ABSTRACT
It is common for the arts and business to be positioned as different countries. The romantic image of the artist is a solitary genius, an individual who makes art because they can, or perhaps must. Their capacity and desire to create is the driver, responding to some internal or external stimulus, irrespective of the market, or so we imagine. In sharp contrast, a harsher but equally romanticized image: business as strategically instrumental, riveted to the cut and thrust of the marketplace, to supply and demand, productivity, growth and ultimately profit. The basis of business is the making, buying and selling of things in exchange for money. The thing itself is not the end; rather, it is the currency that thing provides. Our bluntest understanding of art is the making of things and the consequence of those things for human senses-what it may cause us to think, feel or perceive. So business and art share a creative and productive core, but fundamentally differ in their purposes, or so it seems.
