1. The term here should be contemporary art, not modern art. Modern art refers to art from roughly 1890-1960. Typically people that don’t know much about contemporary art and claim it’s all stupid make this basic mistake, which highlights their ignorance of the subject.
2. The contemporary art market is absolutely driven and perhaps even survives because of rich people. So much so that artworks have become financial instruments.
The difference, which is what my comment was trying to get at, is that the ultra rich, society-defining wealth tends to come from the tech world and generally has little interest in arts or culture. For example the entire contemporary art market is only about 65 billion, which is orders of magnitude lower than tech. https://www.ubs.com/global/en/our-firm/art/collecting/art-ma...
3. Even then, this is only “art” and not “the arts” as a whole. So I don’t think it’s very comprehensive of an answer.
One related conclusion I came to awhile ago, and wrote a short post on, is that it’s very difficult to invest in “public art” vs. “private art.” I wrote more about it here:
But the most relevant part for this discussion is this:
Today, if a wealthy benefactor wanted to emulate a Renaissance patron and fund an architect or artist to create a new town square or city park, it’s unclear how he or she would even go about doing so. There don’t appear to be any financial instruments specifically designed for rewarding investors that fund integrated artworks. The design of the public space would almost certainly be watered down and subject to various governmental councils and community groups. Hostile attitudes toward the wealthy would probably result in the park being vandalized, if it were actually built.
Consequently, it is much easier and more creatively rewarding to instead spend a few million on a rare painting or backing a film project. Put simply, there are very little incentives for the wealthy to fund integrated arts.
Even then, though, this is already a subset of the potential wealthy founders of art, a subset that largely excludes most of the tech billionaires that don’t care about art culture at all.
1. The term here should be contemporary art, not modern art. Modern art refers to art from roughly 1890-1960. Typically people that don’t know much about contemporary art and claim it’s all stupid make this basic mistake, which highlights their ignorance of the subject.
2. The contemporary art market is absolutely driven and perhaps even survives because of rich people. So much so that artworks have become financial instruments.
The difference, which is what my comment was trying to get at, is that the ultra rich, society-defining wealth tends to come from the tech world and generally has little interest in arts or culture. For example the entire contemporary art market is only about 65 billion, which is orders of magnitude lower than tech. https://www.ubs.com/global/en/our-firm/art/collecting/art-ma...
3. Even then, this is only “art” and not “the arts” as a whole. So I don’t think it’s very comprehensive of an answer.
One related conclusion I came to awhile ago, and wrote a short post on, is that it’s very difficult to invest in “public art” vs. “private art.” I wrote more about it here:
https://onthearts.com/p/modern-culture-is-too-escapist-part
But the most relevant part for this discussion is this:
Today, if a wealthy benefactor wanted to emulate a Renaissance patron and fund an architect or artist to create a new town square or city park, it’s unclear how he or she would even go about doing so. There don’t appear to be any financial instruments specifically designed for rewarding investors that fund integrated artworks. The design of the public space would almost certainly be watered down and subject to various governmental councils and community groups. Hostile attitudes toward the wealthy would probably result in the park being vandalized, if it were actually built.
Consequently, it is much easier and more creatively rewarding to instead spend a few million on a rare painting or backing a film project. Put simply, there are very little incentives for the wealthy to fund integrated arts.
Even then, though, this is already a subset of the potential wealthy founders of art, a subset that largely excludes most of the tech billionaires that don’t care about art culture at all.