I was thinking about how things are changing in the role of Art in the world far before I discovered Steem and its blockchain. In the last many months posting on Steemit (mostly) about Art, I started thinking also about the contents rewarding, such as it is on Steem (but other media are going to think about rewarding the content creators, i.e. Viewly, that will work differentl from Steem).
This 2 subjects - the changing perception of the role of Art, and the need to reward content creators - are something I'm thinking about as one.
Content creators are going to matters more and more in the future. That's my opinion.
They are important also today, of course, but that "market" is going to become bigger and more fluid - not restricted only to a little number of copywriters and laureate authors.
This is where artists can find a new way to express themselves and earn money from that.
Yes, earning some money is important for an artist. Not only because he needs to make a living, but also because being rewarded means being accepted in the society. I don't care about Van Gogh selling almost nothing in his life (but he received a good monthly allowance from his brother Theo) or other great artists discovered after their death. We are not in the 19th or 20th century anymore. Artists have to think about themselves in a different way.
I want to say it short:
Artists have to think to themselves not as makers of objects, but as creators of content.
@reddragonfly said it in a better way: "When I started in the gallery business, a piece of art was very much an "object." And, as an object, it was something you could potentially "possess" or "own. Today, many more people approach art as more of an experience."
How the role of Art changed? I think the most important events are 3:
The end of the avantguards (This means that styles are languages, and not themes.)
The advent of the Street Art (This means Art is not just something you find in a museum or buy in a gallery)
The Web and Social Web (This means a powerful place to share and find contents and images)
Maybe a fourth? The birth of the decentralized economy.
There's a ghost floating around this subjects: the one-of-the-kind artwork. The art market needs to keep alive that ghost, for it justifies the prices of artworks. But do we need to keep it alive? Sure, there are artworks that cannot be reproduced and multiplied. But there are many that can.
And even the artworks that need to be one-of-the-kind (and every artist have the right to work that way) can have their partial but still important influence by reproductions. The Walter Benjamin's myth of the aura of the original one-of-the-kind have to rest in peace.
Am I saying blasphemy? Well, I'm just thinking and writing. Strong convinctions are far away from me.
1. To be continued
for @sndbox