mia moraru’s Reviews > How Artists Make Money and How Money Makes Artists > Status Update

ppl above always trying to take advantage and exploit.
recording strike 1942-44. bc people not making money off recordings (talkies, now no more orchestra pit, for ex) wanted royalty structure. Columbia & RCA didn’t crack for 2 yrs bc of vocal recording loophole. singers not in unions. and so backing tracks by vocal groups and so singers used as scabs.
it’s rock that changed the game

‘The plight of musicians over the last century and a half is not much different than that of any worker thrown into an open market: the surplus of labor and concentration of capital will always make their position precarious and allow for exploitation.’

‘The market has always been set up to reward and increasingly small percentage of actual artists.’

regarding spotify CEO— ‘…you don’t make $345 million in one year by paying other people daily.’

sigh

while music industry shift. from live bands to restaurants to juke boxes and record players but the albums were making artists significant enough money, touring was just publicity. now no album sales bc streaming. worse and worse deals. always higher ups controlling. monopolies on touring venues using certain ticket platforms etc etc

discussion on canada art scene and how had to be purposefully funded bc most ppl avoided canadian labeled art within the country. wanted different HEATED RIVALRY WILL CHANGE THIS bahahaha

‘Indigenous arts get to be arts because they have now been deemed to fit within the identity Canada wants to project.’

most govts will maintain most of what was established before them. most museums and national support for arts were just for archiving and nation/culture building as the admin saw fit. museums not living spaces; competing against dead canon artists is hardly a far fight. served the nation not artists.
same w new deal, CEMA. about mythmaking, about cultural supremacy, about not letting certain people in the canon

‘there’s no better way to secure your legacy than to pay an artist to help
make it for you.’

Cennino Cennini treatise on painting 1400s. notion of artist as noble and deserving recognition, helped both sides cause patron was seeing as someone w ability to recognize this talent. two people honoring each other and validating their standing
patronage started to dwindle during enlightenment and w end of feudal system bc shared wealth so indvids had less to splurge
hosting salons&connecting people became new way

‘A major part of this involved, convincing people with money that you were not interested in doing things for money: that what they were buying was the opportunity to provide an enlightened soul with a chance to express that enlightenment.’

most poets were rich ppl with leisure. peak ex of this in imperial china, the bureaucracy created art bc they had time and need to prove themselves enlightened. scholar exams for positions.
craftsmen often more skilled but they were excluded bc ‘they were creating things for the market and not to express the inherent worthiness of their souls…Circular logic is useful for keeping certain ppl out of the circle.’