We Art Market Market, bootlegs oh no!

05/06/2023

Another art market event in the bag, and not a particularly good one. There isn't anyone in the PH art scene not tuned in to the disaster that was ConQuest. With it's endless lines and gross mismanagement that led to injuries and people waiting 4 hours in the hot sun to get into the event. The event I was at may not have been as bad and I at least broke even! But i think the local arts scene really needs to take a look at itself and their priorities before the problems can be fixed.

One of the biggest problems I can see with these events is a lack of screening! So many bootlegs undercutting artists and their work! One artist even found a bootleg of their own art being sold at the same event they were in. Artists don't make much it's true but when you spend hours designing stickers (and in our case, doing every part of production including printing cutting etc) you gotta factor in your labor to the price. It's not the same with bootleggers buying mountains of random stickers off of Alibaba. They can price way cheaper and make your tables seem super expensive by comparison :c. The labor has already been taken care of so the only thing that matters to them is profit.

The solution of course is to usher the death rattle of capitalism, I can keep dreaming.