Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and this this is an
Speaker 1: episode from our archives. Today's classic concerns a study that
Speaker 1: digs into the trope of the starving artist? Is there
Speaker 1: anything to it? Sociologically and psychologically? Hi, brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here,
Speaker 1: the image of the starving artist is a well known
Speaker 1: cultural stereotype. But is it simply a stereotype or could
Speaker 1: the brain chemistry of artists actually be responsible for their
Speaker 1: tendency towards poverty. An experiment conducted in Germany raises this
Speaker 1: question and probably the eyebrows of many artists. As reported
Speaker 1: in the April issue of the Creativity Research Journal, the
Speaker 1: researchers sat down twelve artists and twelve non artists and
Speaker 1: gave them colored images to choose from on a screen,
Speaker 1: including green images that provided a cash reward. When the
Speaker 1: green images popped up and were chosen, the non artists
Speaker 1: brains showed a great deal of activity in the pleasure
Speaker 1: area that releases dopamine. Brain scans of the artists showed
Speaker 1: less activity in that dopamine producing area. The researchers concluded
Speaker 1: that the artists were less responsive to monetary rewards than
Speaker 1: other people. It's admittedly a small sample size, but still
Speaker 1: an interesting result. The authors wrote in the paper. These
Speaker 1: results support the existence of characteristic neural traits and artists.
Speaker 1: But do these neural traits mean that all but the
Speaker 1: most successful artists in fact have low earning potential. First
Speaker 1: of all, the poverty of artists may be culturally exaggerated.
Speaker 1: As a group, artists in the United States have higher
Speaker 1: incomes than the average American worker. According to census figures
Speaker 1: analyzed by the National Endowment for the Arts, in the
Speaker 1: medium income for craft and fine art artists in sen
Speaker 1: was a little over forty thou dollars per year, or
Speaker 1: about twenty four dollars per hour, a livable wage by
Speaker 1: most standards. And second, the nature of the art market
Speaker 1: make the life of an artist a bit less fundamentally secure.
Speaker 1: This is explained well in the book Art and Value
Speaker 1: Arts Economic Exceptionalism in Classical, Neoclassical and Marxist Economics by
Speaker 1: painter and professor Dave Beach. He described how the art
Speaker 1: market is different from the market for most other goods.
Speaker 1: Art is not a standard commodity. He wrote, the creation
Speaker 1: of art, as well as the marketing and purchase of art,
Speaker 1: are outside the bounds of the regular market. Art is
Speaker 1: not usually made as a result of corporate investment. Artists
Speaker 1: do not generally get an hourly wage for their labor,
Speaker 1: and the price of art is not set through competition
Speaker 1: in the same way that other products prices are determined.
Speaker 1: The art market is different and it shapes the prices
Speaker 1: artists can set and expect for their labor. Dutch painter
Speaker 1: and sociologist Hans Ebbing explored the mindset as well as
Speaker 1: the socioeconomic forces that lead to what he called the
Speaker 1: admiseration of artists, immiseration meaning economic impoverishment. He said that,
Speaker 1: for one thing, the art market has a winner take
Speaker 1: all attitude, and in addition, artists may not have other
Speaker 1: skills and so remained in the work that they are
Speaker 1: drawn to. He said that artists also find non monetary
Speaker 1: creation based rewards in their work. By the way, a
Speaker 1: bit of perspective, if you earn more than twenty one
Speaker 1: dollars a year, you are part of the richest four
Speaker 1: percent of the planet. Today's episode is based on the
Speaker 1: article are artists hardwired for poverty? On house to works
Speaker 1: dot Com written by Stell Simonton. Brain Stuff is production
Speaker 1: of by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot Com and is produced by Tyler Clang and Ramsey Yea.
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