In Conclusion

Some look at modern art and fear that technology and the internet will erode the quality work by encouraging art that can be mass-produced and sold to the largest or most profitable market. Others believe modern technology is a way to challenge the artistic boundaries that remain and develop a truly global artistic society. Some artists wish to keep their cultural identity even as they feel pulled toward global culture, while others seek to create and embrace an artistic culture that transcends statehood and nationalism.


Tyler Cowen responds to this paradox by discussing how globalization both increases and decreases the diversity of art. He claims that, “Markets bring more homogeneity and more diversity,” to art (Creative Destruction, 103). What he means is that global trade allows individuals to have an increased diversity of art available to them while also decreasing the diversity among societies around the world. As native languages die out and remote cultures adopt Western technologies, they lose a part of their cultural heritage but gain a lot in terms of medicine, technology, and access to the international economy. Additionally, Cowen argues that linking to the global economy does not always mean doom for local craft industries. Instead, the world market can more easily match poor artisans with wealthy art buyers to keep local cultural artists in business. At the very least, Western societies should not prevent or withhold global trade from poorer countries for the sake of preserving diversity.

Economic growth in the world market may reallocate art markets and suppliers, but art remains as popular as has been the case throughout history. Cultural globalization is an energetic, continual process that has occurred along trade routes in history for millennia. Artistic ideas traveled and transcended local tribes in the Islamic Empire, just as they did in the Greek and Roman empires. As the scope of trade increased from three continents to six in the matter of a few centuries, artistic advances followed just as rapidly and broadly.



Today more people have access to art than ever before due to technology advances that bring down the costs of producing art and transportation revolutions that have increased the speed of economic transactions. Wealth art collectors can collect rare pieces of art around the world with minimal difficulties, while college dorm residents can plaster their walls with posters of artwork very cheaply.

What is it about art? Something about art resonates with people across cultures and around the world. Art inspires, provokes curiosities, and encourages experimentation. One may value art without considering its important relationship with economics, but in doing so one loses out on much of the cultural motivations and artistic inspiration for a work of art.

One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.

- Salvador Dali