Art has been considered an essential part of the world for many centuries. However, in modern culture, there are more and more people who turn their focus to technology and business, while the popularity of art is gradually decreasing. From my perspective, there are some reasons for that, among which are changes in job motivation, and the deterioration of the concept of art itself.
The development of technology has provided us with rich opportunities. Online booking of flights, ordering a takeaway, and working from home are just a few examples of such conveniences, among many others. Indeed, past generations couldn’t even imagine such benefits, and now that we have them, we often take them for granted. At the same time, technology, in part, has changed our values, transforming them perhaps irreversibly. Not considering their personal preferences anymore, many people choose IT professions simply because they could be guaranteed a good job position today. Now that people have the luxury to make life choices, they more often choose something because it’s advantageous for their financial future. People have forgotten how to choose because they just like something.
Instead, today the process of choosing is becoming similar to a business project. It's true that entrepreneurs have always been thinking in terms of profit and common sense rather than a vocation. They’re certainly not people guided by romantic ideas about life calling or personal interests. Though in the past, the business sector made up only a part of society, today everyone is forced to be an entrepreneur in one way or another. People slowly but surely have been buying into the idea that money is equal to success, which, in turn, equals happiness. In fact, the belief that money equals happiness is no more than a generalization, though people acquire this concept without doubts or hesitations.
The business and technology sectors provide a sense of stability—to find a well-paid job, have a carefree old age, the list goes on. Indeed, stability is a rare thing in the modern messy world, and that alone might be a sensible reason why people focus their efforts on business or IT. At the same time, it’s difficult today to achieve success in the art world. Consider this example: one modern artist who didn’t create anything outstanding but have a good artist agent, earns small fortunes year after year. Another artist, finishing his studies of art at university and devoting all his life to art, still couldn’t make ends meets because he doesn't have an agent or support from a wealthy patron.
What I mean by that is that today there’s no strict boundary between the concepts of real and fake art anymore. Curators can't tell with certainty whether one artist will be successful while another won’t. With a lack of objective parameters, creating art is becoming a lottery, where some players win and some don’t. If you ask a random person on the street what real art is, you’ll probably hear “Mona Lisa,” or, if a person is familiar with modern art, “Banksy.” People don’t know what is considered “art” anymore.
It’s also not a coincidence that there’s no boundary between real and commercial art anymore; in essence, this boundary has been destroyed by the commercialization of art. Granted, there’ve always been people interested in getting profit from art, but today the profitability of any art project has become a necessity, not a choice. Art curators don’t want anymore to contribute to experimental artists or unusual concepts that won’t bring them financial results. That's why it’s difficult to become a well-known artist today. Since the concepts of art and money have been mixed and meshed, neither ordinary people nor artists themselves know what should be considered art today.
What can we do to encourage more people to take an interest in art? The truth is, we have to admit that the popularity of art has been destroyed by the over focused attention on the concepts of financial profit and practical choices. People know why they should value money and career, but they've forgotten why they should value freedom and art. By acknowledging the power of art, we’ll learn to appreciate its influence on society and comprehend the full potential of artists’ professions and crafts. For this to happen, we have to learn to give art as much attention as we’ve been giving to business and technology for the last decades. The only way to preserve art and make it an essential part of the world is to see it as an impressive tool for expanding and refining our minds, not just as a hobby for weekends. We have to make art our priority, not a by-product of life.
