Problems in the art and design industries
by Pereye19
The art industries and its markets are very diverse and consists of different types of economy. Under the term art industries there are many categories, but for simplicity, I am just going to focus on “fine arts” and “art design” in this post. Both of them are considered art, while design art is often considered an inferior art by many, including their “colleagues” in the fine arts community. While most design art is made to fulfill a purpose, fine art is only made to stir emotions in its audience. Fine arts are also not a part of any “real” economy, like design art is. People who do fine arts, or artists, make art for the sake of art. They make art to awake feelings and they’re not supposed to be in it for the money. Artists who make fine art for money often end up getting shunned by the community and their work no longer considered fine arts by other artists. In order to make money, most artists get help from a gallery-owner who can put their work on display and sell them for a certain price. This makes it possible to make money, even though the gallery-owner takes a high commission. It works fairly well, but I’ve heard of cases where the artist was questioned for asking about his money from the gallery-owner, and again, artists aren’t supposed to care about money, even if they need it to keep doing what they love. This is a challenge, and few artists are willing to discuss this in mainstream media.
Artists that seek to make money of their skills often end up working in art design instead. This is an art market that has a real economy, there are real jobs and people are paid in full. However, design art has its challenges too. As previously mentioned, by the fine arts community, design art is not considered art because of the level of commercialism. Art design is also considered to be less valuable by many of the big industries. John Heskett says that “the proposition that design can have a powerful strategic role in creating economic value, in terms of fundamental decisionmaking to establish long-term competitiveness, still has limited currency around the world”. He discusses the view on how useful art design really is considered around the world. It is, however, lots of proof supporting that good design can be a powerful economic factor: just look at some of the biggest companies in the world, like Apple, and their approach to design.
Even though art design isn’t fully accepted by neither the fine arts community or some of the big industries, there has been a rise in the use of design, and design management in the last quarter century. People are opening their eyes, and there is an ongoing discussion about how art design best can be utilized in big business. This might push them even further away from the finer arts, but that also leaves more room for different types of art between them. That’s a win for us, the consumers.
Making sense of art and design industries 