I was thinking about the way failure can also mean nobody could work out how to exploit you. I was thinking of a quite successful artist and his success and how after he had probably given his best work that maybe he had been exploited enough and doors started to close. You do get treated well but how much can one person be exploited? I can’t really vouch for my theory but is success also your exploitability, and the more success the more exploitation achieved?

I think of another friend who changed his approach to painting and the gallery lost interest. Overall his style initially was very exploitable (slick) and sold well. The themes were the same but the technique became looser and the gallery couldn’t see that style being exploitable. Also the style was following a theme of political street posters and a more haphazard fragmented view compared to previous works. I think I am correct in assuming the gallery couldn’t see the market and his talents were no longer talents as they were not the slick style expected.

You could say I am using the wrong words. How is he being exploited? Well as the artist develops their ideas change but the market is always changing and both of these artists to some extent feel hard done by. They are not complaining about their successes but how after they have given so much are still fallible to a fickle market. If the market decides then its constant changes means it actually can never decide for long. It has to keep finding new ideas, new pastures, new artists, new fashions, yet the people who get burned and it isn’t that they are unhappy but they know that their vision also never stops.

Exploitation is universal to all systems and people in most cases want their talents to be used and celebrated. You could say, the artists were getting paid, the galleries were doing all they could with the situation at hand and because the gallery needs to make money they can’t spend too much time on an artist when the collectors tire of their work. Yet everyone is glad to admit that it is fundamentally brutal and even success doesn’t guarantee commercial longevity. That is just how it works, it is competitive, cut throat and so on.

Yet when an artist has to pay their gallery at least half of their earnings and still get taxed by the government the word exploitation rings loud and clear. That was also when they were considered successful. Yet nobody dares to admit that it is exploitation because it sounds like some socialist chant or high ideal that could never exist in reality. It gets back to the old saying of ‘who is going to pay for it?’ Obviously nobody wants to pay for anything unless, and here I go again, it is exploitable to the maximum.

I would say with confidence that if you’re not successful nobody can work out what to do with whatever it is you do. Also if you can’t work it out yourself then that is hard too. How can I exploit my own talents? I saw a bunch of creative people the other weekend selling books and zines and all of this stuff and that was great to see. Mainly if you do graffiti for example publications are viable, not to make tons of money but create a culture of collections and smaller economies. I am not saying all economic activity is exploitation but home grown events and collective work have a lot going for them.