In the craft fair case the issue is the tragedy of the commons.
If people come to think that all craft fairs are choked up with AI slop and Temu (literally) 3D printed flexi-dragons then it does enormous damage to the notion of art fairs as a place to see the work of artistic individuals; the whole category will die.
This could happen much sooner than the slop-producing participants see a financial disincentive to attend, because their costs (time, materials, personal energies) are radically lower.
Like it or not, art communities need to have some chosen standards.
To be fair this is a much bigger concern for people who show at art fairs than people who simply attend, but the people who show at art fairs do need the support of their visitors in this.
Art fairs aren’t just unrestricted competitive capitalism; they are also cultural entities with norms.
Yes, I go to so many because my wife sells her novels at them.
There's also the issue that there is limited space at craft fairs with wait lists for vendors. A dishonest vendor is holding a space a different vendor could have instead.
It's difficult territory because at some level asking people to meet a certain standard to have a stall at a craft fair is, essentially, "gatekeeping".
But art sales are really the only gatekeeping there is in art, and it has to do with there being a literal gate to a limited space. (It's also usually not artists themselves doing the gatekeeping)
People who are engaged in art really ask so little of other people who want to engage with art — the barriers to entry are essentially non-existent except intent and willingness to learn and spend effort. Essentially every kind of expressive art is cheaper than a good computer; every kind of art has someone enthusiastically chipping away on the internet about it.
But when it comes to access to the physical space to sell physical work that is the result of effort and learning, someone does have to say: "this is not the right space for these kinds of things". The question is how do you judge and how do you say it without destroying enthusiasm.
I always laugh at the people talking about AI "democratizing" the arts and "eliminating gatekeeping" when punk and stream of consciousness aesthetic and several other completely open, completely non-virtuoso paths to the arts exist. If only AI could be helping to improve art and media literacy.
Yeah, I mean my slice of the internet is full of video shorts of people using dead ballpoint pens/tetra paks/kitchen ingredients/Temu pasta makers, or silicone baking mats/budget acrylic paint/leaves/laser printer copies to make really cool, unique prints.
The idea that anything about contemporary art needs further democratisation is kind of insane; there is no art form out there that you cannot find someone more or less begging you to learn for next to nothing.
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Speaking of AI and art literacy: one of the experiments I have been doing is asking local LLMs (Gemma 4 12B specifically) to look at a set of my own photos, describe them, draw parallels, and recommend other photographers. At one point it recommended to me (without any hints except my photos, which are not in any sense reproductions) that I look at the work of a fairly niche, early photographer who actually is my long term favourite; it also recommended someone contemporary whose name had only come up for me once before who is really fascinating.
So I don't discount that AI might have some value in that art history context. I think, analytically, these tools potentially have something to offer on this point, because after all, my influences (conscious and subconscious) are in the training set, and so are those artists' influences. AI ought to be good at revealing influences.
In the craft fair case the issue is the tragedy of the commons.
If people come to think that all craft fairs are choked up with AI slop and Temu (literally) 3D printed flexi-dragons then it does enormous damage to the notion of art fairs as a place to see the work of artistic individuals; the whole category will die.
This could happen much sooner than the slop-producing participants see a financial disincentive to attend, because their costs (time, materials, personal energies) are radically lower.
Like it or not, art communities need to have some chosen standards.
To be fair this is a much bigger concern for people who show at art fairs than people who simply attend, but the people who show at art fairs do need the support of their visitors in this.
Art fairs aren’t just unrestricted competitive capitalism; they are also cultural entities with norms.
Yes, I go to so many because my wife sells her novels at them.
There's also the issue that there is limited space at craft fairs with wait lists for vendors. A dishonest vendor is holding a space a different vendor could have instead.
It's difficult territory because at some level asking people to meet a certain standard to have a stall at a craft fair is, essentially, "gatekeeping".
But art sales are really the only gatekeeping there is in art, and it has to do with there being a literal gate to a limited space. (It's also usually not artists themselves doing the gatekeeping)
People who are engaged in art really ask so little of other people who want to engage with art — the barriers to entry are essentially non-existent except intent and willingness to learn and spend effort. Essentially every kind of expressive art is cheaper than a good computer; every kind of art has someone enthusiastically chipping away on the internet about it.
But when it comes to access to the physical space to sell physical work that is the result of effort and learning, someone does have to say: "this is not the right space for these kinds of things". The question is how do you judge and how do you say it without destroying enthusiasm.
I always laugh at the people talking about AI "democratizing" the arts and "eliminating gatekeeping" when punk and stream of consciousness aesthetic and several other completely open, completely non-virtuoso paths to the arts exist. If only AI could be helping to improve art and media literacy.
Yeah, I mean my slice of the internet is full of video shorts of people using dead ballpoint pens/tetra paks/kitchen ingredients/Temu pasta makers, or silicone baking mats/budget acrylic paint/leaves/laser printer copies to make really cool, unique prints.
The idea that anything about contemporary art needs further democratisation is kind of insane; there is no art form out there that you cannot find someone more or less begging you to learn for next to nothing.
--
Speaking of AI and art literacy: one of the experiments I have been doing is asking local LLMs (Gemma 4 12B specifically) to look at a set of my own photos, describe them, draw parallels, and recommend other photographers. At one point it recommended to me (without any hints except my photos, which are not in any sense reproductions) that I look at the work of a fairly niche, early photographer who actually is my long term favourite; it also recommended someone contemporary whose name had only come up for me once before who is really fascinating.
So I don't discount that AI might have some value in that art history context. I think, analytically, these tools potentially have something to offer on this point, because after all, my influences (conscious and subconscious) are in the training set, and so are those artists' influences. AI ought to be good at revealing influences.