At 2:37 PM on March 23, 2010, a digital counter on Aaron Koblin and Chris Milk’s Kickstarter page froze at $22,776. In less than thirty days, 2,194 strangers had funded The Johnny Cash Project—a work that didn’t yet exist, would never hang in a museum, and whose creators promised nothing more than a
By Artedusa
••10 min read
The day art stopped waiting for patrons
At 2:37 PM on March 23, 2010, a digital counter on Aaron Koblin and Chris Milk’s Kickstarter page froze at $22,776. In less than thirty days, 2,194 strangers had funded The Johnny Cash Project—a work that didn’t yet exist, would never hang in a museum, and whose creators promised nothing more than a collective video where each contributor could spot their own pencil stroke among thousands of others. That day, something shifted. Art no longer needed gallerists, collectors, or grants. All it took was an idea, a screen, and a crowd willing to believe.
Yet this revolution didn’t fall from the sky. It fits into a longer history, one where artists have always sought ways to bypass the gatekeepers. In 1823, Beethoven sold subscriptions to his patrons to fund the Missa Solemnis. In the 1970s, Judy Chicago relied on anonymous feminist donations to complete The Dinner Party. But with crowdfunding, a new grammar emerged: one where the audience wasn’t just spectators, but co-authors.
Today, thousands of works are born this way, carried by invisible hands. Some become symbols (The Pussyhat Project), others experiments (The Museum of Ice Cream), still others living archives (The Monument Quilt). All tell the same story: that of an art breaking free, but also of a system where the line between generosity and speculation, between democracy and marketing, grows ever blurrier.
Let’s dive into this world where every click can birth a work, where every donation is a gamble, and where art, at last, belongs to those bold enough to dream it.
When the studio walls crumbled
Picture an artist’s studio in the 19th century. The walls are covered in sketches, the shelves sag under the weight of pigments, and in one corner, a ledger awaits the signatures of patrons. Without them, no canvases, no marble, no frescoes. The artist depended on their whims, their caprices, their often conservative tastes. Then, one day, everything changed.
In 2009, Kickstarter launched its "Arts" category, and the first project to explode was a comic book. The Order of the Stick, a humorous series about medieval adventurers, raised $1.2 million—a sum then unthinkable for such a niche project. Gallerists shrugged: "It’s entertainment, not art." Yet something deeper was unfolding. For the first time, strangers were funding a work before it even existed, with no guarantee of return, no certainty it would even please them.
This blind trust is what fascinates. In The Johnny Cash Project, contributors received nothing but a promise: their drawing would appear in a video, lost among thousands of others. No painting to hang, no sculpture to display. Just the assurance of having taken part in something larger than themselves. Crowdfunding doesn’t sell art—it sells emotions, belonging, stories.
And artists? They discovered a new power: the ability to speak directly to their audience, unfiltered. In 2012, French digital artist Émilie Brout launched Glitchr, a project where donors received images generated by intentional glitches. No gallery, no art critic—just a community of enthusiasts funding an aesthetic of imperfection. "I wanted to see how far people would follow an idea, even if it offered nothing tangible," she says. The answer? Far enough for the project to become a reference in net art.
But this freedom comes at a cost. Without intermediaries, artists must do it all: promote, communicate, manage expectations. And sometimes, the dream turns into a nightmare.
The artist-broker syndrome
There’s something deeply ironic in the fact that crowdfunding, meant to liberate artists, often turns them into salespeople. Take Krista Suh, co-creator of The Pussyhat Project. In 2016, she wasn’t an artist or a professional activist—just a screenwriter with an idea: knit pink hats for the Women’s March. Within weeks, her project went viral, and she found herself fielding thousands of messages, interviews, and critiques. "I spent my days answering questions about yarn instead of writing scripts," she recalls. Here, crowdfunding didn’t fund a work—it funded logistics.
Because to succeed, talent alone isn’t enough. You have to master algorithms, social media, storytelling. Maryellis Bunn, founder of The Museum of Ice Cream, understood this better than anyone. Before launching her museum, she was a strategist for brands like Facebook. Her project? An immersive experience where visitors eat plastic bananas in a pool of glitter. Funded by private investors and $40 tickets—a disguised form of crowdfunding. "People don’t come for art," she says. "They come for a moment." And that’s where the problem lies.
Because the line between art and product is growing thinner. In 2017, the Fyre Festival—a fake luxury festival funded by influencers—showed just how far the manipulation could go. Thousands paid hundreds of dollars for an experience that didn’t exist. Art, too, can become an empty promise. Beeple, whose digital work Everydays sold for $69 million in 2021, started by selling $100 prints on Kickstarter. Today, his NFTs are speculative assets. "Is this still art, or just a financial investment?" wonders art critic Hito Steyerl.
Crowdfunding has democratized access to creation, but it has also created a new form of exploitation. Artists must now seduce, convince, even lie to survive. And donors oscillate between the roles of patrons and consumers.
The invisible hand of algorithms
If you’ve ever scrolled through Kickstarter or Ulule, you might have noticed a troubling pattern: successful projects often share one thing in common. They’re Instagram-friendly.
Take The Museum of Ice Cream. Its installations—a pool of glitter, a banana-shaped swing, a wall of candy—are designed to be photographed. "We calculated that each visitor takes an average of 150 photos," says Maryellis Bunn. Here, crowdfunding doesn’t fund a work—it funds an experience built for social media.
This logic applies even to "artistic" projects. Refik Anadol, whose hypnotic digital installations are funded by patrons and platforms like Patreon, uses AI to turn data into dreamlike landscapes. His works, shown at MoMA and the Venice Biennale, are like machines. "The algorithm favors images that trigger an immediate reaction," he explains. "You have three seconds to grab attention, or it’s lost."
Even The Johnny Cash Project, born before the social media era, had to adapt. In 2010, Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin realized their collective video would only go viral if it was shareable. So they designed an interactive interface where each viewer could explore the drawings one by one, creating a personal experience—and a reason to share it.
But this dependence on algorithms has a dark side: it standardizes projects. Campaigns that succeed are those that fit the platforms’ expectations—polished aesthetics, viral potential, tangible rewards. More experimental, riskier works struggle to break through. "Crowdfunding favors safe projects, the ones that appeal to the widest audience," laments art historian Claire Bishop. "It’s the triumph of mediocrity."
And yet, despite these limits, some artists manage to hack the system.
When crowdfunding becomes a manifesto
Some projects don’t just fund a work—they rewrite the rules.
In 2013, artist JR launched Inside Out Project, an initiative where thousands of people worldwide printed and pasted their own portraits in public spaces. No traditional crowdfunding here: the project relied on donations, partnerships, and above all, participant engagement. "The idea wasn’t to raise money, but to collect faces," he says. The result? Over 400,000 portraits displayed in 140 countries, turning strangers into art’s actors.
The same logic drives The Monument Quilt, a collective work where thousands of survivors of sexual violence stitched their stories onto fabric squares. Funded by donations and grants, the project culminated in a massive installation on the National Mall in Washington in 2019. "Each square represents a voice that was silenced," explains co-creator Hannah Brancato. "Crowdfunding let us give visibility to these stories."
These projects show that participatory funding can be more than an economic tool—it can be a political lever, a weapon against oblivion, a way to return power to the invisible. But to do this, you have to step off the beaten path.
Krista Suh, again, refused to sell Pussyhat Project hats on Etsy. "We wanted people to make them themselves, to own the symbol," she says. The result? Thousands of women knitted their own hats, creating a community far larger than traditional donors.
When used this way, crowdfunding becomes an act of resistance. It lets artists bypass institutions, short-circuit the media, create works that would never have seen the light otherwise. But caution: this freedom comes at a price.
The other side of the story: when the dream turns into a nightmare
Behind the dazzling successes lie less glorious tales.
In 2014, Eric Migicovsky launched a Kickstarter campaign for Pebble, a revolutionary smartwatch. Within days, he raised $10 million—a record. Three years later, the company went bankrupt, unable to deliver its products. The donors? Never reimbursed.
In the art world, failures are less publicized but just as painful. In 2018, French artist Théo Mercier tried to fund an exhibition via Ulule. Despite a well-run campaign, he fell short of his goal. "People want concrete rewards," he explains. "Art is abstract. It’s hard to convince when you can’t promise a return on investment."
Even successful projects can turn sour. In 2016, Marina Abramović launched a campaign for The Life, a virtual reality performance. Donors received rewards—tickets to the exhibition, meetings with the artist—but many complained of delays and lack of transparency. "Crowdfunding creates a relationship of trust, and when that trust is broken, the consequences are disastrous," says Don Steinberg, author of The Art of Crowdfunding.
Then there are the scandals. In 2021, Beeple sold his NFT Everydays for $69 million, but many of his early Kickstarter backers felt betrayed. "We funded his beginnings, and now we have nothing," lamented one anonymous contributor.
Crowdfunding is like a Faustian bargain: it gives artists the means to create, but it also exposes them to the anger of the disappointed, the pressure of expectations, the precarity. And sometimes, it turns art into a product.
Art after crowdfunding: toward a new paradigm?
So where is art headed in the age of participatory funding?
On one side, a new generation of artists is emerging—those who master both creation and marketing. Refik Anadol, JR, Beeple—all have understood that to exist, you must be visible, viral, bankable. Their works are designed for social media, for algorithms, for collectors.
On the other, quieter, more committed projects continue to appear. The Monument Quilt found alternative funding, far from traditional platforms. Émilie Brout still explores the limits of net art, unconcerned with trends. And artists like Krista Suh prove that crowdfunding can be a political tool, without falling into the trap of commodification.
Between these two poles, one question lingers: has crowdfunding really democratized art, or has it simply created a new, more accessible—but just as unequal—market?
One thing is certain: the era of patrons is over. Today, art is funded by thousands of micro-donations, clicks, likes. It belongs to those bold enough to believe in it—even if, sometimes, that belief turns into disillusion.
So the next time you come across a Kickstarter campaign, ask yourself: is this a work that deserves to exist, or just a well-marketed product? And most importantly, are you ready to be its co-author?
The day art stopped waiting for patrons | Buying Guide
