Why Art Shouldn’t be Bought or Sold

Our existential mission and capitalism’s degradation of artists

Image by Gabriela Gomez, from Unsplash

Thanks to the prevalence now of cameras and microphones, we’re used to seeing hapless folks demean themselves. So much of life these days is broadcast for the world to see, that at any given moment the foolishness of someone somewhere is bound to go on public record. Bloopers and memes keep us amused.

But there’s a special kind of degradation when artists compete in gameshows for a grand prize, as in “Ink Master,” “Face Off,” or “Portrait Artist of the Year.” That’s when our shallowness is unmistakable, because in these cases the imperatives of capitalism so transparently override those of artistic creativity. It’s as though the purpose of producing art were to earn a profit or even to please a panel of judges.

A Clash of Values

You could see in “Face Off,” for example, how the young makeup artists cling to their artistic mores even as those values clash with their participation in the TV show’s social Darwinian format. The artists would sometimes help each other, sacrificing their advantage by giving advice on how their competitors could improve their work. Yet the entertainment value of the competition thrives on the participants’ cutthroat tactics and on the winners’ selfish abandonment…