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Damn the Market and Full Speed Ahead!
June 20, 2006

The Art Market. It's like buying and selling anything really -- a razor with five blades that costs more, when a single blade works as well; Julian Schnabel's Ho-hum expressionist shmears which are nothing really new or exciting or even particularly well done techinically... but they're BIG; Scott Turrow selling writing by the pound.

I know people who are more talented than Turrow or Schnabel, but they don't have the "Brand". They're not marketable, and the powers-that-be would rather not take a chance at making them marketable.

Capitalism just isn't arts friendly.

I once worked with a guy who was a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago. He told me some horror stories. His time there was all about pursuing fellowships and grants (understandable) but not just for the money, but to be able to get into a grad school (not understandable).

Huh?... Grad school for art?

If I'm not mistaken, Picasso and Monet and Rembrandt and lo-ong list of other rightly famous artists never even had BFAs, let alone MFAs.

Mind you, any old grad school won't do it. It must be one of only a half dozen or so schools, very pricey ones too, such as Yale.  Yale? 

So if you have an MFA, from one of the right schools (no small feat given the number of openings vs the number of applicants) then you will be a brand artist. You will automatically be represented by a major gallery and command prices that enable you to live comfortably on your income as an artist.

But getting the grants and fellowships which improves one's chances of getting into the right grad school requires one to chase ever changing trends. The student must win the approval of the faculty by producing a body of work aping what's hot in the Soho galleries. If one miscalculates, and does something that is like so last winter -- or, god forbid, new and original -- they've blown it.

What's right with this picture?

I gave up on mainstream venues for my art many years ago. I simply don't have the provenance to make a living as a painter. I'm willing to be a wage slave by day and paint seriously in my spare time. Showing my work in pubs, cafes and on line galleries will suit me. It will have to.


There are 2 Comments for Damn the Market and Full Speed Ahead!

Art and commerce have always been bedfellows. The pursuit of academic "success" is a phenomenon amongst writers, too, and I'll give you it's pretty twisted, but it's really just a variation of the painters and musicians who sought to get into the good graces of the Medici. Money talks, babe. None of which is new to you, but just keep this in mind: it IS possible to pair quality with commercial success. Mark Twain and John Steinbeck were both bestsellers. This here computer machine offers a unique opportunity to not have to worry so much about the commerce end. That's cool. But the marketplace need not be, necessarily, one's enemy.
from E Bennet over 2 years ago
They've always been bedfellows in the modern (post medieval era) true enough. And before that art was in the service of the church, so I understand that artists have always been tapdancing for somebody. And they should, truth be told. • Pairing commercial success and quality has been increasingly difficult as the 20th century has turned into the 21st, and culture, like everything, has become disposable. • I noticed that the examples you've noted both died before you or I were even dirty thoughts of our parents.
from Beefy Beeferton over 2 years ago

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