Let's see if this gets any play...

[sen_no_ongaku]

Proposal: Art should be created without the expectation of material compensation.

True or false?

Commonplace attitude or not?



[EDIT: This is not intended to imply that something created for with such an expectation cannot be art, though I may propose that sometime later.]

Comments

[ppaladin.livejournal.com]

I would argue, rather than ask 'should artists be better rewarded' ask, is there a problem with our current system -- if so, how can we fix it? Do we raise taxes to establish more grants to support artists, such that artists need concern themselves with 'making money' less? If so, we must also taken into account the market distortions that such a grant-making body would create. An artist would also need to be adept at grant applications and such to receive any of this cash (just as most big name scientists today often spend more time applying for grants that will fund their projects, than working on the projects themselves).

I guess where I am going with this is if artists should be better rewarded, where should that money come from? While our capitalist system is far from perfect, keeping the market as free as possible allows our own innate greed/desire for more video games, money, etc, to serve as an engine for innovation and development.

[sen-no-ongaku.livejournal.com]

I'm not asking, "Should artists be better rewarded?" I'm asking, "Should they expect to be rewarded at all?"

I suppose, in a larger sense, that means, "Do we, as a society, have an obligation to support art? If so, how do we decide what art is, to what extent should we support it, and what subsets of it should we support?"

From BD

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, I think I was confused by your question. There are other ways to support art than through money, many more important ones. To reference my subcategories below:

Fine art should be supported through money, private if possible, public if necessary (which it probably is).

"Idea" art should be supported through protecting the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and expression.

Entertainment art should be supported through copyright law, or, where copyright law breaks down, through some other legal structure which protects intellectual property.

Performance art should be supported through art programs in public education which give children an interest and enjoyment in art (this also serves to support pretty much all other forms of art, and has fringe benefits as well).

So yeah, grants, rights, legal protection and public education. These are all important.

Re: From BD

[sen-no-ongaku.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm interested in your answer as well; perhaps, in trying to be pithy, I ended up unclear.

I don't necessarily mean to have reduced my proposal to those questions I asked of ppaladin...

[ppaladin.livejournal.com]

As a society, we must either reward artists sufficiently to encourage development in the arts (IE copyright) or assume that doing art is its own reward. I would argue that seeing art as its own reward is inefficient -- forcing a truly good, truly dedicated artist to work a crappy second job to support an art habit makes society less rich -- that is, if the net worth of the art that the artist would produce is 'worth' more by some impartial societal scale than the net worth that the artist would otherwise contribute at a non-art job.

Disregarding the role of the artist for a moment, if we as designers of a society want the society have more art, we need to offer sufficient rewards to encourage people to dedicate their time to producing art.

If an artist can not expect any sort of rewards (IE able to put food on the table, not huge amounts of riches) then the realm of art becomes an elite enclave, for the independently wealthy and those supported by the wealthy. similar, perhaps, to the patronage system.

[sen-no-ongaku.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, I feel that the predominant attitude in most of Western culture (and maybe others, I don't know) is the one you call 'inefficient' -- that art is produced for art's sake. I'm not yet sure whether I agree or disagree.

----

If an artist can not expect any sort of rewards (IE able to put food on the table, not huge amounts of riches) then the realm of art becomes an elite enclave, for the independently wealthy and those supported by the wealthy. similar, perhaps, to the patronage system.

I would argue that the patronage system actually had the opposite effect of what you claim when it was dominant; at the very least, most 18th- and 19th- century composers whose music we still know today were supported by patrons either wealthy or royal.

---

If an artist can not expect any sort of rewards (IE able to put food on the table, not huge amounts of riches) then the realm of art becomes an elite enclave

Even in such a system, though, what about a song I write to celebrate a friend's birthday? What about a nice photograph I happen to take while on holiday, and frame? I (though I have no idea whether you) would still qualify those as art, though they won't be displayed at concert halls, or shown in galleries.

[ppaladin.livejournal.com]

Is the predominant behavior of western culture 'inefficient' -- that art is produced for art's sake, and not supported? We have an interesting superstar based pop music/movie system which grants huge economic rewards to certain artists that capture the public eye. These large, very visible rewards encourage a possibly inefficient number of people to attempt to become an artist of the same type -- take a look at American Idol if you want a real concrete example.

Do we seperate these very commercial art forms from some pure essence of art? Take the 'nice photograph' you mentioned -- Can we conceive of a society where a nice photograph I take on a trip would be qualified as art, and fetch some sort of reward for the artist?