Is Art Just A Product?

Artist have to market their work. This is a fact and their can be no complaints about this. We cannot rely on galleries alone. I can communicate to you though this blog and I value the independence that this gives me. I think artists enjoy this perk of modern life.

However there are many marketing "teachers" out there who keep on about how our art is a product. That artists must get over themselves and accept this reality. Somehow we must now regard our art as stuff to be sold like other goods.

Forgive me for saying this but that is total rubbish. If all goods are products to be marketed and sold then where is the art? Surely for something to be art it cannot be just a product churned out on the production line.

Perhaps the original item was art, but if it is copied and replicated over and over then these copies lose their appeal as art. 

The above quote said it all for me. There is more to be valued in art than its efficacy as a product. Its ability to match the sofa or fill up that bit of dead space in the passage. A true collector will be moved by art for all that intangible qualities that come with the piece. 

So too must the artist value his or her work as more than a product. The value of a painting is more than the paint and canvas. It is more than the price too although the price must be fair to artist and collector. 

In the end I am grateful that art is very thing that makes us uniquely human. That has true value. It would be a pity to forget this.