"Why Are Artists Poor? The Exceptional Economy of the Arts" by Hans Abbing, Amsterdam University Press is a well written book that addresses similar issues Dyske Suematsu brought up in the following thread from last month. If you were as intrigued as I was with what Dyske had to say, then you will probably find this a pretty facinating read.
Jason Van Anden
Dyske Suematsu wrote:
> Beyond "Upper" Art
>
> Just as each culture has its own distinct taste, each economic class
> develops its own taste as well. This is easy to see especially in food
> culture–many in the lower class and some in the middle class live
> their entire lives not knowing what foie gras is. Not all mediums of
> art are popular across all classes. Some are tied to a specific class,
> like Fine Arts is to the upper class, and film is to the middle class.
> This means that success in each medium of art is measured by the taste
> of a class it is associated with. This has certain implications for
> artists who hope to succeed.
>
> The vast majority of artists comes from the middle class. As they
> become successful, they often cross over the lines of social classes.
> A natural way to look at this phenomenon is that with money comes the
> taste associated with it, but, in some cases, it is also possible to
> see it the other way around; they became successful because they
> acquired the taste of the upper class. In order to show what I mean by
> this, I will take Fine Arts and analyze the class dynamics within it.
>
> The upper-middle class and the upper class are the patrons of what we
> call Fine Arts in the West. For it to be financially viable, galleries
> must charge a minimum of several thousands dollars per work even of an
> emerging artist, a price which a middle class income could hardly
> afford for what essentially is a wall decoration. The success in Fine
> Arts, therefore, is contingent on the tastes of these social classes.
>
> What distinguishes the upper class from the upper-middle class is that
> the members of the former do not have to work. They have a lot of time
> on their hands to cultivate taste, and thus develop more radical taste
> than that of the upper-middle class. For the upper-middle class, art
> must still be functional to a degree. They cannot buy artworks and
> send them straight to a warehouse; they buy artworks so that they can
> display them in their houses. This severely limits the types of work
> they can purchase, which makes them conservative supporters of art.
>
> The upper class, on the other hand, has other reasons for buying art
> besides decorating their houses. One of them is pure investment.
> Buying art is as risky as, if not riskier than, buying penny-stocks or
> junk bonds. Like the way venture capitalists diversify their holdings
> in order to hedge their risk, if their motive is to make money, the
> collectors of contemporary art must also diversify. This is a strategy
> only the upper class can afford to execute. In order to beat the
> market, they must think more radically. The criteria for buying art
> cannot be confined to practicality. They have to think strictly in
> terms of the future potential of the artist.
>
> In addition, the upper class buys art in order to assert their
> identities. The middle class does the same by collecting books and
> CDs. Those who lack identities of their own must define them by
> consuming identities of others. Knowing what books and CDs a person
> owns is a convenient way to know something subjective about him. The
> members of the upper class go beyond mass-produced products of art.
> Instead of asking what books and CDs they own, they ask what fine
> artists they own.
>
> For those of us in the middle class, it is hard to imagine why anyone
> would buy a piece of conceptual art that consists of a DVD player and
> a projector for 10 thousand dollars. But, if your annual household
> income is 4 million dollars, 10 thousand dollars would be equivalent
> to 100 dollars of the middle class household income of 40 thousand
> dollars. It is not difficult to imagine collecting as a hobby
> something that cost 100 dollars each.
>
> The upper class being the sole supporter of radical contemporary art,
> the success of artists hinges on whether they succeed in pleasing
> their taste. In this sense, Fine Arts should be called "upper art" not
> "high art." Most artists are in the middle class when they start their
> careers as artists, but for them to be successful, they must cultivate
> the taste of the upper class. This means that initially their taste is
> out of sync with who they are, but as they succeed, their financial
> status comes in sync with their taste. Filmmakers and musicians have
> the opposite problem. They must please the taste of the middle class,
> but as they succeed financially and join the upper class, they must
> preserve their middle class taste. By failing to do so, they would
> alienate their market.
>
> Consumers of identities, whether middle class or upper class, are
> often drawn to what they are not. The White middle class is drawn to
> the Black street culture. Obedient kids are drawn to rebellious music.
> Suburban kids are drawn to urban culture. And so on. Successfully
> pleasing the taste of the upper class, therefore, does not mean doing
> as they do. Pandering to the apparent taste of the upper class would
> probably be a mistake. Exploiting their self-hatred or sense of guilt
> might be wiser.
>
> Since the tastes of the upper-middle class and the upper class are
> quite different, the artists who please the former may find themselves
> stuck with a moderate success, unable to achieve the status of "blue
> chip" artists. For them, a gradual shift into something more radical
> in taste during their mid-career might be strategically wise.
>
> How artists deal with the discrepancy between the taste they must
> cultivate and what they are in reality, has certain spiritual
> implications. Suppose what you do as an artist pleases you as well as
> the taste the upper class. If you are intentional in pleasing both, it
> is good business. It is like a baker who loves baking and pleasing his
> customers. If it does not particularly please you but it pleases the
> upper class, then it is prostitution. If it pleases you but you do not
> question where the money is coming from, then it is a shady business
> like selling bongs-the upfront premise of your business is to sell
> artistic substance (to smoke tobacco), but the buyer's true purpose is
> to satisfy their egotistical needs or greed (to smoke marijuana).
>
> In this sense, digital art offers an interesting alternative. Anything
> can be co-opted by the rich, but both the immediacy of access and the
> ease of duplication of digital art function as natural deterrents
> against it. This is true to some degree for photography. Many
> photographers like Robert Mapplethorpe appeal to the middle class as
> well as to the upper class. Once digital art establishes a market in
> the middle class, it would be an ideal medium for artists who have
> something compelling to say for the taste of their own class.
>
> Dyske Suematsu - April 13, 2004
>
> -
Beyond "Upper" Art - reprise
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Type: discussion