Should there be a price on art?

take everything

I was talking yesterday to a couple of people about this and i've been mulling over it.

They were of the opinion that it's impossible to put a price on art (or at least some art).

But I was wondering if this was tenable.
I mean, art is experienced and appreciated.
This is subjective.

But then moving into the sharing of art does this necessitate that it get monetised to reflect its value. How should society and economics affect art. And does formalising aesthetics in this degrade its subjective appreciation.

zeffabelli

take everything wrote: »

I was talking yesterday to a couple of people about this and i've been mulling over it.

They were of the opinion that it's impossible to put a price on art (or at least some art).

But I was wondering if this was tenable.
I mean, art is experienced and appreciated.
This is subjective.

But then moving into the sharing of art does this necessitate that it get monetised to reflect its value. How should society and economics affect art. And does formalising aesthetics in this degrade its subjective appreciation.

Artists need to make a living, so yes they should get paid.

What kind of art are you talking about? It takes many forms.

A piece of fine art, like painting or sculture is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

Manach

Being rather practically minded, when ever a conversation starts with a phrase cannot put a price on X, it seems to escape attention that everything has a price: from lives, to food to even art. From the high priced galleries for the works deemed a la mode to that lost opportunities based on private work. To pretend otherwise is a backdoor to subsidisation on such, which turns the work into a reflection of state policy as per Soviet realism or a licence to support a lifestyle on the back of the Western welfare state.

Torakx

take everything wrote: »

And does formalising aesthetics in this degrade its subjective appreciation.

I think that example has been done in music sharing.
It's an art form, argueably the highest art form, when not compliimented with lyrics.
I don't think it has damaged the subjective matter too much with monetization of music.
In most cases, I appreciated music more when I bought CDs. When things are easy to get, they become diluted and are not appreciated as much.
So it may be that the lack of a price, limits the arts percieved "subjective" value, in cases where it can be experienced for free.
Are you talking about free art or unatainable priceless art?
If it's priceless unatainable art, then I think the lack of a price is not the issue. It's the lack of any ability to attain it or experience it that gives it subjective value.
If picasso painted 6 trillion versions of the same painting, I think it would not be so famous or appreciated. Ok it might be famous haha, maybe infamous.

take everything

Thanks for the responses.
Personally i would be of the opinion that yes everything can be valued (and by that i mean in terms of money i suppose).

The reason i started the thread was because i had to reflect on this after feeling a bit of a philistine for daring to suggest this view in the conversation.

All the others were fairly adamant about the idea that some art can indeed be priceless. Their argument was that the subjective experience that some priceless art elicits is ineffable (i suppose) and so undefinable that this experience cannot be valued.

To me this seemed inherently illogical but not being an art afficionado i didn't want to get in over my head. So i suppose i just questioned it.

Basically i reasoned that if a given piece of art is priceless, would it follow that if you (or at least the person who holds this view) found themselves in the (unlikely) situation of a ransom demand for said piece of art or a loved one gets it, they would choose the art everytime and said loved one dies.

That seems to me the most obvious rebuttal of pricelessness of art.
Unless they would also invoke a different sort of pricelessness for the loved one. Then it's like comparing infinities. Is one infinity/pricelessness more than the other. Which would be inherently illogical. I think.

But apart from that the pricelessness thing these people invoked was because the subjective experience from priceless art was ineffable.

They maintained that the experience and appreciation of art such as this (for some people at least) was indescribable. I dunno about this even. Surely aesthetics can be formalised and described. And if their is a limit to this, isn't it just a limit of our own sensibilities in experiencing this piece of art.

Isn't it like: to a moron, the difference between war and peace and the great gatsby are indescribable. But to a literary reviewer, the aesthetic differences are somewhat describable. And as artistic sensibilities are refined (to a superhuman degree even) these differences and nuances in the respective aesthetics can be better described. So art in this way can be quantified (while still taking into consideration the relativity of subjective valuation of different aspects of aesthetics).

The pricelessness thing just rankles with me.
I tried to approach it from an economic point of view as well.
I mean an artist decides to create something and spends a certain amount of time doing this. Time he could have spent doing something else. But no, he valued that period of time creating that art as more important than other stuff that could have been beneficial to him or others. And that creative output was born out of an intention to create. That intention can be valued surely. Just like any decision-making in economics.

I dunno, i'm actually not expressing what i want to say well above but someone might pick up on what i'm at.

Basically the idea that art/the creative process can exist in a realm untouched by other aspects of life (everything is fundamentally connected afterall- and potentially by money tbh) is anathema to me.

Once art goes from the subjective to outside your head (social/economic sphere) it starts to have a value/price imo.

I would like to hear other views on this though.

zeffabelli

The recent attacks on destruction on the museum in Tunisia, yes I would say art is a matter of life or death in some regards. It holds access to human history, story, art makes life bearable.

I read what ISIS did here, as a massive warning shot they fired.

Would I sacrifice my child for the Sistene Chapel? Not a hope in hell.

Rihanna an Beyonce make an awful lot more money than a lot of extremely talented people, as did Justin Bieber.

The ipad and the iphone are also works of art. EVerything around us is art, including your sofa and the clothes you are wearing.

Permabear

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zeffabelli

Permabear wrote: »

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Shakespeare and Dickens wanted to entertain the folks, they weren't snooty pants about high art or legacy....they weren't as astute, they were just as popular. And some of that is down to luck as much as it is marketing.

But there is a huge difference in talking about reproductive art like books and music,and fine art of which there is a one of, and in the latter its only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.

Permabear

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zeffabelli

Permabear wrote: »

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Free from the taint of commercialism is exactly the idea that leads to people expecting art to be free!

Though I think back in the Greeks drama and theatre was free, ....

From the artist's perspective, they often are faced with the question of do they play to the market or do they follow their water forks of intuition... mys suspicion is that it's a little bit of both, even of unknown to themselves.

Can you hustle and also be creative...maybe not but in this day and age you are expected to..Artists need to make a living so my answer to the OP would be yes, of course there should be a price on it. When it comes to fine arts, many see them as investments, much like wine, also an art from what I can see.

I'm not going to speculate as to whether or not what Shakespeare or Dickens did was effortless.... we don't know and we can never know. Somehow I doubt that it was, but again this is only speculation. But violence, dirty jokes, and some taboo tackling {to an extent...bad mommies are stil relegated to horror, never mainstream - just as an example.} within enough aesthetic distance and the right timing...after all markets change...but the archtypes of story have withstood the test of time. JK Rowling was a classics major and boy can you tell....those stories were all neurologically wired in her.

But her success was also partially luck and we seem to want over look the place of luck in these matters because we still want to delude ourselves of the master of the universe delusion.

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." Thomas Mann.

Torakx

take everything wrote: »

To me this seemed inherently illogical but not being an art afficionado i didn't want to get in over my head. So i suppose i just questioned it.

Basically i reasoned that if a given piece of art is priceless, would it follow that if you (or at least the person who holds this view) found themselves in the (unlikely) situation of a ransom demand for said piece of art or a loved one gets it, they would choose the art everytime and said loved one dies.

That seems to me the most obvious rebuttal of pricelessness of art.
Unless they would also invoke a different sort of pricelessness for the loved one. Then it's like comparing infinities. Is one infinity/pricelessness more than the other. Which would be inherently illogical. I think.

But apart from that the pricelessness thing these people invoked was because the subjective experience from priceless art was ineffable.

They maintained that the experience and appreciation of art such as this (for some people at least) was indescribable. I dunno about this even. Surely aesthetics can be formalised and described. And if their is a limit to this, isn't it just a limit of our own sensibilities in experiencing this piece of art.

Isn't it like: to a moron, the difference between war and peace and the great gatsby are indescribable. But to a literary reviewer, the aesthetic differences are somewhat describable. And as artistic sensibilities are refined (to a superhuman degree even) these differences and nuances in the respective aesthetics can be better described. So art in this way can be quantified (while still taking into consideration the relativity of subjective valuation of different aspects of aesthetics).

The pricelessness thing just rankles with me.
I tried to approach it from an economic point of view as well.
I mean an artist decides to create something and spends a certain amount of time doing this. Time he could have spent doing something else. But no, he valued that period of time creating that art as more important than other stuff that could have been beneficial to him or others. And that creative output was born out of an intention to create. That intention can be valued surely. Just like any decision-making in economics.

I wish I had the mind to learn to multiquote

When you say it's illogical, I might agree to some extent.
That doesn't mean it is or isn't wise though.

You mentioned that the artists creative output, was born out of an intention to create.
That isn't going back far enough to understand the framework art is built on.
Art is expression of the ego. We started painting on cave walls a long time ago.
The self was appearing.
That is why the best artists are tortured souls. It is based on the human capacity for self. An artist needs to feel like an individual. To be different from the world. In order to abstract their internal "black sheep" out into the subjective world, as a statement of the ego. A call to the collective.
The reason I think art based on love and peace is not popular, is because that does not resonate unconsciously with allthe other tortured selves out there viewing it. It's just they are not tortured enough to need to express it sostrongly. Instead they have other addictions for expression.
The artist who does not share their work, is doing an artistic form of "self talk therapy", just with pictures or music, or whatever their forms of expression are.

When an artist paints a picture that resonates strongly with these internal and external conflicts, they are pouring their "soul"(deepest sense of self?) into the work, time and result. To create a material manifestation of their deepest soulful expression.
How much is that worth?
All those neuron connections, all the information, pictures, time, emotions, insights that cannot be put to words.
There is some very very deep wisdom in paintings and music and even dance. Well, everywhere for the symbolic mind really.
It requires a certain type of intelligence or genius(logic is genius too). This intelligence often manifests in the "moron" as you say , because they are not built for left brain linear patterns of thinking, that is too slow, albeit more traceable and reliable in a scientific way.

They jump around those neuron connections from a more right brain dominant way, which grabs connections from everywhere through asymmetrical visual and audio patterns. Often using the visual and auditory senses to manifest their intuitions(genius).
I would say that the artists appreciation for symmetry(the external), is actually an abstract appreciation for asymmetry(the internal).
This is why those secret societies value mirrors and symmetrical reflections.As above so below etc etc.
And vice versa for the logical types too I would think. But then I haven't applied the filter of the extrovert and the introvert to bridge the gap, which explains many of the questions that might follow these ideas I have. A lot of it is my own thoughts from personal research. I could be wrong.

If a parent had a child ransomed for a beautiful painting of that same child as they are now.
It might be understood now that it is "logical" for a parent to keep the painting in some respects.
If the idea of the child is objectified to a large extent, the picture holds that materially for as long as it exists. It becomes very precious.
A child can grow up. Innocence can be corrupted.
Maybe it was a painting of an earlier time of the child(that might be easier to accept from our perspective).
If you can price your sense of self, you can price "priceless art".

take everything wrote: »

Basically the idea that art/the creative process can exist in a realm untouched by other aspects of life (everything is fundamentally connected afterall- and potentially by money tbh) is anathema to me.

Once art goes from the subjective to outside your head (social/economic sphere) it starts to have a value/price imo.

I would like to hear other views on this though.

The realm untouched, I think is this symbolic thinking.
What is the price of the symbol of the crucifix?
Imagine the logical work you need to do, in order to calculate all those variables, right down through every single interaction with the crucifix.
The impression it made through human history has been reflected back from the self of all individuals, back into the material world through symbolism.
That is why archetypes are important for us. They speak of intuitive things. The hero stands for certain things that would take ages to explain. And we continue to evolve this consciousness. Although in the media, it is used to manipulate society. Pretty much to enslave the world.
Society use art instead generally. Maybe the greatest artists are those who do the worst things.
Which might be an unconscious hint frommy intuition to go check out greek art and tragedy again, to have a more concise asnwer.. lol

Permabear

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zeffabelli

Permabear wrote: »

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Andy Warhol brought us back to reality on the commercialism of art.

Yep, I often wondered how government bodies discern this, yet I am still also wondering why Stephen King is never taught in English classes. It seems remarkable to me....these lines that get drawn.....

But then again, the tax payer has payed for all that art in DC, those statues and memorials, that is art also....the white house is also art....so is the flag itself.... tax money pays for art all over the place, who why not Piss Christ also or -instead of. Not that you'd ever see something like Piss Mohammed paid for.

The Abbey ....which has some competition from musical theatre at the 02. It's days are nigh alright......

KomradeBishop

I don't really get what 'priceless' means in this context - there are a lot of different ways to say a piece of art has value, or doesn't have value.

I think a lot of historical art, ironically, just gets used as an asset market with items of highly over-inflated value, for storing/gaining wealth.
Also, a lot of what is prominent/'valued' in the music industry, isn't really down to artistic-merit/talent, but more about who has the most control over broadcasting and who they decide to air - i.e. less about merit more about marketing.

Even though I'm not an art buff, Kenneth Clark's 'Civilization' series though, gives a good personal view on the subjective and non-monetary value of art; I really like documentaries like that, where the person doing it has a serious personal passion on the topic.


If you look at some of the more prominent TV shows today, particularly the likes of which HBO is doing - such as Game of Thrones , The Wire and stuff like that - they are definitely reaching new heights of artistic talent when it comes to TV-based storytelling.
Now with the Internet though, and the ability to pirate many forms of art, many people will not pay a cent for this stuff, but will seek it out and watch loads of it. If you can copy it indefinitely and with zero cost, as you can with anything digital, then I suppose technically it is priceless again though, I don't see the meaning in the term.


If you wanted to evaluate the value of a piece of art to society/culture, then putting a price on it isn't really a good way to do that - seeing what the public are willing to pay voluntarily in appreciation for it though, would be better (and indeed, with HBO/pirating, many people consistently say they would be paying for it, if the TV/film/music industry sorted out their archaic distribution models, which just can't compete with the best distribution method around: The Internet).

There are some economic ideas - I can't recall where from specifically - that would (as mentioned above) provide a subsidy to art, by giving all citizens a quota (say, €1,000 a year - just as an example) of money that they can only allocate to artists (or otherwise to people, who they feel have benefited society in a way that doesn't directly receive monetary compensation).

This solves the above-mentioned problem of state control over art funding, being used corruptly (replacing it with a more direct-democratic form of art funding), but I haven't explored the idea in detail, so wouldn't be surprised if it has many practical problems (e.g. the way advertising is used to control/influence public consumption/desires and spending, would also apply to this) - but it's something that would provide a more meaningful way to put a monetary value on arts contribution to society, than selling access to art, or selling art on (largely manipulated) markets.

Manach

Greek art was mentioned a few posts back. Drawing from what I remember from works of the Classist Oliver Taplin, art in the Greek world ranged from the sacred to the profane, the domestic to the state sponsored. For instance in the famous Attic vases one can see artistic and morally uplifting of scenes from Greek myth to that of the coarsest libertine scenes. For the Tragic/Comedic dramas it was a mix of state support (to honour the gods) and a semi-voluntary tax on the wealthest citizen that was used to support these. For the latter means, it was consider an honour to bear the full festivial fees, and there was competition to be selected to spend on the most lavish displays.

zeffabelli

KomradeBishop wrote: »

I think a lot of historical art, ironically, just gets used as an asset market with items of highly over-inflated value, for storing/gaining wealth.
Also, a lot of what is prominent/'valued' in the music industry, isn't really down to artistic-merit/talent, but more about who has the most control over broadcasting and who they decide to air - i.e. less about merit more about marketing.

Yes this is true. Though it is also used so that emerging artists can understand and process the traditions they are working within. If you think about art- wahtever form it takes as a very very long conversation with the past and how in informs our unconcious and shapes who we are. When you look at story, either through art and visuals or through literature, it's the same format repeating itself..it gets neurologically wired in there from very young.

It used to be the case there was no such thing as art school. Painters and sculptors studied art history, not art studio, though they often did apprenticeships and learned from their masters.

KomradeBishop wrote: »

If you look at some of the more prominent TV shows today, particularly the likes of which HBO is doing - such as Game of Thrones , The Wire and stuff like that - they are definitely reaching new heights of artistic talent when it comes to TV-based storytelling.
Now with the Internet though, and the ability to pirate many forms of art, many people will not pay a cent for this stuff, but will seek it out and watch loads of it. If you can copy it indefinitely and with zero cost, as you can with anything digital, then I suppose technically it is priceless again though, I don't see the meaning in the term.

This is a good example of where business and economics really does throw its influence around. There are probably only around three studios left in Hollywood due to buy outs. This combined with the strictures of the FCC, are what produced premium cable like HBO. and is where the independent film makers who once would have gone to hollywood are now in tv where they have more freedom from the HBO and the dimwits who read a Joseph Cambell book and think they hit on a winning formula.

KomradeBishop wrote: »

There are some economic ideas - I can't recall where from specifically - that would (as mentioned above) provide a subsidy to art, by giving all citizens a quota (say, €1,000 a year - just as an example) of money that they can only allocate to artists (or otherwise to people, who they feel have benefited society in a way that doesn't directly receive monetary compensation).

This solves the above-mentioned problem of state control over art funding, being used corruptly (replacing it with a more direct-democratic form of art funding), but I haven't explored the idea in detail, so wouldn't be surprised if it has many practical problems (e.g. the way advertising is used to control/influence public consumption/desires and spending, would also apply to this) - but it's something that would provide a more meaningful way to put a monetary value on arts contribution to society, than selling access to art, or selling art on (largely manipulated) markets.

Interesting idea though you'd still get the government deciding what art is and essentially controlling where that money goes. I doubt they'd put video games, a Grafton street busker, or Odeon cinema on what you could spend it on, though they are both definitely art.

FizzleSticks

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KomradeBishop

zeffabelli wrote: »

This is a good example of where business and economics really does throw its influence around. There are probably only around three studios left in Hollywood due to buy outs. This combined with the strictures of the FCC, are what produced premium cable like HBO. and is where the independent film makers who once would have gone to hollywood are now in tv where they have more freedom from the HBO and the dimwits who read a Joseph Cambell book and think they hit on a winning formula.

Ya that's a good point - with HBO, do you mean "for HBO" rather than "from the HBO"? Ya I'd agree with the former, and while I'd get through a lot of TV shows (loads of them of really high quality), it's rare that I'd ever bother with a movie now, as most of the time I can expect them to be garbage.

I've heard of Joseph Campbell somewhere recently, but I can't remember where exactly.

zeffabelli wrote: »

Interesting idea though you'd still get the government deciding what art is and essentially controlling where that money goes. I doubt they'd put video games, a Grafton street busker, or Odeon cinema on what you could spend it on, though they are both definitely art.

Well, the original idea that I read, didn't put any limits on where the money could be allocated - you could give it to anyone you thought was providing a socially beneficial role, or who did anything you appreciate socially - I just put more of an emphasis on art with it

With video games, that actually seems to be a good example of an industry that has gotten with the times and has taken full advantage of the Internet for distribution - with platforms like Steam from Valve software.
They (Valve) also are one of the few companies, who push the bounds of artistic quality and storytelling (even comedy) in games, more than others (largely because they can afford to, due to royalties from Steam - costs huge money to make games now), especially with games like Portal (a genre of physics puzzle games, with the Talos Principle - not from Valve - being another such good example recently, of pushing this as a form of art).


So, given the massive cost of games like that, and of many films and such as well, that kind of means that there (mandatorily) has to be an up-front price put on such costly forms of art, because it takes so much effort/labour to develop something like that in the first place - so if you rely solely upon something like above, providing the whole population a quota they can allocate to people they think provide a significant social benefit (through art or otherwise), that creates the huge risk for the developers who have put years into a project, where they are at the whims of peoples voluntary contributions (so they might produce something very popular, but get very little, without an up-front price).

The only way that could be mitigated economically, would be to provide yet more types of economic programs, such as a government funded Job Guarantee that would guarantee minimum wage payment for such roles (there would be the risk of government interference in what projects this could cover though), or even a blanket Basic Income as is being promoted a lot lately, where people are given a basic guaranteed income no matter what they are doing (meaning zero government influence over projects, and artists potentially gaining profits from the voluntary quota above).

So, the very first policy I mentioned (a quota people can allocate to those who, in their opinion, provide a significant social benefit), would provide a direct-democratic means for the public to fund art which has no price placed upon it, and the latter two policies would provide the financial security that artists would need to be able to offer art without a price.
I don't think it's necessary to take it to such an extreme though, where there is literally no price on art - those are just some means of doing it.


Companies like Valve are actually a good example, of how the above promotes creativity and artistic talent: Valve has a very interesting non-hierarchical company structure, which allows developers a huge degree of freedom in choosing what they want to do, without any managers controlling the direction of projects - which the profits from Steam allow them to do (as would the income support programs I mention above, would allow artists in general to do), freeing them from a lot of financial constraints.

KomradeBishop

Here is a good article actually, that just popped up in my RSS reader, on the economic value of art, and how a lot of high-end art is used as an over-inflated asset bubble, for gaining/storing wealth:
https://rwer.wordpress.com/2015/05/15/economics-and-the-value-of-art-2/

zeffabelli

When you start thinking about government and vouchers and subsidies, one really has to try to remember the mindset of the bureaucrat. They are behind their desks with excel spreadsheets deciding things.

And they are the product of what ever particular education system pumped them out.

KomradeBishop

zeffabelli wrote: »

When you start thinking about government and vouchers and subsidies, one really has to try to remember the mindset of the bureaucrat. They are behind their desks with excel spreadsheets deciding things.

And they are the product of what ever particular education system pumped them out.

That's true, but if you look at the subsidies I put forward, almost all of them completely remove governments/bureaucrats control, over where money is spent
1: A basic income, could be provided regardless of what a person is working on, allowing artists to offer their art to the public, without a price placed on it (and zero government/bureaucratic interference).
2: A job guarantee, could do similar, but it has the risk of government interference on what can be counted as part of the JG program - however, if you combine it with the basic income, that can greatly reduce this problem.

3: Providing all citizens with a quota of money, that they can not themselves take, but which they can choose to allocate to people who they feel have done something socially beneficial that doesn't traditionally gain monetary compensation - this would allow the artists providing art without a price, to gain monetarily if their art is judged as socially beneficial by the public. This would have zero government/bureaucratic control, and would be a direct-democratic form of funding allocation.

Ironically, it is through government programs like this, that you can best remove most private/public bureaucratic control, over what art gets produced/funded (and over society in general)

Government is usually thought of, as restricting/removing freedoms/liberties from the public - but programs like these, can greatly increase peoples freedoms/liberties, from the restrictions that private business and the labour market place on peoples freedoms/liberties (an aspect of that topic, that rarely gets highlighted).