As the guilded age came to a close in the 1900s, railroad barons, industrialists and banking kingpins put money into the arts in order to launder their image and legacies. We see no such thing today. Why is that?
I’m an independent film producer in NYC who has previously acted in Hollywood studio films and sold screenplays. I’m also extremely online. I have found that wealthy techies, in general, have little to zero interest in investing in culture. This has been a source of frustration considering the large percentage of new money that comes from the sector.
I’m not alone in feeling this way: I have a friend who raises money for a non-profit theater in Boston, another who owns an art gallery in Manhattan, and another who recently retired at the LA Opera. All have said not to bother with anyone in tech. This has always bummed me out given that I genuinely believed with all of my heart and soul that the internet was going to usher in a new golden age of art, culture, and entertainment. (Yes, I was naive as a kid in the 00s.)
Art and culture can truly only thrive on patronage, especially in times of deep income inequality. Yet there are no Medicis in 2023. So what’s missing here? Where is the disconnect?
I like that this question is generating resoonses.
My opinion, as a “techie” (although not even close to rich one) with a lot of aritists among friens, is that the resson is the same as to why artists don’t contribute to open source software.
We don’t have the knowledge to understand it, and my feeling is that most art is created for other artists. Whenever I go to some new exhibition, it is utterly borring if none of my educated artist friends are not with me to explain me why is something interesting and how. Also, why something else is utterly shit.
Artist world is not doing nearly enough to educate non artists and help us understand what is being created.
Also, looks like you don’t count games, music, movies and who knows what else as art.
If we are counting video games as art, then there have been plenty of rich techies over the past 2 decades who have spent millions out of pocket trying to create their own version of “The Next World of Warcraft Plus Call of Duty Except Better”.
We don’t usually hear about video games funded and created by rich tech people though, because their game projects rarely make it to launch (due to the fact that video game development is actually much more challenging than it looks).
As any other art. Not every painting is good art, not every paining deserves admiring.
Mozart was just good entertainer for the rich people, but we consider him great artist now (as we should), I don’t see difference with games.
Problem is that some artists would like to be paid to make stuff only they (and their small community) likes.
While I agree that kind of art should exist, and we should have society in which it is possible… I do think it can not be a rule.
I have stuff I like to do and think those are more important for society than my actual work, but I know no one want to pay for it.