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Death of the “Starving Artist”: The Rise of Independent Artists in the Age of Digital and COVID
“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
-George Santayana
What do artists and entrepreneurs have in common? A lot. Whether they like to admit or not, the reality is, artists are entrepreneurs. Artists have always been entrepreneurs; the art history and our society have been romanticizing and celebrating the “starving,” “solitary genius,” “rebel,” and “eccentric” artists.
In the world of fine arts, Vincent van Gogh immediately comes to mind. He is a classic, textbook definition of “artist”. van Gogh’s thick, swirly brushstrokes in his work have been associated with his mental illness. The infamous ear lobe incident after an argument with his studio mate, Paul Gaugin only accentuated Vincent’s life as the “eccentric” and “disturbed” artist. van Gogh started his career in the arts as an art dealer and ended up as the “starving” artist. His work was unknown during his lifetime and sold for record prices at auctions posthumously, thanks to his brother Theo’s efforts and support.
From a purist standpoint, art became the new religion, and therefore, it’s a sin to commodify it. Most artists are grappling with balancing their creativity and business as they see “commercializing” and “marketing” their work are taboos or sacrilegious. This is one of the reasons why van Gogh made a career move from an art dealer to a starving artist, to remove himself from the commodification of the art and indirectly receive financial support from his brother. When it comes down to the business of promoting, pricing and selling art, artists have been relying on art dealers, gallerists, agents, and auctioneers for centuries.
In Death of the Artist, William Deresiewicz traces 4 paradigm shifts of the artist throughout the history of art: artisan, the bohemian artist, professional, and “one-man-band” or independent artist. Nowadays, when we think of the artisans, we often associate with crafts, a lower category in the hierarchy of the fine arts. Ancient Greeks and Romans valued the artists and commissioned paintings, murals, sculptures and decorative items to document and immortalize their legacies. In the Middle Ages, the artisans were, in fact, business owners and…
