Book Review: The Death of the Artist by William Deresiewicz
After years of hard work, many professional artists believe that graduation day is the start of a path to success. After all, we did everything right! We got the grades that secured acceptance to university programs that aligned with our interests and passion. Continued to achieve and prove we were great artists, and then the institutions sent us out into the world with little to no information on how to build a career. The Death of the Artist by William Deresiesicz is not the kind of book that explains how to build a career. Rather, this novel examines the current trends of the arts industry and how artists are keeping their careers sustained. Overall, after reading this book, I felt discouraged to try building a career in the arts. William is likely just trying to prepare future artists for the reality of the field. The main topics include the internet and free content, perseverance vs. giving up, money, and art school.
returning the book to the library after my rat chewed a hole in it
The Internet and Free Content Culture
William discusses the ways in which free content culture and the internet affect the professional artist’s career. Most important and appreciated was William’s explanation of the “Silicon Valley myth”. Basically, the idea that anyone can post content on the internet and profit off it is a trap that everyone falls into. It’s not just the social media apps either: music streaming, video streaming, eBooks, podcasts, and so many other internet-based media forms are not what they seem. For example, I always thought of Spotify as a music app, but after reading Spotify Teardown and later The Death of the Artist I learned that Spotify is actually a tech company. It's the same thing with other apps. The social medias are run by tech companies and this should completely change the way users perceive these products. Spotify may disguise itself as an arts patron, claiming to curate playlists that introduce users to indie or niche artists. Truly, it is set up in a way that devalues music. William explains “perhaps the most insidious aspect of free content, as well as the most demoralizing, is the extent to which it devalues art in the eyes of the audience.” Essentially, free (or cheap) content is great for the consumer, but not so great for the creators.
The Silicon Valley myth hides a lot of negative effects of free content culture. “For fans, the hidden cost of free music is all the music that never gets made”. This can be applied to other art practices as well. William asks, “Can we live without artists, professional ones? The tech evangelists would have us think so. We’ve returned, they insist, to the golden age of the amateur.” What is the correct balance of professional to amateur? “The feeling that your work is being buried underneath an avalanche of amateur garbage, as many of my interviews confirmed, is one of the afflictions of the professional artist’s existence today.” We all take up space in the digital world, and it is not fair to blame a lack of visibility on others. The existence of amateurs and hobbyists enriches the arts communities. These people are the target market for services and products that artists offer. The amateur-artist relationship in online spaces can be symbiotic rather than competitive. It comes down to debunking the Silicon Valley myth, challenging content culture, and supporting local artists.
post on threads, July 7th 2024
Perseverance vs. Giving up
The Death of the Artist was a very confusing book for me. Mostly, it made me feel like my entire bachelor’s degree was a waste of time. A point of discussion was perseverance or giving up. Essentially, if you give up before you make it, you never will. This doesn’t need to be seen as a failure, since transitioning to a different industry would result in higher income and more stability. “Giving yourself permission not to be an artist can be as liberating, and as brave, as allowing yourself to try to be one in the first place.” However, one day you could look backwards and realize you have reached your definition of “making it”. I have learned to only compare myself with younger versions of me. Young Sarah would be amazed with who I am now.
Money, money, money
A moment from my bachelor’s degree that shocked me to my core was when my flute teacher said something like: music is a degree for rich girls whose dads pay for everything. I completely froze. Am I a rich white girl whose dad pays for everything? What my flute teacher was getting at, William explained perfectly. “There’s a great deal of privilege, financial and otherwise, across the arts, as well as a strong desire to conceal it.” This only makes more sense the more you think about it. Its obvious in art school: peers with living expenses covered by their parents. They get to spend more time practicing their art, since they don’t need a job. Other people who get a head start thanks to their parent’s connections in the industry. Then again, these same privileges exist in engineering, business, and other faculties.
I would like a brief discussion on celebrity artists, as this is where a lot of privilege is covered up. Often we’re fed this myth of discovery or, countless auditions. However, I feel like this is half the story. Parents with the ability to invest in their children from a young age by paying for these auditions, even finding them in the first place is privilege. I will continue to investigate celebrity privilege in a different article. William also mentions celebrities, “as Lise Soskolne of W.A.G.E., the activist group has pointed out, the success of the few – the insane, obscene success of the very few – depends upon the failure of the many. You aren’t just poor while others are rich; you’re poor so that they can be.” This is probably true in any industry under capitalism, but extremely visible in the arts and entertainment.
I hypothesize a low effort way to level out variance of success between artists and celebrity artists is to stop accepting the options fed to you by the algorithm. William is skeptical about the algorithms as well. “In theory, we, the audience, can choose from everything in recorded history, discovering weird movies and exploring obscure bands. In practice, we are apt to sit back and let the algorithms do the work for us”. Purposefully spending time searching for those weird movies and obscure bands is so rewarding. Perhaps the most rewarding part is the connection fans are able to form with local artists in comparison with celebrity artists. A reply or actual conversation in Instagram DMs, even a higher chance of meeting the artist could be possible, not to mention the difference in event prices.
Content streams tend to generate negligible earnings, and jobs in the arts tend to be contracted. This means artists need to find multiple forms of revenue. We’re talking teaching, performing or producing art, content creation, managing an online store, as well as the possibility of a part-time job (or even full-time) in a different industry. William mentions jobs in the arts industry: “Full-time jobs – at universities, orchestras, publications, television shows – are turning into contract work or worse”. Meaning that artists are almost forced to be self-employed. “A self-employed artist – a self-employed anyone – is not an entrepreneur. They are simply a person without a job, living on their wits from check to check”. Did William just call me unemployed?
Multiple times, William mentions this idea of “money that’s not supposed to be there” and “not supposed to exist” in the arts. Reflecting on interactions with professors at art school, they were hesitant to give a clear answer as to how they make money performing. One specific professor said (this is paraphrase) “Do what you love and the money will come”. William is upset that this is how artists are instructed, for valid reason. This kind of thought does not contribute any financial knowledge whatsoever to students becoming artists. However, scaring people with harsh realities and telling artists we’re basically unemployed, not self-employed is also not contributing financial knowledge to the group, William. A middle ground between these two sentiments would be nice.
The less worried I am about money and the balance in my bank account, the more productive I can be with my art. This is likely why my professor told students to not worry about where or when the money comes in. Obviously, money doesn’t show up magically at the door. However, the whole time you’re posting free content, the audience grows, and this audience can be leveraged to sell art.
Art School and Elitism
William talks about art school and elitism in his book. First, we should not conflate elitism with success or privilege, but they have the potential to go hand in hand. Honestly, I feel that the only thing you need to be an elitist is to uphold systems of white supremacy in the arts. In plain words: if you’re obsessed with the dead white men who made “the greatest” art, you’re probably elitist. Another factor to elitism is gatekeeping. This means you don’t welcome newcomers, actively place barriers in front of them, and/or withhold information to keep them unknowledgeable. Most gatekeeping comes from people who are insecure with their ability to succeed.
Elitism in art school is a fine line. On one hand, professors are tasked with presenting history of the arts, where it is unavoidable to bring up the life and work of at least one dead white man. However, when your history notes start to look like an endless string of biographies of white men, that’s when you need to wonder what the curriculum is prioritizing. I found professors would include a couple tokenized examples in an attempt to break away from the elitist history canon. If your “diversity” inclusions start appearing after 1900 and are white women and black men, you need to do better.
Possibly the biggest issue with art school is its promise of a job post-graduation. I’ve taken multiple classes and even completed an entire diploma that all promised to land me a job after completion. Here I am, still self-employed, after applying to countless job openings in the arts. My lack of connections, alongside the possibility that I write subpar cover letters hurts my chances in the industry. William has an interesting point about networking in the arts.
“People understand that if you aren’t doing calculus by twelfth grade, there’s not much possibility that you’ll become a scientist or engineer, but they don’t appreciate the sheer amount of cultural and human capital that you need to accumulate […] the skill, the connections, the social fluency, the ‘literacy’ in the widest sense – if you’re going to have a decent chance as nearly any kind of artist”.
Basically, just as STEM majors were learning calculus, this is when artists should have started networking. This is why family connections are a privilege! Post-secondary in the arts becomes an obsession with trying to perfect your art through solitary practice. Meaning art school kind of hinders artist’s chances of networking. Sure, you meet other upcoming artists, but what connections to the industry does that really provide and how quickly can those relationships deteriorate? Students need connections to people actively working in the industry, beyond their professors, if they have any chance of getting a job.
It’s not really a secret that art school focuses on the quality of art produced by students. The price students pay is the potential of networking, and learning how to make a living after graduation. These are the gripes William and I both have when it comes to art school.
In conclusion, life is hard. Choosing a self-employed career within the arts or not makes life even harder. Don’t get discouraged by comparing yourself to other people and you will find your own version of success. Maybe these are things I say to comfort myself. One final quote from William: “if you do acknowledge […] that artists have always had to struggle and still do, then for God’s sake don’t try to tell them it’s easier today”. If you read to the end, I love you to pieces. This was 2100 words or 7 pages long! Read: The Death of the Artist, and other books about art, especially if you are an artist. You will learn so much through reading and it will save you the pain of having to experience it yourself.
All quotations are from The Death of the Artist.
Please don’t steal my work.
Reference:
Deresiewicz, William. The Death of the Artist. Henry Holt and Company, July 28th 2020, New York.
