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I know an artist. My favorite statement he repeated was, "It isn't art until it's sold, until then it's a storage problem". Highbrow modern art has a very very

I know an artist. My favorite statement he repeated was, "It isn't art until it's sold, until then it's a storage problem". Highbrow modern art has a very very very tiny niche market of people who mainly invest in art of large sums of money for complex and personal reasons that normally boil down to looking for the next Pollock, Warhol, etc. There's an entire ecosystem of galleries, showings, parties, and auction houses devoted to these highly wealthy patrons. It's a pretty insular and self-involved world. An artists biggest skill in this market has little to do with their technical skill. Technical skill is easy and can be purchased on Fiverr if you need. Art schools are part of this market. Most people on the other hand don't go to galleries. They buy prints, hallmark cards, download wallpapers from DeviantArt, etc. Illustrators and graphic designers are thriving in this market, but are totally ignored by the high brow market (unless you get big enough). Basically, it's just artists following market demands.

rdtsc 12y ago
> An artists biggest skill in this market has little to do with their technical skill. Would it be accurate to complete the idea and say that it is about marketing & networking instead? The personality of the artist is just as much for sale as the "art".
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  This is sadly true IMHO. In many respects, the marketing campaign is the artistic endeavor. I can sort of see how this fits into the historical continuum, eg in a few centuries ago the church and the aristocracy were the commissioners and arbiters of art and in that highly politicized context artists produced portraits of the powerful and religious allegories because that was what the market demanded. Nowadays artists produce work that is reflective and glorificatory of global manufacturing supply chains and ultraspecific brand identity and are handsomely rewarded for their personification of otherwise abstract corporate values - Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons being the leading British and American practitioners of this post-modernistic aesthetic. I think these artists are making a serious and successful artistic statement, albeit a highly indirect one. At the same time I find it sort of deplorable because I think art should be an intimate personal experience rather than a spectacular sociological one. Somehow I derive much more enjoyment from my own failed or inchoate than I do from most of what is promoted to me as art, with artists' statements that read like so much ad copy.
lstamour 12y ago
Ask 100 artists what they personally think art or fine art is, and you'll likely get 100 different answers. At least, that's my understanding of it. Artists follow market demands the way entrepreneurs might. Which is to say, very imprecisely. I mean, who can say why something should or shouldn't succeed until it does? All you can do is build technique and keep at it until they buy/bite/like you, right?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
SiVal 12y ago
I have a relatively simple rule about what is and isn't art. It doesn't have to be everyone's rule--it's just my rule: Nothing is objectively art; art is always in the eye of the beholder, but it's only real art to someone if they would want it even if no one else ever saw it. Take a toilet nailed to the wall. If the person who created this thing would have done so if he had known that no one else would ever see it, if he would have nailed the toilet to his own wall at home knowing that he was the only one who would ever see it just because HE HIMSELF wanted to look at it, then it really is art to him. It's not any art that I'm interested in, but that doesn't matter. All art is subjective. It is a genuine expression of his own esthetic desires. It IS art to him. But if he would never consider such a thing for himself, if it's only part of a show he puts on for others in hopes of getting paid ("it speaks to the inhumanity of corporate greed...blah, blah" he explains greedily), then it's just a commercial product. If it's nothing he would have any interest in without the audience, but it's about getting attention, not money, then it's a publicity stunt, not art. To the artist, it's not art. (If it really is art to the artist, it can ALSO be a commercial product or publicity stunt while remaining art to him.) And if the wealthy customer would have no interest in it if he couldn't show off his "statement" to others, then it's not art to him, either. It's some sort of signalling, or a commercial investment, or whatever, but it's not art to him. And if potential buyers knew that it was not even art to the artist, what might that mean to them? Of course, I can't be sure what really is in someone else's mind, but if I doubt that the artist would sincerely want this poo-covered crucifix in his own living room for his private enjoyment, nor that the rich people swooning over its deep meaning would care if they couldn't show off their depth to their friends, it means I'm doubting that this piece of junk is really art to anybody.
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  > But if he would never consider such a thing for himself, if it's only part of a show he puts on for others in hopes of getting paid ("it speaks to the inhumanity of corporate greed...blah, blah" he explains greedily), You seem to be referring to Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (the urinal) and if so you are missing the point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readymades_of_Marcel_Duchamp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readymades_of_Marcel_Duchamp > Take a toilet nailed to the wall. If the person who created this thing would have done so if he had known that no one else would ever see it, if he would have nailed the toilet to his own wall at home knowing that he was the only one who would ever see it just because HE HIMSELF wanted to look at it, then it really is art to him. It's not any art that I'm interested in, but that doesn't matter. All art is subjective. It is a genuine expression of his own esthetic desires. It IS art to him. Art is a statement and you can't isolate that statement in a vacuum that would cut it from its historical perspective. > Nothing is objectively art; art is always in the eye of the beholder, but it's only real art to someone if they would want it even if no one else ever saw it. Of course, but the context around the piece of art is indeed objective.
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>Most people on the other hand don't go to galleries. They buy prints, hallmark cards, download wallpapers from DeviantArt, etc. Illustrators and graphic designers are thriving in this market, but are totally ignored by the high brow market (unless you get big enough). I have an illustrator friend who would sure love to know how to get paid.

rdtsc 12y ago

> An artists biggest skill in this market has little to do with their technical skill. Would it be accurate to complete the idea and say that it is about marketing & networking instead? The personality of the artist is just as much for sale as the "art".

anigbrowl 12y ago
This is sadly true IMHO. In many respects, the marketing campaign is the artistic endeavor. I can sort of see how this fits into the historical continuum, eg in a few centuries ago the church and the aristocracy were the commissioners and arbiters of art and in that highly politicized context artists produced portraits of the powerful and religious allegories because that was what the market demanded. Nowadays artists produce work that is reflective and glorificatory of global manufacturing supply chains and ultraspecific brand identity and are handsomely rewarded for their personification of otherwise abstract corporate values - Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons being the leading British and American practitioners of this post-modernistic aesthetic. I think these artists are making a serious and successful artistic statement, albeit a highly indirect one. At the same time I find it sort of deplorable because I think art should be an intimate personal experience rather than a spectacular sociological one. Somehow I derive much more enjoyment from my own failed or inchoate than I do from most of what is promoted to me as art, with artists' statements that read like so much ad copy.

lstamour 12y ago

Ask 100 artists what they personally think art or fine art is, and you'll likely get 100 different answers. At least, that's my understanding of it. Artists follow market demands the way entrepreneurs might. Which is to say, very imprecisely. I mean, who can say why something should or shouldn't succeed until it does? All you can do is build technique and keep at it until they buy/bite/like you, right?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

SiVal 12y ago

I have a relatively simple rule about what is and isn't art. It doesn't have to be everyone's rule--it's just my rule: Nothing is objectively art; art is always in the eye of the beholder, but it's only real art to someone if they would want it even if no one else ever saw it. Take a toilet nailed to the wall. If the person who created this thing would have done so if he had known that no one else would ever see it, if he would have nailed the toilet to his own wall at home knowing that he was the only one who would ever see it just because HE HIMSELF wanted to look at it, then it really is art to him. It's not any art that I'm interested in, but that doesn't matter. All art is subjective. It is a genuine expression of his own esthetic desires. It IS art to him. But if he would never consider such a thing for himself, if it's only part of a show he puts on for others in hopes of getting paid ("it speaks to the inhumanity of corporate greed...blah, blah" he explains greedily), then it's just a commercial product. If it's nothing he would have any interest in without the audience, but it's about getting attention, not money, then it's a publicity stunt, not art. To the artist, it's not art. (If it really is art to the artist, it can ALSO be a commercial product or publicity stunt while remaining art to him.) And if the wealthy customer would have no interest in it if he couldn't show off his "statement" to others, then it's not art to him, either. It's some sort of signalling, or a commercial investment, or whatever, but it's not art to him. And if potential buyers knew that it was not even art to the artist, what might that mean to them? Of course, I can't be sure what really is in someone else's mind, but if I doubt that the artist would sincerely want this poo-covered crucifix in his own living room for his private enjoyment, nor that the rich people swooning over its deep meaning would care if they couldn't show off their depth to their friends, it means I'm doubting that this piece of junk is really art to anybody.

johnchristopher 12y ago
> But if he would never consider such a thing for himself, if it's only part of a show he puts on for others in hopes of getting paid ("it speaks to the inhumanity of corporate greed...blah, blah" he explains greedily), You seem to be referring to Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (the urinal) and if so you are missing the point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readymades_of_Marcel_Duchamp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readymades_of_Marcel_Duchamp > Take a toilet nailed to the wall. If the person who created this thing would have done so if he had known that no one else would ever see it, if he would have nailed the toilet to his own wall at home knowing that he was the only one who would ever see it just because HE HIMSELF wanted to look at it, then it really is art to him. It's not any art that I'm interested in, but that doesn't matter. All art is subjective. It is a genuine expression of his own esthetic desires. It IS art to him. Art is a statement and you can't isolate that statement in a vacuum that would cut it from its historical perspective. > Nothing is objectively art; art is always in the eye of the beholder, but it's only real art to someone if they would want it even if no one else ever saw it. Of course, but the context around the piece of art is indeed objective.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

>Most people on the other hand don't go to galleries. They buy prints, hallmark cards, download wallpapers from DeviantArt, etc. Illustrators and graphic designers are thriving in this market, but are totally ignored by the high brow market (unless you get big enough). I have an illustrator friend who would sure love to know how to get paid.