can take a generation or several for this kind of work to matriculate into greater culture. Their value is immeasurable and uncapturable. Artistic and cultural works precede market economies by tens of thousands of years. A restaurant meal has an audience of 1 and is gone forever a half hour after it has been made.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  > Orson Welles couldn't get his movies funded. I've seen his films, were they made without funding? Of course not, so what you are really saying is Orson Welles didn't have a unlimited bucket of money to do anything with. > Van Gogh never sold a painting Van was profoundly mentally ill. It's not surprising he wasn't able to make a living doing anything let alone art. > Mozart was near broke most of his career. This was a long time ago prior to industrialization. The alternatives available to Mozart would've been much worse and paid much less. Poverty was much higher back then, Mozart did well.
dmos62 3y ago
Plain wrong. Art in our stage of society is inherently unpopular, not inherently bad.