I was watching "Slings and Arrows" the other day (which, for the record, is easily the best and most accurate representation of theatre life I’ve ever seen on tv/film), and one of the characters, a board member and investor of the regional theatre where the show takes place, made an interesting comment. To paraphrase: "You artists all have the same problem. You can’t figure out whether you’re a business or a charity. If you’re a business, make a product, and market it. If you’re a charity, go ask the government for money. You have to make a choice." This got me to thinking about that great battle between commerce and art and how artists react when forced to engage in commerce.
Some would argue that the line between the two is not as clear as many would present it, and there is merit to this idea. There have been many strong pieces of art that have also succeeded in the commercial marketplace. That being said, when art errs too much on the side of commerce, it becomes exclusively entertainment. Likewise, when a piece is the brainchild of an artist with a clear and strong vision with no eye toward popular taste, it becomes exclusively art. This is not to say that art is not entertaining, or vice versa. The two can keep company, and they often do, but one does not necessarily follow the other: "Transformers"? Entertainment. "The Seventh Seal"? Art. "The Dark Knight"? Both.
This cultural separation of art and commerce as ideas and concepts is a tough nut to crack, particularly in the United States. Compared to most other developed nations, our public support for the arts is meager. Our culture has strong roots in free market principles (in theory, if not always in practice), and that cultural emphasis certainly extends to the arts in ways that would be foreign to many other nations. Of course, on the other hand, a lot of British taxpayers were understandably annoyed when their money went into the National Theatre’s production of "Jerry Springer: The Opera" (delicious though it may be).
There are growing schools of thought that companies should place their focus squarely on the problems in their marketplace as determined by potential buyers, rather than existing customers or whatever the engineering department think is cool. This approach, while commercially valuable, is paradoxical to the mindset of most artists. Artists do not do what they do in order to make money. Despite rare stories of insane success and fame, everyone knows those to be impractical exceptions. As the saying goes, "you can’t make a living in the arts, but you can make a killing". The point is that art is by nature of limitted commercial concern. I know few artists who would think it a valuable use of their time and talents to ask potential audience members "what kind of plays would you like to see?" and creating based on those interviews. Artists typically look at their work as a form of personal expression, not as a commodity to be sold. It is personal, it is emotional, and it is presented from the standpoint of a transmitter, ultimately not caring whether or not the message conveyed has commercial value to the receiver.
Paradoxically, people have to eat. Producers present shows that they despise because they know them to be crowd pleasers and will allow them to put food on the table, pay their employees, and fund future projects. Actors, directors, composers, etc. all willingly work on trash from time to time because the beast must be fed. That being said, their eyes are always on that post-apocalyptic production of "The Tempest" that’s been rattling around inside their heads.
Commerce is usually a difficult proposition for artists because artists are, by definition, not commercially concerned. This is why we can’t figure out if we’re a bunch of businesses or charities: we’re neither. We’re artists.
