The difference between “Art Work” and “Artistic Product”

As we said in our previous articles, Marketing of arts aims to transmit an artistic product from its producer to a consumer. In order to make this job right we need to know what is the artistic product and how is it different from other products. But first we need to know when we are talking about artistic product? And, what is the difference between it and the “Artwork”?

“The activity of art is based on the fact that a man receiving through his sense of hearing or sight another man’s expression of feeling, is capable of experiencing the emotion which moved the man who expressed it(those feelings).” (Tolstoy, 1930). Well, art is a transmission of feelings from one person to another. But in order to reach more people and make them experience what the art producer experienced, some transformations have to be introduced.

Artwork is the artistic product during the process of creation, and it is transformed into artistic product during the distribution process. Thus, a work of art can remain art until it is placed on the market in order to realize its economic and hedonic values. So, artwork and artistic product can be the same faces of one reality, the first one is intended to the artistic and the aesthetic fields and the second one is aimed to the market (Assassi,2003). The artwork is produced in very small quantities, it is artisanal and every peace is unique whereas the artistic product can be reproducible and so produced in very large quantities allowing the opportunity for a mass consumption. The artist or the producer of the artwork can introduce some transformations to his masterpiece and turn it into an artistic product salable on the market.

In the end, we can say that every artwork is an expression of feelings and once its creator decides to share it with other people on the market and make some profit of it, it becomes an artistic product. Some would say that art is not sailable, and if we adjust it to what the market needs it won’t be art anymore, but this commercialization won’t hurt the product if it preserves the feelings it bears and grantees revenue to the artist to help him rise and make other works.