Artist, celebrity or star – is there a point in being a famous artist? Not unless you want to make money, and even that isn’t guaranteed. The art market is all about money, and increasingly about PR, cross-branding, and combining art in a cross-collaboration between artist and luxury branding.
Today, many works of art are mass produced in a factory where the artist is no longer involved in the process. The art market is a huge business, and much of the work the public can see is what they’re allowed to see. The high end of the cultural industry is organised by people with money and censored by market forces. Someone with wealth and connections, or a gallery that can afford a PR agency has to open the door for the working class, female, black, and transgender artists. Nowadays, work alone is not enough, and artists have to work hard and make use of the system that has developed and exploit it for what it is.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/pauline-amos/painting-art-gallery-pauline-amos_b_11605816.html