Who Draws it Anyways?

The Journal

Aug 8

When we talk about fine art, we rarely discuss the amount of labor and time that goes into making the pieces

In addition to producing works, solo artists must also be their own social media marketers, registrars, and administrative assistants. Who will answer the emails that have been put off, clean all the dirty brushes, make sure the work is being documented and logged? As artists, I’m sure many of us would love to have an assistant or two.

Artists have employed assistants for hundreds of years (e.g. Leonardo da Vinci, Peter Paul Reubens, and even Michelangelo briefly). Some artists, however, go beyond needing assistance for large projects. Many extremely commercially successful artists have entire studios filled with assistants who execute nearly every part of the creative process. Film and TV, music, and video games are all highly collaborative industries, but fine art has a different perception of labor. While film and tv make sure to credit everyone’s contributions, why does fine art choose to keep workers in the shadows? At what point in the process do we lose the artist’s hand? Why do so many successful artists turn their practices into machines? Can art only achieve commercial success when it’s produced en masse?

Ruminate on these questions as you peer through this list of seven artists who have outsourced their work.