Below a sign that says “LOCAL ART GALLERY” and “ART IS RESISTANCE™”, a cubist character is placing a sign that has the following text on it: “SUPPORT LOCAL ARTISTS $500”.

Meanwhile, another cubist character, an annoying looking man in a suit, is telling “PLEASE GO AWAY, YOU ARE RUINING THE AESTHETIC” to another character.

Down in the corner, the character being talked to is drawn using curves and regular lines, they look homeless and depressed, and are holding a sign that reads “WILL DRAW FOR FOOD”

https://thebad.website/comic/starving_artists_not_welcome

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    15·
    9 days ago

    $500 isn’t exactly much, given how long art takes to produce, how relatively infrequently that art will be bought, and how many extra expenses a “self-employed” artist has. I expect that most people selling art for $500 are hobbyists with some other means of financial support, because they’re not going to earn enough to live on by selling art. Portraying them as corporate sellouts is just silly.

    (The exception might be some digital artists working on commission. But they’re probably drawing furry porn rather than something you might see in a gallery.)

    • Bad@jlai.luOP
      11·
      9 days ago

      Well yeah, this is criticism of the bourgeois art scene and its “local galleries” undercutting artists to a point where only self sufficient artists can survive, while proletarian artists are treated as undesirables.

      It’s the same criticism Duchamp was doing of the art world updated for modern times. As we both lived in the same city at different times, it resonates with me.

      The “portrayal as corporate sellouts” is a misinterpretation. Maybe my piece is hard to interpret though. Hard to tell since I can’t have an objective point of view on it.

      • i_love_FFT@jlai.lu
        1·
        8 days ago

        My interpretation combined with my observations of the world is as follows.:

        Bourgeoisie art scene is a sanitized/toned down version of proletarian art, which could be called more “raw” or “real”. Fancy artists act as sort of explorers of raw art and pre-digest it so the (diluted) message can still somewhat reach those who wouldn’t have looked at that real art.

        They make more money simply because they come from this social class. They get “inspired” by poor artists and copy their style, making more money out of it.

        Are they artists? Yeah… Are they true innovators? No way!

  • saigot@lemmy.ca
    9·
    9 days ago

    500 per piece of art is barely out of the struggling to eat level of artist. Be mad that the ones making 50000 each.

    A large blank canvas alone is like a 100 bucks. If they are charging minimum wage for their time (they shouldn’t) and spend no money on brushes or paints that gives them 25hours per piece, which isn’t really that much time to be honest. Then hopefully you make enough in prints to pay the exhibitions cut and for time and money you spent marketing, networking, negotiating etc

    Obviously there’s all kinds of art which different time and material commitments but 500 bucks really isn’t all that unreasonable.

  • go $fsck yourself@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    8 days ago

    Needs a third panel where the person is home on their computer using some bullshit AI to generate garbage facsimiles of art stolen from all artists within the range of both the other panels.