Most artists are from comfortably middle class backgrounds.
At least the ones that I have met down the years have been.
rhoda klapp
Starving artists living in garrets is a trope. Artists are supposed to suffer for their art.
Trouble is there is a shortage of garrets nowadays.
John
This, surely, is one of the reasons why the most successful creative practitioners in all art forms now tend to be those with access to private resources (money, education, contacts)
No, surely it isn’t. The most successful practitioners will possess the necessary talent plus the nous to produce what actual people, as opposed to governments, are prepared to pay for.
Mind you, to prove I’m not a complete Philistine, I will grudgingly support the traditional stipend of a barrel of fine sherry to a handful of worthy recipients.
MC
What the Graun says is utter bollocks.
There’s more than 5.3 million people on out of work benefits. None of the fuckers appear to be starving. In fact, so comfortable are they on welfare that we have one million job vacancies which they cannot be bothered to fill.
And they certainly have the time on their hands to create art. Or they could get a job and get creative in their spare time. Worked for Larkin, Eliot etc
Franz Kafka was never called an asshole
As the actor Julie Hesmondhalgh said last week, young artists in 2020s Britain are often caught-up in the “Kafkaesque” perfect storm of a punitive benefits system, an intractable housing crisis and an unforgiving work culture – all of which can leave very little time or space for creative experiments.
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
“Brexit did this,” he thought.
Bloke in the Fourth Reich
Just think, we’d never have had Mozart if he hadn’t been able to scrounge off government welfare and instead had to constantly chase wealthy patrons for commissions.
Bloke in the Fourth Reich
Incidentally you have one of those silly adverts on the right that says “Remember her? Grab a tissue before you see her.”
That may mean different things to different people.
Boganboy
Perhaps you’ve noticed the dreadful scandal in Oz. Some ‘aboriginal’ art has been ‘completed’ or ‘adjusted’ by /shudder/ /vomit/ ‘white’ hands.
So if there’s any shortage of ‘artists’ available, I’m sure Oz can fill the gap!!
DiscoveredJoys
Art is very important indeed – to a small proportion of people. You could make a reasonable assertion that most of the ‘successful’ art is not real art but virtue signalling art by the artists and their well-off customers.
I already believe that the UK Art Councils should be wound up. Do we wish to ‘pay’ for more ‘art’ from public funds? Not when there are more direct calls on public money.
Sam Vara
Whichever way you look at it, there is too much art around. Loads of third-rate people have been encouraged to produce shite. Let people have hobbies by all means, but let’s not pretend that they need to earn a living doing it.
And if the test of good art is that it has an enduring appeal, then that happy time when all that good art was produced by kids on the dole should see us through, shouldn’t it….
Bloke on M4
“The problem is?”
This isn’t actually true, and never has been because of one simple thing: patronage. Whether it’s people who love art, or people in the field already, people want to nurture talent. The Royal Ballet school wants the kids from the council estates who are the next Nijinsky. Denzel Washington paid for Chadwick Boseman to go to an acting trip to Oxford. Dave Gilmour got Kate Bush’s career off the ground. Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran produced Too Shy for Kajagoogoo. Mel Gibson basically saving Robert Downey Jr’s life and getting him acting work. Because we all know that in the same place, we’d probably do the same for someone as gifted as RDJ.
Now, mediocre talent won’t get a leg up, but who cares? Great talent, the uncut diamonds will. People will. I had a kid assigned to me from a council estate who wanted to program and was one of the most naturally gifted people I’ve ever worked with. And I spent a lot of my own time teaching him, helping him in his personal life. I can’t give a rational explanation for what I got out of it, but I did it.
Grikath
Ah…. Artists…. Yeah.. they can starve for whatever they’re trying to foist on the unsuspecting and expect to make a living off it.
It’s funny how actual (amateur) artisans and craftsmen have absolutely no problems flogging their stuff and make a nice sideline, and sometimes even a full living out of what they’re doing.
Probably has something to do with it being the Wrong Kind of Art.
Biggest laugh I’ve had about this lately is with a friend who paints. It’s his Zen thingie.
Turns out people like his stuff, and he got an order from the U.S. for three commisioned paintings.
So I congratulated him on promoting from “Artist” to “Evil Commercial Sell-out” and we went for drinkies to celebrate.
Bloke in North Dorset
Making art is a hobby until you either sell enough to be able to live from the proceeds or you have a benefactor/patron/husband who subsidises the cost until that is achieved. Taxpayers do not count as a benefactor/patron/husband.
Charles
The problem is that it’s not the rich that should make art, it’s those best at doing so.
Though it’s not clear that those best at making art are prevented from doing so. Even nowadays, there are rich people who buy art to support artists, and of course some artists can make a living from their art – though there is always the doubt over whether commercially successful art is actually the best.
Chester Draws
though there is always the doubt over whether commercially successful art is actually the best.
How can the stuff the most people like, not be the best?
I know the contemporary wank art of museums is considered “better” by the cognoscenti, but I would bet that in 100 years that it won’t be.
My life has been greatly improved by telling my wife that I refuse to go view art in museums produced after 1950. She thinks I’m a philistine, but I don’t have to look at piles of rubbish (sometimes literally) and pretend they have meaning.
Bloke on M4
Chester Draws,
By 1950, cinema and advertising had become the art spaces. Various technology maturing led to the talent drawing ads, posters, making films. Expressionist cinema really goes back to the early 20s, but was very much mature by 1950 and talented artists moved into it by then.
Think about what are the striking, iconic images from the 1940s paintings, and there’s Nighthawks, a few Norman Rockwells, maybe some WW2 paintings, but it’s mostly cinema: shots from Citizen Kane, The Red Shoes, Dumbo, Great Expectations, The Wizard of Oz, The Great Dictator, The Third Man, Sunset Boulevard.
And think about everything since. Those Damien Hirst spin paintings that were done by his kids. No-one is going to care in 2092. Ridiculous junk. People will care about Last of the Mohicans or Akira. Directors are already paying homage to the motorcycle slide from that movie. How many are being inspired by Emin or Hirst?
Southerner
Who the flock would want poor art anyway? Last time I looked there was a sufficiency of good art and the local gallery in the mall was handing out flyers,.
Ottokring
BoM4
Humph. My bedroom is a constant hommage to Tracy Emin.
bloke in spain
Anybody can make a good living out of art. It’s simply necessary to do what customers are willing to pay for. If you want to call interior design & realisation art, I made a packet doing it.
Problem with the arty-farty types is they DON’T WANT TO MAKE MONEY from their art. They want their lifestyle subsidised.
Lord T
Britain’s ever-harsher welfare system means that now only the rich can afford to have a £200M yacht. We need to fix this I fancy a yacht.
Another title that means nothing. Replace Art with any hobby that costs money. Although Art is something that almost anyone of any age can do. What they are really saying is we don’t want to work we just want to spend all day on our hobbies and we want more money to enable that.
Bloke on M4
BIS,
“Problem with the arty-farty types is they DON’T WANT TO MAKE MONEY from their art. They want their lifestyle subsidised.”
You definitely can make money from art. It’s still hard and it’s competitive, but the big thing is giving people what they want, and being businesslike about it.
Like one of the best lessons for someone starting out in film is to look at everything around you, every resource at your disposal, and make a film around it. Don’t start thinking of the film you want to make, and how much it will cost. Look at what is free and figure out a story to use it. El Mariachi and Clerks both did this. Kevin Smith worked in a convenience store, so he set his film in the convenience store where he worked and shot it after hours. El Mariachi featured some really cool props and sets that were used in a film called Like Water for Chocolate, which were going to be thrown in a skip and Robert Rodriguez thought they’d be good. No-one got paid, or fed, but got a cut of the profit.
BlokeInBrum
BonM4, I think what I take away from this is that those who have the talent and the drive, will succeed no matter what.
Didn’t Rodriguez spend time in hospital testing experimental drugs in order to fund his film? Spielberg started out making films when he was 12 and couldn’t stop.
Nowadays, most people are wealthy enough (in a general sense) that there are few material barriers to creating ‘art’.
I think that makes the greatest barrier a creative one. When everything is homogenised and packaged, how do you come up with something genuinely novel and innovative? Maybe become a paranoid schizo like Philip K Dick? Hard drugs, alcohol addiction? Who knows, anyway;
I always liked the Kirk Douglas quote;
“My kids never had the advantages I had. I was born poor.”
ChatGPT is coming to eat everyone’s lunch, all the same.
Bloke on M4
BlokeInBrum,
“BonM4, I think what I take away from this is that those who have the talent and the drive, will succeed no matter what.
Didn’t Rodriguez spend time in hospital testing experimental drugs in order to fund his film? Spielberg started out making films when he was 12 and couldn’t stop.
Nowadays, most people are wealthy enough (in a general sense) that there are few material barriers to creating ‘art’.”
About £750 will get you everything you need to make a movie. Camera, computer, editing software. Might need some lights too.
“I think that makes the greatest barrier a creative one. When everything is homogenised and packaged, how do you come up with something genuinely novel and innovative? Maybe become a paranoid schizo like Philip K Dick? Hard drugs, alcohol addiction? Who knows, anyway;”
I think so too. You have to think of a great idea, or a great story. There’s really no point in picking up the camera until you have that. If you want to be a filmmaker, go and shoot commercials with people and learn the craft.
Ottokring
About £750 will get you everything you need to make a movie. Camera, computer, editing software. Might need some lights too.
60 quid for a room at the local Travelodge, the bloke will probably do it for free. The most expensive part will be hiring the girl.
And the llama.
Chris Miller
Today, everyone is a genius but nobody can draw a hand.
Marc Chagall
Bloke on M4
Ottokring,
Seriously, people who want to make films should just make anything, but do it really well. No-one cares if you shot adverts for a local hairdresser or porn. It’s whether you did it well that mattered.
Like Wally Pfister(fnnaarr) who shot Inception started out doing soft porn. But it is really well-shot soft porn. So, people noticed his work.
BlokeInBrum
I think ‘craft’ has been neglected with regards to modern art.
I remember reading stories about Picasso. He always had a reputation as some sort of creative, anarchic genius, able to knock out sketches or drawings off-the-cuff that would astound onlookers.
Only after he died, when people were able to poke around his studio, did they discover vast numbers of sketches and studies that he did in order to hone his craft. He was an absolute obsessive in this regard.
Also people forget that he was an accomplished artist in the traditional, realistic fashion before his own style emerged.
Low effort artists such as Emin and her money laundering backers can go die in a ditch. A hundred years from now, “Debbie Does Dallas” will have proven to have had a greater cultural impact than her and her ilk.
Ottokring
Anyone who can sneak a llama into a Travelodge probably deserves a Hollywood contract.
Charles
@Chester Draws – “How can the stuff the most people like, not be the best?”
The problem is that (unless you assume an impending apocalypse that wipes out humanity or its art), the vast majority of “most people” have not yet been born, so it’s a but tricky to determine their views.
Or, as BlokeInBrum more concretely puts it, “A hundred years from now, “Debbie Does Dallas” will have proven to have had a greater cultural impact than her and her ilk”.
Most artists are from comfortably middle class backgrounds.
At least the ones that I have met down the years have been.
Starving artists living in garrets is a trope. Artists are supposed to suffer for their art.
Trouble is there is a shortage of garrets nowadays.
This, surely, is one of the reasons why the most successful creative practitioners in all art forms now tend to be those with access to private resources (money, education, contacts)
No, surely it isn’t. The most successful practitioners will possess the necessary talent plus the nous to produce what actual people, as opposed to governments, are prepared to pay for.
Mind you, to prove I’m not a complete Philistine, I will grudgingly support the traditional stipend of a barrel of fine sherry to a handful of worthy recipients.
What the Graun says is utter bollocks.
There’s more than 5.3 million people on out of work benefits. None of the fuckers appear to be starving. In fact, so comfortable are they on welfare that we have one million job vacancies which they cannot be bothered to fill.
And they certainly have the time on their hands to create art. Or they could get a job and get creative in their spare time. Worked for Larkin, Eliot etc
As the actor Julie Hesmondhalgh said last week, young artists in 2020s Britain are often caught-up in the “Kafkaesque” perfect storm of a punitive benefits system, an intractable housing crisis and an unforgiving work culture – all of which can leave very little time or space for creative experiments.
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
“Brexit did this,” he thought.
Just think, we’d never have had Mozart if he hadn’t been able to scrounge off government welfare and instead had to constantly chase wealthy patrons for commissions.
Incidentally you have one of those silly adverts on the right that says “Remember her? Grab a tissue before you see her.”
That may mean different things to different people.
Perhaps you’ve noticed the dreadful scandal in Oz. Some ‘aboriginal’ art has been ‘completed’ or ‘adjusted’ by /shudder/ /vomit/ ‘white’ hands.
So if there’s any shortage of ‘artists’ available, I’m sure Oz can fill the gap!!
Art is very important indeed – to a small proportion of people. You could make a reasonable assertion that most of the ‘successful’ art is not real art but virtue signalling art by the artists and their well-off customers.
I already believe that the UK Art Councils should be wound up. Do we wish to ‘pay’ for more ‘art’ from public funds? Not when there are more direct calls on public money.
Whichever way you look at it, there is too much art around. Loads of third-rate people have been encouraged to produce shite. Let people have hobbies by all means, but let’s not pretend that they need to earn a living doing it.
And if the test of good art is that it has an enduring appeal, then that happy time when all that good art was produced by kids on the dole should see us through, shouldn’t it….
“The problem is?”
This isn’t actually true, and never has been because of one simple thing: patronage. Whether it’s people who love art, or people in the field already, people want to nurture talent. The Royal Ballet school wants the kids from the council estates who are the next Nijinsky. Denzel Washington paid for Chadwick Boseman to go to an acting trip to Oxford. Dave Gilmour got Kate Bush’s career off the ground. Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran produced Too Shy for Kajagoogoo. Mel Gibson basically saving Robert Downey Jr’s life and getting him acting work. Because we all know that in the same place, we’d probably do the same for someone as gifted as RDJ.
Now, mediocre talent won’t get a leg up, but who cares? Great talent, the uncut diamonds will. People will. I had a kid assigned to me from a council estate who wanted to program and was one of the most naturally gifted people I’ve ever worked with. And I spent a lot of my own time teaching him, helping him in his personal life. I can’t give a rational explanation for what I got out of it, but I did it.
Ah…. Artists…. Yeah.. they can starve for whatever they’re trying to foist on the unsuspecting and expect to make a living off it.
It’s funny how actual (amateur) artisans and craftsmen have absolutely no problems flogging their stuff and make a nice sideline, and sometimes even a full living out of what they’re doing.
Probably has something to do with it being the Wrong Kind of Art.
Biggest laugh I’ve had about this lately is with a friend who paints. It’s his Zen thingie.
Turns out people like his stuff, and he got an order from the U.S. for three commisioned paintings.
So I congratulated him on promoting from “Artist” to “Evil Commercial Sell-out” and we went for drinkies to celebrate.
Making art is a hobby until you either sell enough to be able to live from the proceeds or you have a benefactor/patron/husband who subsidises the cost until that is achieved. Taxpayers do not count as a benefactor/patron/husband.
The problem is that it’s not the rich that should make art, it’s those best at doing so.
Though it’s not clear that those best at making art are prevented from doing so. Even nowadays, there are rich people who buy art to support artists, and of course some artists can make a living from their art – though there is always the doubt over whether commercially successful art is actually the best.
though there is always the doubt over whether commercially successful art is actually the best.
How can the stuff the most people like, not be the best?
I know the contemporary wank art of museums is considered “better” by the cognoscenti, but I would bet that in 100 years that it won’t be.
My life has been greatly improved by telling my wife that I refuse to go view art in museums produced after 1950. She thinks I’m a philistine, but I don’t have to look at piles of rubbish (sometimes literally) and pretend they have meaning.
Chester Draws,
By 1950, cinema and advertising had become the art spaces. Various technology maturing led to the talent drawing ads, posters, making films. Expressionist cinema really goes back to the early 20s, but was very much mature by 1950 and talented artists moved into it by then.
Think about what are the striking, iconic images from the 1940s paintings, and there’s Nighthawks, a few Norman Rockwells, maybe some WW2 paintings, but it’s mostly cinema: shots from Citizen Kane, The Red Shoes, Dumbo, Great Expectations, The Wizard of Oz, The Great Dictator, The Third Man, Sunset Boulevard.
And think about everything since. Those Damien Hirst spin paintings that were done by his kids. No-one is going to care in 2092. Ridiculous junk. People will care about Last of the Mohicans or Akira. Directors are already paying homage to the motorcycle slide from that movie. How many are being inspired by Emin or Hirst?
Who the flock would want poor art anyway? Last time I looked there was a sufficiency of good art and the local gallery in the mall was handing out flyers,.
BoM4
Humph. My bedroom is a constant hommage to Tracy Emin.
Anybody can make a good living out of art. It’s simply necessary to do what customers are willing to pay for. If you want to call interior design & realisation art, I made a packet doing it.
Problem with the arty-farty types is they DON’T WANT TO MAKE MONEY from their art. They want their lifestyle subsidised.
Britain’s ever-harsher welfare system means that now only the rich can afford to have a £200M yacht. We need to fix this I fancy a yacht.
Another title that means nothing. Replace Art with any hobby that costs money. Although Art is something that almost anyone of any age can do. What they are really saying is we don’t want to work we just want to spend all day on our hobbies and we want more money to enable that.
BIS,
“Problem with the arty-farty types is they DON’T WANT TO MAKE MONEY from their art. They want their lifestyle subsidised.”
You definitely can make money from art. It’s still hard and it’s competitive, but the big thing is giving people what they want, and being businesslike about it.
Like one of the best lessons for someone starting out in film is to look at everything around you, every resource at your disposal, and make a film around it. Don’t start thinking of the film you want to make, and how much it will cost. Look at what is free and figure out a story to use it. El Mariachi and Clerks both did this. Kevin Smith worked in a convenience store, so he set his film in the convenience store where he worked and shot it after hours. El Mariachi featured some really cool props and sets that were used in a film called Like Water for Chocolate, which were going to be thrown in a skip and Robert Rodriguez thought they’d be good. No-one got paid, or fed, but got a cut of the profit.
BonM4, I think what I take away from this is that those who have the talent and the drive, will succeed no matter what.
Didn’t Rodriguez spend time in hospital testing experimental drugs in order to fund his film? Spielberg started out making films when he was 12 and couldn’t stop.
Nowadays, most people are wealthy enough (in a general sense) that there are few material barriers to creating ‘art’.
I think that makes the greatest barrier a creative one. When everything is homogenised and packaged, how do you come up with something genuinely novel and innovative? Maybe become a paranoid schizo like Philip K Dick? Hard drugs, alcohol addiction? Who knows, anyway;
I always liked the Kirk Douglas quote;
“My kids never had the advantages I had. I was born poor.”
ChatGPT is coming to eat everyone’s lunch, all the same.
BlokeInBrum,
“BonM4, I think what I take away from this is that those who have the talent and the drive, will succeed no matter what.
Didn’t Rodriguez spend time in hospital testing experimental drugs in order to fund his film? Spielberg started out making films when he was 12 and couldn’t stop.
Nowadays, most people are wealthy enough (in a general sense) that there are few material barriers to creating ‘art’.”
About £750 will get you everything you need to make a movie. Camera, computer, editing software. Might need some lights too.
“I think that makes the greatest barrier a creative one. When everything is homogenised and packaged, how do you come up with something genuinely novel and innovative? Maybe become a paranoid schizo like Philip K Dick? Hard drugs, alcohol addiction? Who knows, anyway;”
I think so too. You have to think of a great idea, or a great story. There’s really no point in picking up the camera until you have that. If you want to be a filmmaker, go and shoot commercials with people and learn the craft.
About £750 will get you everything you need to make a movie. Camera, computer, editing software. Might need some lights too.
60 quid for a room at the local Travelodge, the bloke will probably do it for free. The most expensive part will be hiring the girl.
And the llama.
Today, everyone is a genius but nobody can draw a hand.
Marc Chagall
Ottokring,
Seriously, people who want to make films should just make anything, but do it really well. No-one cares if you shot adverts for a local hairdresser or porn. It’s whether you did it well that mattered.
Like Wally Pfister(fnnaarr) who shot Inception started out doing soft porn. But it is really well-shot soft porn. So, people noticed his work.
I think ‘craft’ has been neglected with regards to modern art.
I remember reading stories about Picasso. He always had a reputation as some sort of creative, anarchic genius, able to knock out sketches or drawings off-the-cuff that would astound onlookers.
Only after he died, when people were able to poke around his studio, did they discover vast numbers of sketches and studies that he did in order to hone his craft. He was an absolute obsessive in this regard.
Also people forget that he was an accomplished artist in the traditional, realistic fashion before his own style emerged.
Low effort artists such as Emin and her money laundering backers can go die in a ditch. A hundred years from now, “Debbie Does Dallas” will have proven to have had a greater cultural impact than her and her ilk.
Anyone who can sneak a llama into a Travelodge probably deserves a Hollywood contract.
@Chester Draws – “How can the stuff the most people like, not be the best?”
The problem is that (unless you assume an impending apocalypse that wipes out humanity or its art), the vast majority of “most people” have not yet been born, so it’s a but tricky to determine their views.
Or, as BlokeInBrum more concretely puts it, “A hundred years from now, “Debbie Does Dallas” will have proven to have had a greater cultural impact than her and her ilk”.