This tracks with what publishers reported on the economics of books.
I earned about $10 for the last quarter for the second edition of a technical book I wrote--which actually earned out royalties. With rare exceptions, writing a book makes basically no sense unless you're on the clock for a company anyway and the book comes with lots of other benefits.
So effectively what you're saying is that institutions are willing to reward her with attention, but people are not willing to pay for her art after all?
> She's published by huge multinational corporations you've heard of.
Publishers have an interest in publishing stuff that doesn't sell as long as ticks some other check-boxes to appear prestigious or politically correct for the time.
Should society bear the costs of maintaining artists who produce things that are not in demand or have low value?
Many of our friends in the literary circles of NYC end up teaching in MFA programs (Columbia, NYU, New School), but then they have very little time for their own work and the pay isn't great (she's been offered $4k to teach a course for the semester at Columbia MFA). Of course we do have friends that have gotten $1 million advances, but that is exceptionally rare and you have to be a bestseller at that point.
So, that's all to say, you can have an artist that from the outside looks wildly successful because of the awards and articles written about them, but they're in reality poor.