“An artist is a businessperson - they hate it, but it’s true -’
Oh you hit one out of the park. I have a disabled (truly not a fake disability) liberal friend that is an artist. He paints some hideous portraits that supposedly show the human condition. He shows that work in galleries and such in Western Pennsylvania. He gets raves from the critics but seldom sells any of those works. He supports himself by painting generic landscapes that he sells for $100.00 each at flea markets and that he signs with a different name. He can sell 5 of those a week and they take him about 1 to 1.5 hours to paint.
He complains that nobody buys his real art and how he feels like a prostitute selling “over the sofa pictures”
He got sort of miffed when I suggested that art is what the patron buying it says it is rather than what the artist says it is.
Because no conservative is stupid enough to call Jesus in a jar of urine art.
There is art and then there is decor. Sometimes the two coincide, but more often not. Intentionally utilizing stylish color combinations in imagery that suits the current trend is the lifeblood of practically every artist, even up to the level of those with some regional fame and recognition.
The artist who completely refuses to accomodate popular tastes at an accessible price point in producing decor, but yet still manages to prosper, has invariably gotten the imprimatur of the progressive aesthetic elite, which leads to “public” art commissions. This art is almost uniformly bad but very political. It’s intended to offend the traditional. They hate everything about that.
He got sort of miffed when I suggested that art is what the patron buying it says it is rather than what the artist says it is.
The things he sells are obviously the real art.
People will generally rave about some ones work because that is the exceptable thing do.