Art without Commerce is a Hobby
- October 17th, 2010 /
Art without commerce is a hobby.
Chef Joe Bastianich offered up this statement in the NY Times magazine as his motto a few weeks back, and it resonated with me.
I’ve been having lots of conversations lately with people who are trying to crack the business model code for art. Benjamin Reece, Robert Fogarty, Ross Hinkle are all building businesses around beautiful artistic expression. But they’re building businesses, so commerce is key.
Business model options might be:
- Consumer pays to consume the content
- Brands pay to commission and be integrated into content
- Advertisers pay to post ads beside the content
- Give away the art to generate service business
What other methods of monetization do you see? What do you think works best?
Platforms like Kickstarter are today’s version of art patronage with a crowd-funded model, but they just fund the creation of art, not revenue generation from the art. Ben pointed me to this post by Mark Cuban about the exhaustion facing content creators. The bottom line is the independent artistic content production business is incredibly difficult to monetize.
We stand at an inflection point in the creation of content. The cost of the tools to produce professional quality content have fallen dramatically, and more people than ever before are creating art as “prosumers.” Yet the ability to capture value from content is has not yet been disintermediated, the traditional payment gateways are still firmly in place, and new models have yet to emerge.
Most content creation businesses remain controlled by the traditional gatekeepers to the content. People pay monthly cable bills, buy magazines, newspapers, movie tickets, and concert tickets yet have been trained not to pay for these services on the web.
As internet content consumption moves away from the computer towards other devices, it seems important to build these monetization schemes into the platforms that control access to the content. Apple has trained people to pay for apps by making it easy and affordable. What will happen with the emergence of set-up boxes?
Its crucial that people creating art can make a living doing it. Let’s find the commerce for art.
- categories: Entrepreneurship /
Oct 17, 2010 at 7:38 pm
My belief cotinues to be every single frame of every single movie, film and video game is monetizable.
I went back and found a quote that I love from art collector and gallery owner Mary Boone: “I had reservations about making art a business, but I got over it.
The big question is which comes first technology or art. I feel they are undeniably intertwined and my experience shows that to be true.
For example with Primesense.com (Xbox kinect & more) I knew that only AMAZING CONTENT would show the potential of this outrageously innovative tech. So at GDC in ‘06 or ‘07 I forget now. I saw a preview of CLOUD video game from USC’s Center and knew at first glance that Primesense tech could add an ultimate app by enabling it for gesture computing — ie no controller — sick kids in hospitals could fly in the Clouds any time they wanted. 6 weeks later Primesense delivered the finished app to the Cloud team and not only did they do good but they got an AMAZING proof of conept in the process. It was a win-win situation.
BUT going back to my database for ‘06 & ‘07 I can count dozens of ‘art/content/music” creators that had no time for meetings with my client Primesense. They only wanted meetings with BIG NAMES with deep pockets. Some ‘artists’ had no time to even stop by the office down the hall at GDC to see a demo — well if your cilent doesn’t have a booth then they can’t be that big a thing! RIGHT ???
They had it right in the Renaissance — you need patrons, sponsors, and u must be willing to do work for hire not just YOUR OWN masterpieces (do those in your spare time). Plus I believe you need a matchmaker for business (not necessraily an agent) but an expert advisor, consultant you pay (yes PAY) to make deals for you. Most artists just are not business savvy. Too often they KILL the deal themselves. That’s one of the best things I learned at USC grad school in film and writing — DON’T KILL THE DEAL and closing my first film deal I discovered by a kick under the table from my female lawyer that u have to know when to shut up and not over promise and oversell. YES, one of my next book projects is on guess what ART! Did I mention I was able to get $100K to write my last book from Harper Collins Publishing, Collin Design — it’s in the art of the sell, not just the tell or show that matters bottom line. My guestimate is I’ve done more than 100 content deals in the past 15 years — 35 films, 28 video deals, 32 book deals and 75 venture start-ups ($100 M in biz dev) Maybe it’s time to offer a course! Is USC hiring? Do you want to do an art & commerce symposium and pitch seession?
Mar 04, 2012 at 1:45 pm
If I am matched with the right consumer and not asked to be cheaper faste
r or to change my style, and an agent understands for the time I put in I deserve compensation, ok. A hobby is something you do to relax and not need to improve on so much. Art whether it sells or not is a labor of love. Artists are funny. We would rather not sell something at all of of will be undervalued. Oddly to us its not a business in the same way a plant makes some widget. It makes no sense at all bit neither does love or inspiration.