Buying Art is a Cultural Vote - Innovation & Invention of culture through art

When you buy or support a work of art, whether that be through movie tickets or a cardboard painting at the corner of the block, you are casting a cultural vote. A vote you can cast without limit other than your own, a vote you can cast any day, one you can even cast for conflicting ideals, and surely will, as testament to the nuanced complexity that makes up us all.

Now whilst many understand that at face value, that going to see superhero movies results in more content in kind. This goes beyond mere aesthetic or the proliferation of a genre, you aren’t just voting for the colour palette you want to see in public facing creations, or the existence of a sequel.

You are voting for a culture.

When you chose to buy a mass produced print from Walmart vs art from an independent, you are generally voting for cultural stagnation through profit lead consumption. When you let your music taste be solely guided by the Top 10 in the charts you’re voting for centralised systems of creative filtration and delivery, alongside a system which measures art by its financial output more so than its merit.

When you buy art that is lazy, trite, cliche, that is the low level you are voting the bar be set at. When the artists you support are shaping cultures of hate with the platform their back catalogue gave them, that is the culture you are tacitly enabling.

Now I know some you bristled at that, the cry of “separate the art from artist” already upon your lips, followed by some such statement about how nobodies perfect. And you’re right, in your mind you are welcome to separate art from artist to continue to enjoy their output devoid of them as an individual. But that does not mean the money you give them and the algorithmic support some how is also separated. You are still casting that vote, just because you did so whilst saying something different doesn’t change how the vote is counted.

(As an aside, I find it interesting how willing people are to “separate art from artist” when it comes to the artist doing something abhorrent, but not so when the artist simply isn’t good at playing social games. As though they’re willing to eat meat with maggots and rot that they cut out, but not cut around a small piece of gristle and instead claim it ruins the meal... anyway back to the topic at hand)

If you find artists who espouse ideas you want to see more of in society, beyond the page, then supporting them is going to strengthen their voice, and as their art propagates you will find it echoed back and spread in chorus. You can help raise banners around which others gather, shape the songs the set the days tone, all through simply collecting those pieces of artistic expression which connect with your passions and beliefs.

Art in all its forms can provide culture this innovation as much as it can provide stability, it need not be through novelty, sometimes reflecting, retreading can bring about the new. But all art has that potential, to foster and nurture culture, and to see it grow and change, because art provides the various branches for cultures evolutionary tree. It is this innovation, this is the exploration and evolution you are supporting when you cast cultural votes, especially those cast outside of established channels.

An incredible thing about this is the outsized impact independents can have on culture, therefore the outsized impact you can have through your votes. This is not a two party system.

This is a perpetual election of tomorrow’s many leaders and ideas, and you have as many votes as you want.