Artists and Crowd-sourced Funding

Americans have rarely come close to agreement about the role of art in society, let alone how to fund it. But a growing consensus in the media and the general public contends that crowd funding is a democratizing force, a peer-to-peer system of market-driven benevolence far more fair and efficient than the traditional, top-down model of government and foundation support.

For better or worse, the rise of networked culture over the past decade has changed the way artists approach their art. Crowd funding further clouds the issue. More than pure creative talent, marketing and promotion skills are part of a successful crowd funding campaign: Those who can sell their work before it’s even made are the ones that receive the most funding.

Kickstarter and other websites like ArtistShare, Indiegogo, RocketHub and USA Projects have proven successful in funneling money towards certain types of creative projects. But their swift and sudden success also raises serious questions about artists and patrons, their motives, their responsibilities, their expectations. And, as old as figures charcoaled onto a cave wall, the heaviest question of them all: What is art?