Art for middle class? You must be jocking.

Recently I was approached by a “gallery owner” to show my art at her “gallery”. Upon my visit I discovered that it was the gift shop more than a gallery also it had the word “gallery” in the name of the business. I asked her about clients and she went on speculating that the people that live in houses nearby will buy art and may even hire a designer to help them. The houses were in 300-500 thousands dollars range. I did not say anything negative about that speculation but it started me thinking. I have been to many of hoses houses. In most cases I found framed prints on the walls. In some cases I found Chinese mass produced copies of old masters.

First of all this world is not ruled art. Art is not a necessity but luxury. People who buy knockoffs will not by original art. And the middle class never was a patron of art in the USA. That is why in Europe museum visits are growing and in the USA declining. The middleclass consist of social climbers that are kin on being accepted by their peers and by those who they look up to. And that means buying it safe, buying disposable if possible and playing by the rules. Middles class is very concerned about how others perceive it. That leads to self censorship and very careful selection of self expression.

Contemporary art is not safe by any means and takes an effort to understand. Most of the peers of middle class members do not have either time or desire to think about art and can’t appreciate it outside of “poster names” that they learned from college life. Members of middle class work long hours and have no time to learn about art. Some have kids that will have to go to college and tuition to pay, many have expensive cars to impress peers, heavy mortgage payment etc. Social climbers do not have spare money to hire an art consultant to guide them as wealthy people do. They do not have social pressure to buy art.

On the other hand social climbers in the USA have a pressure to climb and that means they need to be ready to sell the house and move. To sell it quick you have to keep it the way that other social climbers would like it. Social climbers can’t afford to express an original personality (if they had one). So everything about them must be standard and safe. Their houses decorated in such way that there is not place for a contemporary art taste expression. Contemporary art (even in its safe forms) signals revolution, contempt, originality – very unsafe social values and contrary to middle class philosophy. Some social climbers may like contemporary art and may even look at it (like they look at other thing on the internet) but they will express it openly when the stage is set. For them the art is like a tattoo in the private place. They may have it but they will not show it for the fear of being indecent.

Sure one can find an exception to the middle class members I described but one can’t make a living by selling original art to the middle class. Not good living anyway. The only way to sell art to a mass consumer is via image licensing. Mass consumer buys t-shirts, framed prints, mouse pads and other items like that.