For artists, it’s often a tragic reality. Maybe it speaks to how little the world values art. But maybe, there’s no other way it can be. The NFT world seems to buck this trend, but I think the same dynamics are still at play, just differently.
Why is it that the price of a painting goes down when you make more? If a painting really is worth $1 million in beauty, then two should be worth $2 million. Mass-produced prints don’t have this quality. IKEA charges $50 for each print of this Van Gogh:
I think the art world has two types of art. One is where you pay for something nice to hang on your wall. You’re willing to spend more on a painting that took more time to produce.
The other art world is for the jet-setting, high flying aristocrats who buy expensive sports cars. They’re different markets. The aristocrats care that the work is original, authentic, etc. Anyone who hopes to sell something to these people cares about these things too. That’s where the big money is made.
If you’re an artist, each additional painting you make may end up hurting the value of your existing works. Think of the big names in art. You have Picasso, Da Vinci, etc. These artists have such universal appeal, that nearly anyone would be happy to own one of their works, and yet there’s a fixed supply of actual paintings. This also means Picasso’s worth depends on the size of the world population, which is a weird concept to wrap your head around. Population goes up, and so does the value of a Picasso. Population collapses and the entire art market gets turned upside down. It would be interesting if this was how this worked. I think this dynamic works for anything with a fixed supply including Bitcoin. Anyhow, I digress.
Once an artist “makes it”, the incentives start to turn against the making of more art. Existing buyers have an investment to protect. This isn’t the case for dead artists. Nobody has to worry that their Picasso painting will suddenly go down in value. Picasso isn’t around to make new and better art.
To sum up, I don’t think the problem is that people don’t appreciate art. The problem is some artists don’t appreciate the game they’re playing.