One of our friends has a young Cuban lover and she goes to visit him there periodically. This situation spurred some reflection: “Why are there so many artists and musicians in Cuba?” The next thought “Well, why not?” In the U.S. when Johnny decides to ignore his family’s advice and take up oil painting or guitar playing instead of investment banking it is a big crisis. Johnny is very likely giving up the opportunity to own real estate, send his kids to private school, and otherwise enjoy the great festival of materialism that is the United States. In an economy with hardly any opportunity, however, why wouldn’t a person choose to do art or music?
Art doesn’t require a lot of capital investment. You really just need a crayon and some paper (or scissors and paper if you were Matisse). If human ability is equally distributed across the globe you’d therefore expect the best art to come from the poorest countries where people have no competing bourgeois job offers. Yet paradoxically the art for which people are willing to pay the most money seems to come from advanced economies such as Germany, England, Japan, and the U.S.
For the comment section: Why?
[I’ll start by throwing out a personal opinion: art can only touch you if the artist shares a similar social and economic environment, which is why Westerners mostly like the art that is produced in Western countries; art produced in poor countries is actually much better but we can’t appreciate it because, despite heavy doses of ecotourism, we can’t understand the milieu in which it was produced.]
Philip,
Are you suggesting `we` as “Art Connoisseurs” view art with an emic perspective?
I don’t know if that’s the case because so often the art that is highly valued in western society is not created by the elites but rather patronized by them. If that’s the case, then why are the elites able to patronize artists of a lower economic class within our society but not artists in a similar economic standing outside of our society?
Additionally, I think if you look hard enough you will find that people do appreciate works from other cultures/economic levels. (Check the market for African art lately?) Another factor to consider is that often times what western society considers art from developing non-western nations might be considered cultural items by them and thus not “for sale” or available to be “exploited” (read: patronized).
Just some thoughts, I’m sure there are many answers.
Some possibilities, which may act in combination:
1.) Top quality artists must be trained. The best training is available in developed countries.
2.) The best artists would end up as artists no matter what other opportunities presented themselves.
3.) Art produced in poor countries is for the most part catering to what they think Western buyers want.
Maybe the social situations that nurture economic prosperity and artistic achievement are similar. For example, controversial artists in the US have to worry about Tipper Gore and Lynne Cheney bitching about them; controversial artists in Cuba have to worry about being imprisoned and interrogated. Similar concerns apply to business. Similarly, education, recreational drugs, cultural patterns of iconoclasm, and freedom to travel might all benefit both economic and artistic endeavors.
I’d say in the case of music, it often has nothing to do with the milieu it’s produced, but rather that we simply can’t understand the language in which it’s produced. Do you think the Beatles would have been quite as popular if they’d been singing the same songs in Swahili? I don’t.
Lots of good art is subversive too. Less developed countries tend to be less tollerant of subversive elements. I doubt “1984” could be written in China, or that “Anarchy in Cuba” could become a number one song there.
Conjecture: the works of third world’s poor artists is unlikely to make its way to the Western exhibition halls, hence most of it passes unnoticed.
Philip, Is your post about art or is it about materialism? Here’s the resolution of the paradox: Is the “best art” the “art for which people are willing to pay the most money”? If you equate the two, then you put Snoop Doggy Dogg ahead of Beethoven.
In a musical context, author Julian Johnson tilts his sword at the twin windmills of political correctness and modern capitalism in the book Who Needs Classical Music?: Cultural Choice and Musical Value. Alas, the windmills win the joust, but Prof. Johnson makes a few interesting points along the way. He rails against the prevailing view that music evaluation is “a matter of opinion” and points out that even academic institutions go along with this view in pursuit of political correctness and the almighty dollar. It’s an insightful, but not compelling, book.
Maybe you think art from poor countries is better because you:
a.) feel bad for being from a rich western nation and feel patronizing people is a good thing.
b.) have been told that it is better by a friend who would like you to profit in art dealership -as you know that people from poor nations will sell their works for much less than someone from a rich country would. Thus allowing you to resell the work from rich national to rich national at a huge markup.
You say, “If human ability is equally distributed across the globe you’d therefore expect the best art to come from the poorest countries where people have no competing bourgeois job offers.” I think this overlooks the oft ignored salon effect. When adept people get together they can develop faster with each other rather than if they were socialising with other people. Therefore, it would make sense that human ability is not evenly distributed across the globe.
I am of the opinion the preponderance of great art and great music have come from the western world. Part of the answer to this may lie in a question I posed to my relatives who are social workers: why is so much of the American populace on anti-depressants ? There are probably very few Vietnamese people working in the rice paddies of South East Asia popping the prozac, and their lives are probably a lot tougher than those running low on Zanax. The reply they gave to me was “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”.
I think that until you have the lower hierarchy needs fulfilled, you don’t have too much time to get to the self-actualization need level, where art and music come into production. While there is great art that comes out of less developed places, it is probably not in he volume of the western nations.
Cuba is a very unique place. While very poor, it has a very high literacy rate and of course a heavy Spanish influence.
On a side note, I would recommend all who appreciate art rent the movie “Frida”. A very artful production about the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.
Maybe the problem is one of skewed perceptions, Philip: in other words, perhaps there aren’t actually that many great artists in Cuba (in proportion), but it only looks that way because that’s the talent that americans seek there.
Cuba produces plenty of specialized professionals every year (doctors, engineers), thanks to its excellent educational system (one of the few good things left by the Castrist regime), but americans aren’t going to travel there looking for technicians or filmmakers (the Habana film school is also internationall renowned): they are going to Cuba to seek what they can’t find in the U.S., that is, typically cuban music and artists that have a distinctive “voice” thanks to their culture. Thus, the cubans most likely to make it internationally and become famous names will be artists.
1. Contrary to an above post, I would bet that Beethoven compositions have sold more units and had more concert attendees worldwide in the last 200+ years than Snoop Dogg ever will.
2. Great artists in Cuba and other depressed economies are unfortunately not going to have the same marketing effort (even word of mouth) as Matisse or Renoir or even Ruby, regardless of ability. A person with an eye for talent, a high-speed internet host, a decent web design, and a rolodex filled with art promoters, museum curators, and CNN art corresponents may be able to make a couple of bucks. Or pesos. Or real. Or Somali shillings.
P.S. If advocating the marketing and sale of third-world artists’ wares has the stench of capitalistic immorality (to the extent that a profit is made by someone other than the originators of these wares), consider the similarities to tactics of todsy’s popular music industry: person writes music, sends to label or producers; producer uses part of song in upcoming release by singer/rapper Mega Bux; originator sues, claiming their work was copied; Label files countersuit after countersuit until originator can no longer afford to stay in the game, opting to settle for enough money to buy a Big Mac next time they go on sale.
Too cynical?
OK try the more common case: artist records song, industry promotes and distributes song (which makes Billboard Top 10), artist receives enough to pay expenses plus the downpayment on a car, label profits by several $M, next album does reasonably well, label still profits, singer (see Tom Petty or MC Hammer or TLC or Toni Braxton) files bankruptcy.
I think the production of art requires free time, defined as ‘time not spent in acquiring subsistence’. While ‘third world’ countries have a larger supply of poverty than more advanced economies, the advanced economies have more free time. The great majority of artists I am aware of personally are poor, since they spend their time making art rather than acquiring materialism (though there are some who have done both).
How does your personal opinion jibe with the huge prices paid for Native American, particularly pre-columbian, art?
Could it be that some people pay to appear to understand the milieu in which it was produced?
One argument is there is a lot of good western art, but the money-intensive ones make them seem few in comparison. For example, I think American tv is going through a renaissance. Uncompromising shows like The Wire target a small, rabid demographic, but most nations only see Baywatch as a representative. Same with food and music; the US is actually pretty deep if you consider all the things that you actually have to travel around to experience. In fact, Ben & Jerry really fought expansion into new local markets (since it’s painful to increase icecream production without sacrificing quality), though things are different now after Unilever’s hostile takeover.
Ownership is another problem. In many western countries, distributors can wield considerable power over the products they ship, including art. Neil Gaiman in today’s Slashdot interview mentions that a writer usually collaborates when writing a novel: with copyeditors, legal depts, etc. These can drag down an artist’s skill, especially the talented but naive ones. And they promote conservatism. Of course, I’m sure many artists do better in the presence of good editors, but horror stories abound.
I have to question the case of Cuba though. As I understand, it’s true that the gov’t exerts more censorship over journalists than most western nations? Then perhaps this increases the number and quantity of artists, though I really know nothing about Cuba.
It’s true that “art doesn’t require a lot of capital investment”…but there’s a difference between creating art and marketing art. Creating great art requires only a great artist and a comparatively small investment in materials. But getting that art in front of the people with the ability and inclination to pay gargantuan sums of money for it is a rather more complicated prospect.
I wouldn’t ever bet that the third world’s art is better on average than what’s produced in developed countries, though. If nothing else, the massively better viability of other career choices here in the first world will tend to keep a lot of mediocre artists from doing it. So that even if one assumes a globally equal distribution of artistic talent, the average quality of artistic work in the first world will be higher. More working artists != more great art
I won’t address visual art but with regard to cuban music, it makes sense once you visit.
Previous posters have mentioned the need for free time as well as the need to be exposed to a group
of talented peers. Also mentioned was the freedom from subsistence living such as farming.
Part of the population in cuba has all of these things going for them and it’s particularly evident in Santiago de Cuba. Cubans generally have a lot of free time. Most don’t have cars, many work a regular 8 hour shift at a factory/hospital/store etc. There is one television channel and the lack of programming doesn’t help. They don’t have enough disposable income (about $5 per month) to waste time shopping. Most do not have a telephone, almost no one has the internet. Basically think of anything in the US that you spend time doing during the week or on the weekend and it’s likely that the average cuban doesn’t have access to this.
What is left is a whole lot of free time. During this time and with no money to spend, most of them turn to social outlets, the most common being hanging out in the street and talking with your neighbors. A good number of them also spend their free time working some semi-legal black market business to earn enough money to actually eat meat more than twice a month. When americans hear “black-market” we think of dvd players falling off trucks and being sold in chinatown. Not so in cuba. Black market means the guy who sells eggs out of his house the way a drug dealer works in the states. Black pepper and most other spices are only available on the black market. The government for the most part turns a blind eye to the black market because it provides many things that the government has failed to provide.
Anyways back to music. Since listening to music, dancing and drinking subsidized rum is a great way to pass the time people tend to do a lot of it. Thus the people playing the music tend to get a whole lot of practice. Combine that with a good educational system, a government that is very supportive of this activity (helps keep the people from staying bitter or actually rising up) a fusion of african rhythms and latin music, shake, stir and out pop a number of truly talented musicians.
I will mention that from a musical diversity perspective cuba can’t touch the US but what they focus on they do very very well.
“Do you think the Beatles would have been quite as popular if they’d been singing the same songs in Swahili?”
And yet some music does remarkably well despite being in uncommon
languages. Among both classical-loving and classical-ambivalent
people, Carmina Burana is a perpetual favorite. I know of very few
people who speak Latin and zero who speak Middle High German
(the languages it’s written in). I can pull a dozen CDs from my
shelf with lyrics in common modern languages that aren’t nearly
as popular (and not because the music isn’t good).
Language is very important for pop music, because its popularity
is based on its lyrics, which are aimed at a particular socio-economic
situation. Good music, though, is largely independent of language.
Well, the art for which people pay the most money is not just art, but also a commodity. Money changes hands because it is rare, prestigious, and seen as a good investment. The risk that a known and established artistists work will lose value is relatively low; the chances it will increase in value relatively high.
But I think you have hit a nail right on the head. People may pay more for work of established artists in the developed countries, but the greater quantity of inspiring art no longer comes from here.
Thanks to the internet, we have now taken to buying art from foreign galleries and having it shipped here; the value for quality art is incredible. The artists may not be well known, but we generally buy for display, not investment.
So in your upcoming world travels, keep an eye open for good galleries and artists in places like Thailand or Cuba, especially ones with internet sites.
Well, the art for which people pay the most money is not just art, but also a commodity. Money changes hands because it is rare, prestigious, and seen as a good investment. The risk that a known and established artistists work will lose value is relatively low; the chances it will increase in value relatively high.
But I think you have hit a nail right on the head. People may pay more for work of established artists in the developed countries, but the greater quantity of inspiring art no longer comes from here.
Thanks to the internet, we have now taken to buying art from foreign galleries and having it shipped here; the value for quality art is incredible. The artists may not be well known, but we generally buy for display, not investment.
So in your upcoming world travels, keep an eye open for good galleries and artists in places like Thailand or Cuba, especially ones with internet sites.
Art is the spirit of those who don’t fit into the system and put their life into something symbolic. Because this transformation process is so incredible inefficient (e.g. what is a painted piece of paper compared to the love it consumed) the art becomes valuable, because of its promise it just can’t fulfill (it’s art, not the “real” thing!). It creates a longing by showing a shadow of the real thing.
The more sophisticated the society the higher the requirements on the person are as well as the scope of possibility. This also scales with the individual level of the person in society. But because of this, the higher the loss is, when the person doesn’t fit into the mechanism. Such a big loss on the personal/family side creates by its outflow into the object something of far less value. But if the loss is big enough, the price of the object scales linear to a level high enough, making it expensive.
In less developed societies the loss in case of failure per individual is not so high, making the art not as expensive.
1) Art is a conversation. it speaks most profoundly to those within the artist’s community. But to be great art, it must have universal impact and affect.
2) Art has nothing to do with economics and a piece of art cannot be judged by the dollar value placed on it. As a matter of fact, an artist’s work tends to deteriorate the more he is lionized and given outrageous sums of money, e. g., Schnabel, Hirst.
3) The Beatles were good musicians, but not artists. Tipper Gore and Lynn Cheney are castigating pop culture, not art.
4) There is a strange practice in the western world of using art as a form of investment banking which is similar to shitting on it.
5) Art speaks to the soul of humanity, whether it comes from the Australian aboriginals running around half naked or western people in jeans and sweatshirts.
6) Hierarchy of needs plays no role whatsoever. Were the cavemen of Lascaux getting their basic needs fulfilled? What about Van Gogh, Gauguin?
Much of what passes for art is bullshit. Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we? See, for example:
"Is the artistic value of Mondrian’s art testable"
I don’t think more than three people who have posted here are artists or understand enough of the “process” of making art to discuss it from an artist’s viewpoint. Alex’s comment “Let’s call a spade a spade…” pretty much sums it up, so far as the West is concerned.
You need time to make art, yes. It need not be in large, uninterrupted chunks, though some artists do need that. And great art need not be produced in your culture to be appreciated at a deep level. But then, “great art” is a Western (commidifying!)concept, so beware of that trap. LuhrenLoup makes some excellent points above about this.
I do disagree that the pop culture disqualifies as “great” art or art at all: Pagannini and Listz were both victims of the same frenzies of fame that the Beatles enjoyed…Time Wounds All Heels, or so it would seem.
The best artist comes with a history of adversity. Johnny the investment banker doesn’t have much to provide inspiration, except perhaps pot, beer and some poor young girl’s pants.
“Yet paradoxically the art for which people are willing to pay the most money seems to come from advanced economies such as Germany, England, Japan, and the U.S.”
Sure. That’s where the the dealers with the highest mark-up live.
It’s simple and easy – not all artists are in it for the same reasons, and it may not be the ambition of an artist from an underdeveloped country to sell his/her stuff to citizens of advanced countries.
But, I suppose, art is subjective, and the result is never the same (thankfully.)
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