silent frenzies

to bring you that one cloud in this cup of water

Quote Post
Ultimately, we know that the creation of a few art stars is based on the unrewarded labor of the majority, but the art market, which has grown exponentially in the last 20 years, has made art look like a viable form of employment. Art students flock to MFA programs, which have increased drastically since the 1990s, with the expectation that they too can “make it.” The vast sums of money floating through galleries and auction houses has helped to conceal the fact that most artists will never earn a living from their work. Driven to ever greater fits of productivity, artists become more vulnerable by competing against one another for every opportunity—all for the chance to succeed in an industry that treats their cultural output as products for a hyperinflated market or as display items in noncommercial spaces that are unlikely to pay them.
—

Erin Sickler, “Art and the 99%”, Art in America, Jan 2012

Thanks for explaining to me why I should not beat myself up over the fact that I’m working for racists and why everybody has been calling Time Warner to change their internet package from “standard” to “basic”.  I can shower, eat, feed and walk my dog, and wash my car in the time it takes my tumblr dashboard to load now after my downgrade.  I am blogging from a library.

Also, I hate the good-natured but stupid coffeehouses that have art hanging on the walls with cream-colored price tags dangling from the frames.  Nobody buys art from those places, because people who go there are grad students who can hardly afford a 3 dollar latte.  Can you imagine how humiliating and depressing it must be for someone to walk in the cafe and see their own art still hanging there with an inch of dust sitting on top of the frame?  I can.

Posted in art quote art market art in america | 1 note
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