The Price of an Artist

What is the price of creative/artistic work? If we can’t answer that question definitively then all funding decisions, grants, awards, ticket prices, commissions, sales etc are at best guesswork and at worst exploitations.

The problem is compounded by the language: are we talking about value? Or cost? How can we talk about price when price is determined by market demand? Etc.

Can we determine a real price for creative labour based on existing economic models and available data (as opposed to arguing about value)? There’s no harm in trying.

One of the great gifts of the Basic Income for Arts is that we now have data that allows us to determine a price. In neo-classical economics it is argued that in a perfect market the price equals the marginal cost. Marginal cost is the cost of one additional unit. in this case one additional unit of creative labour.

According to the six month report on the BIA project participants were, on average, able to spend an additional 3.5 hours a week on their creative practice. In other words the €325 BIA payment bought an additional 3.5 hours. It follows that the price of an hour of creative labour is €92 per hour. This is the price of the labour not the materials.

Now that we have a real price (Albeit a minimum one) we can work backwards.

If an artist works a 40 hour week then the price of that work is €3680

If an artist works 52 weeks then the annual price is €191,360

We know that the majority of artists earn approximately €25,000….

The gap between these two numbers – €166,360 is the price of the artists contribution to the culture. A price the artist pays themself. It is a bit like an 85% tax rate.

If we assume there are approximately 20,000 artists the amount they invest in the culture of the country is €3.3 billion.

Of course this is simplistic. For one thing €3.4 billion is probably an undervaluation. Artist’s aren’t employed they are contracted for short periods so we can’t point at an employer and say cough up €191,360 per year per artist. However, we do know one thing now. The minimum price of creative labour in this economy is €92 per hour. Put that in your budgets.