[irjustin]

> But if your definition of “great art” is that it is commercially succesfull then of course what you will find that the “great artist” are all like good businesman.

While the author doesn't explicitly define what is "great", I 100% believed that what it is defined as. That "great" is being commercially successful.

The article is premised around running a non-profit art gallery in a struggling municipality. That he did a good job by "helping grow the revenues"[0]. He needed money for his new baby and couldn't afford to lose a job[1]

It is a modern day art gallery. These things are businesses first - to support their own operations and then to help artist support themselves and their work.

So yes, "great" art IS art that sells.

Now, what sells is highly highly subjective, and a very large part of that sales process is making the customer _feel good_ about their purchase. And I think this is where you disagree - that there is a higher, objective reality around good vs great art. And for so much art, there really isn't.

[0] "I started was the inflection point when the revenue, which had been shrinking or muddling for 5 years, began growing again"

[1] "since I knew I couldn’t afford to quit anytime soon with the baby and all"

[krisoft]

> While the author doesn't explicitly define what is "great", I 100% believed that what it is defined as.

I understand that is his definition, but then talk about that. Instead of saying that the exhibition ended up "mediocre" say that "ticket sales were lower than expected" or "sold less paintings than we hoped for", or "didn't bring in anybody".

Because as is he just writes "after weeks of this you end up with something mediocre" and "predict which exhibitions would end up great". That is very vibes based. Did he just not enjoy those exhibitions? Or is it tied to something objective outside of his head? (such as revenue, or crowd size, or critical acclaim) The first is not interesting, the second is.

> That he did a good job by "helping grow the revenues"[0].

Or did not do a good job. Base on the very sentence you quote which starts "It helped that the year I started ...". Doesn't give me the impression that even the author believes it is all their doing. Very easily someone could write the same story from a differed perspective "we hired a guy to run the café, but he was way too distracted to keep consistently at it. First he ruffled some feathers with the board then he mellowed out so we kept him around. He pooh-poohed artist who was not as responsive in electronic communication as he would have liked, but we told him softly that is not his decision and to shut it. At the end he was only showing up sporadically and then left to write or something." We only have his world on it and even based on that his track record is less than stelar.

[jonnycomputer]

Yes, this is the situation we are left in. I don't really know of course (and presumably nor do you) whether he was a good employee or made substantive improvements or whatever. It would have helped if he was more specific and concrete in his descriptions.

The biggest failing here is a failing of clear and compelling writing.

[krisoft]

> I don't really know of course (and presumably nor do you) whether he was a good employee or made substantive improvements or whatever.

Yes, absolutely. I don't know anything about him outside of this article. I assume he is a good employee, or they were mostly happy with him (for the simple reason that they kept employing him). Just wrote that part to illustrate that the same facts from his own pen can be also interpreted in a negative light.

> It would have helped if he was more specific and concrete in his descriptions.

I totally agree with that.

[atoav]

On which timeframe tho? Many great artists did not sell well during their lifetime, Van Gogh being the most famous example.

Was Van Gogh a great artist because at some point in the future his works are among the most expensive ones ever sold sold? Or was he a bad artist, that turned great after his death when the market favored him more?

If it is the former, every artist could potentially sell well in the remaining time of human civilization — how far in the future do you draw the line?

If it is the latter then we get the paradoxical situation, that the same work can be both great and bad depending on the observers time reference. So the same painting is bad, until someone "discovers" it and manages ro produce economic hype around it.

As someone with a MA of art who has probably seen more exhibitions than most people on this site (including the last 5 Biennales and the last 3 Documentas) my guess is: great art is great even before it is commercially successful.

Whether it then turns out to be economically successful as well (and when) hinges on many different factors, like the Zeitgeist, pure chance, where it was exhibited or next to what it was exhibited, how the galerist treats the work, how much the artist puts on the market, how the market feels at the time when it is shown etc.

The "greatness" of the work is only a very small factor in the economic success it has, some would even argue it doesn't matter as much as one would think.

But all of that matters on how we define "great". If you are a rich collector that sees art as an investment it is just about the numbers, then great art is only art that you have and that sells for more than you bought it. You'd define it differently depending on who you are: artist, art historian, galerist, lay person, crafts person, journalist, copyright lawyer, restaurator, ..

[TheOtherHobbes]

By your definition, super-successful kitsch-meisters like Thomas Kinkade are great artists.

That's quite a niche view.

In fact art is an overlap of many different kinds of markets selling to many different kinds of customers - from people buying phone wallpapers online, to tourists buying souvenirs on holiday, to oligarchs laundering money through prestige purchases.

And many others.

A community gallery is going to intersect with a couple of those, but not all of them. Sustainable funding is a goal, but maximising income isn't.

Financial success doesn't sane wash narcissistic entitlement, of which there is plenty outside of the arts.

[krisoft]

> By your definition, super-successful kitsch-meisters like Thomas Kinkade are great artists.

And Vincent van Gogh is not. Or was not a great artist, then he died and become a great artist somehow suddenly after his death. (at least by that definition, which just to make it clear, I don't agree with.)

[specialist]

I'm fine with "remembered somehow" as another useful definition for "a great artist".

More cynically: van Gogh was only successfully monetized posthumously.