For love or Money

Many of my artist friends and I are struggling with making a living. This seems to be a trend throughout history for many artists. Almost every one of them has said that the art they make for the public is not the art they truly believe in and they sell this "marketable" art to support their "unmarketable" art. There are cases of selling the work that we hold sacred but they seem to be few and far between. We are constantly in a position of compromising between the work we truly beleive in and making work that we hope will have market value. At the same time it is a struggle to create art that is free from marketability. In the film industry it is a common practice for film-makers to make trashy blockbusters in order to fund the films that they truly hold sacred. These films are always a huge gamble and they know they may not make any money. But since they are paid for the film-maker is free from worrying about the marketability of the film and are not influenced by having to sell the film to the public. Some of these films go on to be "cult classics". Why would one want to make art that does not sell? Why does the public not want to support the art that the artist holds sacred? Why does non-confrontational mindless work fill our office buildings, public spaces, movie theaters, music halls, etc..

Thank you all

Thank you for your responses to the latest posting, "Why do images matter?". Due to your feedback Alison was able to amass a lot of information for her project, which is due today. This is the purpose of this blog so it is now experiencing some success. Please tell your friends who might be interested in the questions posed here. Also feel free to email me if you have any questions you want me to post. I am trying to generate a community of people from different disciplines to discuss topics dealing with our current conception of art. Thank you again. There will be a new posting soon.
Kurt

WHY DO IMAGES MATTER?

A friend of mine sent an email and asked me this question and I am passing it on to anyone who has any feedback for her.
Here it is:
For a final project for my Image & Imagination class I'm looking into this big sticky question of :
WHY DO IMAGES MATTER? I'm seeking out insights from artists, actors, musicians, non-artists, everybodys... wondering what you can offer to all this.
More specifically, why to the particulars of an image matter? Just going off your website... if there's a big face, open-mouthed and toothy with a red nose, so what? Why does it matter that that is what came up? Because it could have been close-mouthed or toothless or blue-nosed or not a face at all. Why does this image matter? Or any image.

monkonfire

monkonfire
Originally uploaded by kpnil.

On June 11, 1963 a buddhist monk from Hue killed himself by fire. He sat in the lotus position without moving a muscle until his body was almost completely burned. Legend has it that when they cremated his remains his heart would not burn and it is kept in a bank in vietnam. He was considered to be a bodhisattva, "an enlightened being - one on the path to awakening who vows to forego complete enlightenment until he or she helps all other beings attain enlightenment."

"The press spoke then of suicide, but in the essence, it is not. It is not even a protest. What the monks said in the letters they left before burning themselves aimed only at alarming, at moving the hearts of the oppressors, and at calling the attention of the world to the suffering endured then by the Vietnamese. To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance…. The Vietnamese monk, by burning himself, says with all his strength and determination that he can endure the greatest of sufferings to protect his people…. To express will by burning oneself, therefore, is not to commit an act of destruction but to perform an act of construction, that is, to suffer and to die for the sake of one's people. This is not suicide."
-Thich Nhat Hnan

When I start feeling depressed and sorry for myself I consult this image and have a good cry.