How is modern art appreciated these days? How do we place value on art in this generation?
Is art still art when nobody sees it? Or when hardly anyone gives it a “like”? Is art always dependent on being seen, being evaluate or being admired. And is art now just all about social media popularity? A kind of ranking through social media?
Why am I asking myself this question? Because I sometimes wonder about the effect of our obsession for likes and followers on instagram, it’s just got me wondering “what makes art and what makes an artist these days?”
And why have likes and the number of followers become so incredibly important? Well, I can partly answer that question for myself: In my Mailbox, mails arrive showing the number of “likes” of the respective artist accounts. Those with the most likes, are also the first listed ones. So yes, popularity helps. And it seems that often today, the ones with the most followers have more appeal to potential clients, perhaps because the more followers an artist has, the higher their outreach and the higher their appeal subsequently.
And maybe that has always been the case anyway? Even without social media. If someone wrote a book and it was read by a lot of people, that meant it was a success. And the more success it had the better known it became and in conclusion to that the book got even more readers. And therefore became a bestseller.
But why is there a feeling that it is now longer about the quality of the finished work, but rather about the reach or popularity. And what if something really great doesn´t find its way through, because it doesn´t get a chance due to the rating being rendered by the amount of followers?
Art shouldn’t be put into a ranking or rated as per the number of likes it has or the number of followers the artist has but rather it should be appreciated as a piece of work detailing the creators expression and this should be valued based on the quality of skill or how relatable the viewer finds the artwork.
Photo by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash
