Art and Dead Money

In a great post, Don Hall wrote this:

"The constant push to "make a living" in the arts is sort of like making a living as a professional gambler and I don't hear anyone supporting an ethical model to provide blackjack players health insurance."

Which has inspired me to write this . . . stay with me, I'm going somewhere with this and yes, it does relate to art.

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About a week ago, in Las Vegas, about 6,800 people showed up at a casino to play a poker tournament nicknamed the Main Event.  That tournament is still going on as we speak.

Those 6,800 people put down $10,000 each to play in those tournament.  All together they created a prize pool of 64 million dollars.

When it is all said and done, one person out of those 6,800 is going to walk away with about 9 million dollars.

Another 679 of those people are going to split the rest of the money, but not equally.  The second place finisher may take home 4 million bucks.  The guy that finishes 679th will make about 20,000.

That means that over 6,100 people are going to pay 10,000 to enter this tournament and walk away with nothing.

Nothing.

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Most of those 6,100 people are what the poker world calls "Dead Money".  These are people who entered the tournament but really don't have a chance in hell of winning it.

They don't have the poker skills necessary to do it.

They are playing against people better then they are.

They don't understand the structure of the tournament they are playing and how to exploit it.

They would be better off buying a bunch of lottery tickets.

But here's the thing, most of the 6,100 people don't think they are dead money.  If you asked them they would tell you have as good a chance of winning as anybody else.

They are delusional.  And that is what makes them dead money.

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But enough about the poker losers, let's talk about the winners.  Yes, there are some people that manage to  be profitable at a game that is based on making a whole bunch of people unprofitable.

How do they do it?

1.  They develop their own style. - Some poker players make decisions based on game theory.  Some based on the "reads" they have of their opponents playing style.  The particular style doesn't matter much.  What matters is that they have spent years (decades) developing a style that is unique to them.

2.  They understand the world they are in and how to thrive in it. - You think making a living as an artist sucks?  Try making it as a poker player.  But the profitable players don't complain about the environment.  They thrive in it.  In fact, they wouldn't have it any other way because if everyone could be a professional poker player . . . there wouldn't be any money in it.

3.  They are very honest with themselves - In a world built off delusional thinking they are honest about their skills as a player and work to improve them daily.

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So here's the thing.  I work with artists all the time.  And when I work with some of them you know what I see? 

Dead Money.

And they are dead money for the same reasons those poker players are dead money.

They delude themselves about their level of talent.

They compete against people way better then they are but can't acknowledge their opponent's skills. 

They refuse to understand the current art making world, fucked up and hostile as it may be, so that they can find a way to thrive in it.  Even if that way of thriving means ignoring the current arts world entirely and creating a system that works for them alone.

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Which takes us back to Don's comment.  I could decide right now that I'm a professional poker player.  Spend a year saving up 10,000, go play in the Main Event and lose it all in 10 minutes. 

And then I could jump online and talk about how unfair poker tournament's are and how they really should create tournament's that allow everyone to make a little money and maybe even provide the players with health benefits.

And I would get laughed at.

People would remind me that I decided to become a pro poker player and when I made that decision I accepted all the risks and if I didn't prepare properly (or didn't understand the risk), then that was my own fault.

Look, I love what Mike Daisey and Scott Walters (and others) are doing.  The regional theatre world should actively find a way to fund more money to the artists and the only way that is going to happen is by making some noise.

But my gut tells me that making a living as a professional artist will always be like making a living as a poker player.

A few big winners, another group of people that are consistently profitable in the world.

And lots of Dead Money.

And maybe that's the way it is supposed to be.

Comments

[Rex Winsome]

In the context of a properly functioning capitalist world, your view is right on.

But that world is crumbling. In regard to theatre it's corrupt and nepotistic. Theatre artists are no longer promoted on the basis of talent. It's more a matter of who you know and how marketable your product is to the easy demographic (faux aristocrats).

Second, it's unsustainable. Faux aristocrats are croaking like frogs.

Third, it's undesireable. The bourgeois mythology of artists is that they are exceptional. Only a few artists are great and these artists have a mystical quality that elevates them above normal people and inflates their products, not only in price, but in social status. The myth is false and designed to get more profit from less labor. The approved artists could be (and often are) chosen arbitrarily, marketed as essential (or classic) and then pumped up to be superstars.

This phenomenon is more obvious in the music and film mediums (cuz music can be exploited further due to mechanical reproduction).

Forth, it's being replaced. Again, in music it's clearer: the big record labels are losing money while indie bands thrive. The landscape is shifting, and the peaks of superstardom aren't acheiveable anymore, but hardworking artists who adopt innovative modes have the ability (proven by their practice) to acheive modest success.

[RebeccaZ]

Excellent post. Thank you!

[RVCBard]

I don't know if it's a lack of exposure or something, but I notice that theater communities try to function like charities or corporations when their environment is more conducive to entrepreneurship or freelancing.

It seems like artists want to be employees, but the current climate shows that free agency is the most viable option. But it requires re-envisioning who makes theater, where it happens, what it does for the audience, etc. A lot of theater artists and administrators create needless limitations, set up nonsensical obstacles, and don't even know they're doing it.

And we're supposed to be creative.

[seo updates]

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[Rex Winsome]

RebeccaZ- yes! You're right on.

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[poker game]

Maintain a calm deportment when you play even when the game becomes heated. Do not ever give your opponents hints through your gestures and body language about what is going to be your move. Perfect timing is also essential in a poker game.

[Jan von Krieg]

Your analogy is spot-on, art is a game where the vast majority are set up to lose. Worse than gambling, where you know how much you stand to lose the moment you enter, for artists, you lose your career.

The value in art is captured; although the artist is led to believe that the Art and the Artist are central to the industry, this is more or less a complete myth. In practice, the art support roles: theoreticians, lecturers, gallerists, critics, and other middlemen construct an elaborate pyramid of value extraction.

For this to work, a hollywood-like fairy tale of great and enlightening successes and riches is promoted; this encourages a ready supply of new victims. As we know from supply and demand, when the demand is low and the supply high, the earnings are substandard.

Which of course also means that as long as we can think like a franchise salesman, we can make money. Unfortunately, it means we defraud all the artists who bought into the myth, mostly of the decade or so that it takes them to realise they've been tricked.