Making

Historically, a great deal of art has been produced through patronage – wealthy individuals or organizations that support and commission artists. Patronage continues today, but artists are also able to apply for various grants or sell their works through a gallery or perhaps directly on the internet.  Regardless, the business surrounding the selling of art is peculiar and at moments bewildering.

In the Nineties a team of Russian-born conceptual artists, Komar and Melamid, produced a provocative series of paintings entitled People’s Choice. The artists pointed out that in Russia, state-sponsored artists were guaranteed a salary and a place in society but unfortunately were told what to paint or produce. While in Russia they dreamed of moving to the United States so they could paint whatever they wanted. When they finally arrived in 1978 they discovered that they could indeed paint whatever they wanted, but they were also free to starve if no one purchased what they produced.

At that moment they realized that in a “free market” they were beholden to the desires of the consumer.

They hired a professional polling company to determine what kind of painting people wanted and began producing a series of works based on these polls. The image shown here is a portion of the painting that addresses people’s preferences in the United States. It is a landscape painting with mountains, water and deer, as well as George Washington and a few other historical figures in the foreground. If the painting seems a bit ridiculous…that is the point. This was not a formula for making great art but rather a conceptual commentary on the tyranny of the marketplace. You can change your circumstances or perhaps the system you operate within, but according to the illustrious words of Bob Dylan, “You gotta serve somebody.”