Values can be defined as a system of beliefs that a person or group of people hold dear. They provide a guidepost for people to make decisions based on what is important to them. For example, values could promote individualism, esteem simplicity, or celebrate nature. In the context of art movements, values usually center around ideas or aesthetics that the… Read more →
Art is a human endeavor that takes numerous forms and fulfills innumerable purposes. Its diversity is celebrated as an example of Homo Sapiens’ potential, representing the unbounded and endless nature of creativity—something transcendent. Indeed, art is mainly spoken of in terms of the incalculable and the immaterial, with language verging on the religious. “The aim of art is to represent… Read more →
Information asymmetry is when one party in a transaction has more information than the other party. This can happen for a variety of reasons, but it often favors the person or institution with more information. There is a great deal of information asymmetry in the art market, and its impact is profound: decreased trust, valuation disparities, and rampant inequality. The… Read more →
According to Miriam Webster, a charlatan is “a person who practices quackery or deception in order to prey on the credulity of others.” In other words, they are a fraud. A charlatan will exploit their victims’ lack of knowledge and trust in order to get them to believe that the charlatan knows something the victim does not, and thereby profit… Read more →
For many creatives, money is a difficult issue. Walk into any arts organization or art school and you’ll find artists who have been told that their art is supposed to be pure and untouched by commercialism. In fact, many arts graduates emerge after graduation railing against capitalism and its perceived evils (while clutching their newly-minted degree in one hand and… Read more →
The technological disruption of creativity and artmaking is a phenomenon that has been ongoing for centuries. Technology has always been behind the artmaking process, playing an integral role in shaping how art gets made and what its purpose is. Pigments were a technology when they were discovered tens of thousands of years ago. So were brushes, carving tools, chisels, looms,… Read more →
On January 20th, 1600 Giordano Bruno, an Italian cosmologist and mathematician, was declared a heretic and sentenced to death. He was to be stripped, gagged to prevent “wicked words” from escaping his mouth, hung upside down, and burned at the stake. Far from being cowed, Bruno showed nothing but contempt for those who sat in judgment of him. “Perhaps you… Read more →
In his fable entitled The Grasshopper and the Ants, the Greek fabulist Aesop relates the story of a grasshopper who comes upon some ants. The ants are preparing grain they had collected to keep them through the winter. The grasshopper, starving, begs the ants for some food. When the ants wonder why the grasshopper has no food of his own,… Read more →
When I received the call telling me I didn’t get the job, I was devastated. On the opposite end of the line, the producer explained it to me. The other candidate had a journalism degree, he said, and had even completed an internship in a newsroom. My credentials, on the other hand, just didn’t match what they were looking for.… Read more →
Late in the fall of 2005 I was working backstage as a costume assistant in a play which had little use for me. Costume changes were few and far between and the actors were fully capable of donning their accoutrement without help from any one of the five assistants in the dressing room. As the days dragged on, we assistants… Read more →