The arts bring meaning to our lives and spirit to our culture — so why do we expect artists to struggle to make a living? Hadi Eldebek is working to create a society where artists are valued through an online platform that matches artists with grants and funding opportunities — so they can focus on their craft instead of their side hustle.
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Market forces?
This title can shock many people. But I think if money controls so much the composing abilities, the musical works will be like suck :0
From Beethoven and his patrons to Miles Davis and his labels, artists were always dependent on money.
The thing is, money doesn’t have to control the music. Someone can say, “hey, I like what you’re doing.” And give them money and that can encourage the emergence of non-mainstream (cookie cutter) music.
Taxation is theft
Abortion is murder. So what. I support abortion and taxation.
Peter II the argument I am trying to make is people in need of these services, soon there will be an offer, how it will not be monopolized, will have competition, prices reduced, costs with time will go down, entrepreneurs will emerge, innovations will see, innovations that neither I nor you we can imagine, states currently steal at least 1/3 of the world’s wealth, and still the incentives (that we can measure the damage) for non-entrepreneurship and the highest of all inflation, I do not defend by ultilitarism, I defend by ethics, so it does not matter to me
Also freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength
For people that call Somalia a lawless hellscape… there are a lot of people trying to mimic their taxation structure (or lack there of)
“I want to benefit from living in a large-scale society without having to contribute to it. I cannot see my role in a social order past my immediate interactions.”
Soo, he left the music career to create a financial platform… 🙂
Because they take a risk and create something no one has asked for initially, hoping that when it is seen, someone will pay for it. I like art a lot, and it is important, but also simply hard to make a living out of. Normal business are succesful because they do the opposite. They usually create or sell stuff they know a lot of people want.
Jacco Stoete i don’t think this is accurate. Seasoned artists know what their audience is expecting, and create more of what sells (that’s why Jay-z, Alex Grey, & Steven Spielberg don’t change their style much), but some artists are more niche and experimental. The real reason why artists don’t make enough money, is lack of proper exposure, and sometimes, it is nothing but a sheer lack of funding for materials or equipment holding them back (can you imagine Steven Spielberg films without the millions to fund the production? Nobody would watch that!)
I think we need a new industry related to the arts, not JUST funding- like a marketing company for artists; agents that find the right clientele for the right artists and connect them with their audience along with the funding that will enable them to produce for their crowd.
Not any harder than trying to start any other business.
Guess now his plan A is salesman
Because supply is high and demand is low
I’d argue that if you don’t have intellectual ownership of the thing you’re working on, you’re not an artist: You’re the mechanic to someone else’s engineer, and the art world is full of mechanics.
rahn45 And I’ll argue that F1 mechanics earn pretty darn well.
If there’s 100 F1s and 100,000 F1 mechanics, do you think they’ll still be paid well?
rahn45 Doesn’t matter: if 100 F1 or 10 Triple A movie or 1 Project or whatever ultimatelly makes millions, those millions need to trickle down the chain to make everyone a good living. This goes for every line of bussines/industry whether it is artist, mechanic, office worker, cleaning staff, you name it.
Congratulations, you’ve managed to dodge both my points.
It is the pain that causes the art
ଭ୍ରୁଗୁରାଜ ପ୍ରଧାନ not true at all. Suffering artists are too depressed to create.
He didn’t really speak on why we must be poor.
Eames get a real job.
papabeanguy actors and CEO’s , bankers(manipulators) drive innovation? None of these are needed.
Urelasir so art is something you do after you have a real job.
Friedrich Marx I think you didnt read one bit of what I wrote. That or you just like playing dumb.
Staring poor will weed out the ones that suck.
Because the arts don’t provide as much value as science /engineering. Simple as that.
Without the (scientific) advances brought on by the industrial and agricultural revolutions 6 out of every 7 people on Earth would die. I would rather have new antibiotics than some new non-commercially viable piece of art.
Even defense funding has provided more for the US *per dollar spent* than arts funding. Defense spending been critical to the way our post WWII technological base progressed (jet engines, commercial aviation, commercial space industry, lasers, nuclear power, semiconductors, RF technology, internet and networks, etc). What has publicly funded art done for me lately, or ever?
Before someone asks, “why can’t we fund everything at once”, look up what opportunity cost is.
Okay, lets clear something up. This discussion isn’t about art vs no art. It is about the *public funding* of art. Nobody is trying to ban art as private enterprise or as a hobby.
And speaking of cultural bias, why should art be given preference over any other activity? Why not publicly fund hockey, or stamp collecting, or computer gaming, or any other hobby/activity people do?
Shakespeare and Yeats have nothing to do with Science, doing science is not dependent on art in any way. And I would really rather this not devolve into an irrelevant discussion on the “philosophy of science”.
What makes you think arts promote/train critical thinking more than the sciences? The decision loop that underpins the scientific method is critical thinking at a fundamental level.
“Because the arts don’t provide as much value as science /engineering.” Then you aren’t looking at the possibilities.
“Why must artists be poor?” – Title
“Because the arts don’t provide as much value as science /engineering. Simple as that. ” – Your first response
My attitude was based on your first statement. From my personal experience having studied a decent amount of math, physics and art I can say that I have learned how to really think through art. Not to say art promotes/trains critical thinking more, but I do think they can be on equal fields. After studying ideas and concepts through art I am not able to better analyze other aspects of the world. I went in learning about physics with the goal of learning about physics, but with art I went in with a goal of learning about my mind and how I can solve the problems within art which lead to being able to solve other problems too.
This is an incredibly complex idea and honestly a paragraph is no where close to explaining my thoughts on this. I am unsure where I stand on publicly funded art also. After seeing some of the things my classmates had produced I would not want my money promoting such horrendous things. I also am not very knowledgeable about all things that are publicly funded.
epiphalog I think you have made a valid point here. I would extend that by saying the reason that art should be publicly funded is the exact reason that it isn’t: because it encourages people to see things differently. It is often artists who highlight political corruption, who bring attention to issues of environment, gender inequality and identity issues, as well as challenging censorship in repressive regimes – including western societies. It is no surprise that those eras in which art and artistry were predominant – the European renaissance and the 1960s US are key examples – were also eras of immense human, scientific and technological advancement. The creative mind is the key to unlocking potential across a range of spheres of endeavour. Food for thought.
Yeah, I like what you have said. Art in the 20th century was really a whole bunch of challenging definitions and boundaries of the world to see if there was a better way to look at things. Now that being said some of the things challenged may have been silly and the way people went about some of those things were also silly, but still, I think the fact that American art in the early-mid 1900’s literally changed the way the world thought shows that whether good or bad art can redefine the course of our human race.
Because a lot of art has little to no economic value. Like someone else commented: supply is high and demand lower. I know artists who can’t make ends meet with their art alone. It’s a shame because they wish they could, but why should they be able to? Many people are in jobs they don’t like as much or for which they often do things they don’t like. Why shouldn’t those people be able to only do the parts of their job they like? Art is great but shouldn’t receive government funding, I’d rather see lower taxes with only essential things being paid for, and art can be funded by people who think it’s worth the money.
Jake Dean So then never watch a film. Never listen to music. Never read a book, or see a play, or watch a TV show. If we followed the philosophy ‘Never fund the Arts’ then what would you spend your time doing?
Art is a product just like anything else. If we want out civilisations to keep making these products we enjoy and consume, then the current and next generations needs training and the opportunities to create, because we get tired of consuming the same thing over and over, fast. And we can only discover we like something if someone is given the opportunity and money to experiment and create something new.
And obviously he’s not saying ‘Give ALL money everywhere to the Arts’ – just a little bit of funding, like he suggested.
So take money by government force and give it to artists who are unable to get money voluntarily from the populace? No thanks.
But if he wants to bring together willing patrons and artists, fine whatever.
I agree, and i am an artist. No career should have to be funded by govt taxation theft via taxes taken from other working people.
Because idealism.
I’m Italian and, to be quite honest, I’m disappointed by the fact that so much money is given to artists. The reason why I’m disappointed is that I see the results and I wouldn’t call that “art”. Leonardo, Palladio, Canova, Michelangelo, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Leopardi, Gaudì, Caravaggio, …., these people were artists. KennyRandom is an artist and he started in the streets of Padua, I’m quite sure he didn’t get money from my country or the EU. Artists don’t have to be poor, as everyone else they just have to earn money by doing a good job…
We are seeking fairness…
How funny…. there is no fairness in this world when it comes to economic or money. No matter how much you seek for it…
Inequality… come on be realistic a bit are you… why government need to pay for your art？ why the taxpayer need to pay for your art? If your art couldn’t sell itself through the populace.
You are demanding government to pay for your art but no ones (populace) want to pay for it…
Government money means government strings. Government money for artists? Not unless you want art to become irrelevant to society and its issues.
The poor artists are the ones who carry a big ego, who create ‘art’ and then demand others praise it.
If you create things other people like, they will give you money for it. It’s why a lot of creative types are using Patreon or other crowdfunding platforms.
It’s your portfolio that matters, not your education. I never went to any kind of art school and I make art for my living. If you get good enough there will be far more demand for your work that you could ever possibly hope to supply. That’s the critical mass part of being an artist. You need to put things out there, and you need to put it out frequently enough so that other people pay attention.
Art is subjective, and so is comedy; but imagine if comedians were subsidized! We’d be drowning in knock-knock and fart jokes and actual talented comics would struggle to get noticed because people will simply dismiss the whole comedy scene for being childish. Kinda like what ‘modern’ art is these days, since a lot of times it’s literally garbage; and it’s just a bunch of egotistical artists praising each other’s own farts while the people looking at it don’t find any actual joy in it, they just want to be part of the ‘cultured club.’
The ultimate reality of being an artist is that you need to be laser focused on a small target audience if you want to be successful. Every time any art that is produced in any kind of media that tries to cater to the largest and lowest common denominator it ultimately is forgotten, because it is bland and generic; it’s a piece of white bread. It might be the best piece of white bread in the world, but it’s still plain and boring.
rahn45 VERY WELL SAID! love this!
Your words sound jealous somehow.
Jealous of what? Certainly not the guy in the talk who is aspiring to be an ‘artist’ but doesn’t present any of his work. It’s all speculation but I suspect no one wants to pay any money for whatever his art is. He’s pushing for something that already exists: Crowdfunding.
He doesn’t seem to have any experience as an artist because being poor is probably the easiest hurdle to overcome. The hardest one is to actually get yourself to work on your craft, all the time, as much as you can. To overcome your own self-doubt, to compare your work to what you’ve done before and not to people who are ahead of you in your ability. To not let your own sense of creativity be trampled on in an effort to cater to what others want from you. To be able to manage your own focus, motivation, and to avoid burnout.
If you create something that can elicit any kind of emotion from other people on a consistent and regular basis, a fan base will form around you. The Internet has thousands of artists who make a living from the fan bases they’ve created around themselves: Music, animation, comics, drawings, stories, comedy, acting, speaking, construction; it’s all already there.
The people who don’t make it are the ones who do it chasing dollar signs instead of following their own passions. There’s a lot of people out there and a lot of artistic niches, a lot of them who work a job and work on their art; and once they reach that fan base critical mass they can do art full time as their living.
This guy didn’t make it as an artist, and instead of looking inwards to see how he could improve himself, he’s blaming the system; it’s pitiful.
rahn45 absolutely. Bare facts.
I use to be a chemical engineering major before switching to art/tech degree. The tech side, luckily, will help me in the future but outside of our art bubble… We are undervalued and because we are undervalued, many people see it as we should be working for next to nothing at our craft. So many artists being harassed because theyre commissions are too expensive (even if its 50 dollars) and so many artists purposefully undervalue their work to get commissions while also going to school and/or having a job because they dont want to go through that hassle or being worried someone will try to rip them off. It shouldnt have to be like that, but it will be so long as artists arent seen as a valuable part of society, despite art being a staple in many aspects of life like music, architecture, games, movies, photography, fashion, writing, theater, etc. These mediums have powerful uses, capable of bring people together. To make them smile. To feel something.
That shouldnt be undervalued.
TheMaddies agreed!
You’re not undervalued. The market decides value at any given point in time, and the results are in! lol
We would all love to sit around and “express ourselves,” make our own schedules, do projects we’re interested in, but some of us have to go to work and be productive.
sneakymikels1 artists who make a living with their skills ARE being productive. They have to become entrepenouts, businessmen and social media experts while making art for others. Its easy to romantisize being a professional artist but in reality is damn hard work. But what makes it worth it is that its something youre not only good at, but enjoy. Its still a job.
The Grey Heathen what is more important: obtaining necessities for survival or doing something you enjoy? Work is work. It isn’t supposed to be fun. The reason we all work is to obtain the means to be able to live comfortably so we can afford do the things we want to do and have leisure time. Picking a profession in which there is a high likelihood you will be poor seems irresponsible.
sneakymikels1 our global addiction to production is going to kill us all.
Ted Bolha Atheism Philosophy Science there’s no turning back now