Does The Cheaper Show Work for Artists?

How much time do you invest in the creation of an artwork? What is an average cost of the materials you use in a work you create? And what kind of time investment is required to obtain the materials you use, and what overhead costs (studio rental, heat, light) are to be covered in the prices of the artwork that you sell? Do you get your highest prices from your “best” work? And when you submit to a juried show or sale, do you submit your weaker or your better work? These are some of the questions that come to mind as I consider the mandate of The Cheaper Show.

I have no doubt that this show was undertaken with the best of intentions. Moreover, it was established by people who self-identify as artists. It draws a large audience and successfully creates a “buzz” around a visual art event and sale that retains a focus on local artists. And another clever thing about it is its title; the name is very customer considerate.

All the work in The Cheaper Show sells for the same low price of $200. Because contributing artists are asked to submit their best work to it, I wondered why artists would sell their best work at so low a price so I interviewed a few past participants about their experience. For one of them, the appeal was in her assumption that The Cheaper Show would expose art to a new public—people who might otherwise not be able to afford contemporary artwork of good quality. Other artists I spoke with were attracted to the value of the preview to which curators, the media and dealers were to be invited.

A consideration of The Cheaper Show leaves me with the impression that the show is working for everyone except the artists involved. The buyers are happy, especially those who were invited to the preview and sometimes get to the front of the buyers line, and the producers of the show are happy because they report significant sales and, therefore, commissions. But are the artists well served?

My concern is that The Cheaper Show may actually devalue the work of artists. I worry that it creates the impression that good art is available at ridiculously low prices. And, as an advocate of other collective artist initiatives that facilitate a dynamic interaction and market for artists and their customers, it concerns me that The Cheaper Show is a corporate entity, rather than a not-for-profit society as is the case with The Eastside Culture Crawl, Artists in Our Midst, etc.

The artists in a recent Cheaper Show earned $133.93 per work sold. As one artist said to me, “At that price, you are giving away your work.”

I believe the intermediaries between artists and their customers—be they theatre companies, publishers, libraries, art galleries or dealers, orchestras, whatever or whomever—they must remember on whose back they are earning their dollars. Artists and their work must be respected.

The success of The Cheaper Show proves the obvious: people love a bargain. But bargains in the marketplace are usually limited to goods of “poor quality” or the result of sales volume. The artwork I see in The Cheaper Show is neither of poor quality nor from a producer enjoying bulk sales. So whatever forum is created around low prices should not be our best work: it should be good work, even excellent work if a multiple (print), but, perhaps, not our best and unique work.

The Cheaper Show, as I have said, does many things right. I can understand its appeal, especially to emerging artists of promise. And I can certainly understand its popularity with the public—nothing sells like good value for money. But I would prefer to see an alternative that is entirely for local artists, fairer in pricing but still “packaged” in consumer friendly language and run by an artist collective.

To that end, I think it might be a great idea to have a summer “Crawl” in a different style—a juried Crawl open to artists from anywhere and not just Vancouver’s East Side. I like the idea of extending the Crawl brand to all Lower Mainland artists and providing local artists with a summer sale opportunity as well as a pre-Christmas event. I also like the idea of bringing Crawl artists into one space and saving the public from having to visit so many studios—a summer Crawl Sale could be something complementary and different to the other wonderful Crawl event but juried so as to be a qualitative experience.

PS: Hey faithful readers. I am in France trying to walk from Paris to the Mediterranean. You can read more about my adventure and its philanthropic side effect by going to my blog about it at this address: http://grandepromenade.blogspot.com