It happens, from time to time, that some acquaintance with an artistic interest asks me the question: "what is the best way to make my art known using the internet?", And my disappointing answer is very simple: on internet Art does not exist as such. Or rather: it does not exist precisely because it does not belong to any economic model.
If we study a little the history of art as an economic phenomenon, in fact we discover that there is a first phase, called "classical", which lasts approximately until the Renaissance / Baroque, in which art has a single, simple purpose economic: increase the real estate value.
It is not so much the phenomenon of patronage: and we can easily observe that throughout this period art is completely concentrated in the rich areas, in the homes of the rich, in the lands of the rich, in the hands of the rich. There is not even a faint hint of art, even for amateur purposes, inside the homes of the less rich.
The reason is simple: patronage had an economic purpose. Increase the real estate value of a building, a neighborhood, a city. That is, it was a collateral sector of what today we would call "real estate".
Moreover, art was conceived and absolutely optimized for this: in Michelangelo's time it was possible to make mineral-type colors with a very slow degradation, but it was preferred to use organic-based colors, such as egg yolk and other perishable substances. : the reason was "planned obsolescence", that is, to keep the property at its value, maintenance was required, and to ensure that maintenance was necessary, he used art as a marker: without maintenance, in a few decades any painting or statue would have degraded .
It was certainly possible, for one thing, to cover a marble statue with glass. It would become opaque, sure, but the level of protection against the elements would increase enormously.
But the problem was that, being the value of the building, the neighborhood or the city, it had to go hand in hand with the value of the art contained in it. Therefore, a building in a bad state of maintenance could not use a fresco to hide its state, on the contrary: the fresco would have betrayed the state of maintenance by degrading at the same speed as the building.
It would also have been possible, I don't know, to overlay the Sistine chapel with gold. But the gold could, first of all, be stolen (i.e. separated from the building, as happened many times in the past during looting), while the painting was tied to it. Furthermore, if the gold had a value linked to its scarcity, the painting was unique. The scarcity was even greater.
This way of making art in order to increase the value of objects, buildings, furniture, neighborhoods, cities, lasted until about 1700, that is, the mercantile period. Previously, in fact, those who wanted to increase the value of their building had to ask themselves how good an artist was. With the creation of state entities, national academies took control of the market. The best known was the French one: if you came out of there or were recommended by them, you were the kind of artist they would use to embellish churches, palaces, and other real estate properties.
On the other hand, this gave even more value to the works, as they could ONLY be found in the homes of over-rich people, nobles, in churches, and in very few other places such as the squares of some very rich cities.
Good. Because at a certain point, in 1700, the bourgeoisie arrives and opens the market.
Here comes the art gallery. The art gallery is a PRIVATE that organizes an exhibition, where a painter exhibits his works as a PRIVATE, and the recommendation of the Academy is replaced by the approval of the market. The paintings are sold, part of the proceeds go to the owner of the gallery, part goes to the author.
But here the business model changes enormously: what gives value to an art gallery? Since the bourgeois rich man of art does not understand shit, he does understand a very banal concept of synthesis. The Brand. In this period, and from this period onwards, the name of the author takes value. Let's be clear, any asshole with two years of training could paint like Monet, but Monet is a brand. It's known. They say he's a genius. Everyone is talking about Monet. Everyone wants Monet. Everyone goes to Monet's galleries. All galleries want Monet.
Monet shits, paints like a dog in abstinence, but once the author has made people talk about himself, the commercial mechanism that balances Monet's scarcity (he's a lonely guy) with his question (at least for curiosity ', everyone wants to see his paintings). And when art changes its business model, branding comes.
This business model continues to grow and structure itself, as long as it is enough
- the author invents something "new" or causes scandal (eg: he paints with his own shit), so that people talk about him.
- get invited by galleries that only host famous or controversial names
and his art takes on "value". It must no longer embellish buildings, it must no longer produce value for cities, churches or neighborhoods. Everything is in the hands of the market, where the scarcity of original works by a specific author, combined with the demand, produces a price, (and who cares about the value, so much the villas draw the surveyors and make shit by default ).
It then comes to this:
There is no "art", no talent is needed, it is not required to know how to do anything in particular to produce this "work". Its value is due ONLY to two factors: the “Warhol” brand and the “Marylin” brand. The rest is done by the market.
Already at this stage there is no longer "art", because there is no longer any value. There is only branding: the reputation of the author. You can't use this stuff to value a building, there is no scarcity because any idiot can do the same thing again. Beauty doesn't exist, and it doesn't even have to please the human eye.
The business model, in fact, is completely speculative: anything done by a famous guy is famous, so the price goes up. End. Graphic speculation.
Then comes the Internet.
The Internet produces an economic model that doesn't give a damn about the brand, and that doesn't care about the relationship between scarcity and demand: anything digital can be replicated. In the world of the internet, especially after the consolidation of commercial algorithms for advertising, and to say it all, we give a little shit about authors.
But what is the economic model? Well, it is the one based on the algorithms that give value (and “monetize” art) according to some criteria.
- the impressions
- the virality
- the dispute
- engagement
- …
these are all criteria that were absolutely not present before. Since art was NOT for advertising, no one had ever really calculated these things.
The new commercial model, therefore, is completely flattened on the measurement of the audience and some of its derivatives, such as engagement or virality.
In this situation, NOT ONLY the art no longer exists (understood as the production of an aesthetic value) but the artist no longer exists either: there is only “the content”.
Internet is not suitable for hosting art because from the point of view of the advertisement algorithm, art does not exist. There is ONLY "the content".
And with this, the artist becomes a "content creator":
As you can see, no one even talks about "art" anymore, much less about "works". It is about "contents", and the profession is not even that of an artist: at the limit it is a "model". But no further.
What happens if you put art in the classical sense (a fresco or a statue) or art in the commercial sense (Monet, Van Gogh, and others) on the Internet? He certainly does not spit it out, but you will immediately notice that you do not "monetize". Apart from the fact that it took a LOT more time to produce that kind of art than it takes to do this:
therefore you are still not very "productive", all the other parameters of your beautiful fresco will prevent its monetization.
If you are "artists" in the classical sense (that is, if you are Michelangelo) or if you are artists of the mercantile period (if you are Monet or Rodin, that is), you do not have the slightest chance of being "monetized", for simple reason that what you do is judged according to the parameters of the "content", which do not include the value that your content could give to the real estate market, nor the value of your brand: the young lady above is called Kim Manana, but I could put his public photos on my blog and an advertisement algorithm would immediately notice that he attracts readers. So, in the end, the brand doesn't work either: after all, how many of you give a damn to know that this chick is called Kim Manana?
According to the economic criteria of the commercial web, Mona Lisa is worth LESS than this:
Because if we go to measure all the typical KPIs of the sector, this young lady monetizes more than the Mona Lisa. And if you think I was being too vulgar, remember that engagement is not measured by a sign. It means that I can get through all of the above young ladies, who in turn surpass the David and Mona Lisa, simply by posting this:
This image will immediately arouse negative or positive feelings, and the resulting debate could keep people engaged for a long time. But this, from the point of view of the commercial internet based on advertising, gives this photo an even higher value. If enough people enter into a debate about the value of this photo, or of this person, about the concept of "baby" and more, it is worth more than Mona Lisa. And if we then go there to put up furious arguments about feminism, we go even further, because the value still grows. I repeat: it grows.
As you can see, I'm not talking at all about the fact that people appreciate art or not or appreciate more or less the "beautiful": when the first art galleries arrived, in the academies they laughed at the authors on display. They were certainly not the masterpieces that came out of the classical academy.
And now that we are used to considering people like Monet or Picasso "art", we probably laugh at these "contents".
Which is normal in times of change, but the fact remains that if you paint what was "art" in the classical period for you there is NO space on the internet (maybe on Etsy, where will you become "artisans"?), and even if you did art in the commercial sense of the term, since branding isn't really relevant to an advertisement algorithm, nobody would monetize you just because you invented a new art form, like impressionism or cubism.
In short:
the problem is not that people on the internet don't understand art: the same people who are on the internet are out, and they go to visit the Uffizi. And it's not even that they don't know the authors: the same people who are on the internet then mention Monet every day, just to give themselves a pose.
It is simply the business model of the internet, which allows only one type of production, which is "the content".
For the internet, today, "art" simply DOES NOT EXIST. There are only "contents".
