Art and Debt is a platform dedicated to a discussion about the growing massive debt of art students and the effect it has on the work of artists.

The website was founded to coincide with a conference, The Artist as Debtor at Cooper Union on January 23, 2015 hosted by Coco Fusco and Noah Fischer.

More about the conference: “We live in an era of unprecedented profits from contemporary art sales and massive debts incurred by art students. Are these phenomena related? Is it a coincidence that in an age in which art can be made from nothing, the price attached to an art degree is staggeringly high? Contemporary art institutions amass great wealth through real estate development and the value of their holdings — why then do museums, art-related businesses and art schools rely so heavily on precarious and unpaid labor provided by artists? What are the connections between big money in the art world and the big debts taken on by so many young artists? Are artists encouraged to believe that extreme economic disparity is just part of the way the art world works? Do romantic ideas about merit and talent mask a system of indenture?”