Art & Value, Jonathon P. Watts
Definition of Value:
NOUN
1. The regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.
VERB
2. Estimate the monetary worth of.
The price of art and the value are very different things, and that discussion opens many questions All of the persons involved and the aspects involved affect the value of each work
"How do we value something as an artwork? Does the gallery/museum confer this value?" Use value - what usage can be obtained from it Qualitative Value - The significance and esteem of an object serving a person Social value - agreed or appointed througha collective Symbolic Value - the value of something confers a type of honour or prestige for the person holding that item
Damien Hirst - Spot Painting Social Value is low but Symbolic is high
A car may take 20 hours to manufacture and be sold for 25,000 Pounds but an Eddie Peake (Mullholland Drive, 2016 - shown above) will take mere seconds and also be sold for 25,000 Pounds
(Karl Marx, Labour Theory of Value)
Philosophy talks of Aesthetics (Aesthetica Scripsit) Value doesn't reside within the art but comes externally from other agents and a subjective viewer
Originates from 'Aesthesis' Greek Word -That which is perceived through the senses
The Critique of Pure Reason - Kant
methodological take of the perception of judgement drawing back to the conditions of the knowing subject. He discusses A disinterested response is one based off of only how it appears to us, all my desire and needs are pushed away and marginal. Our ability to make judgements can be worked upon and our taste can be altered and developed.
E.H. Gombrich - The Story of Art Great example of the historical legacies of aesthetic, how the times have changed. Ie:not a single female is is mention in the whole of the book/'Story of Art'
Civilisation - Kenneth Clark (also turned into a series)
Art & Culture Critical Essays
Clement Greenberg, American version of the ideals behind taste Art occurs in a kind of bubble that excludes the world and is only concerned with the artist and art It assumes that art and the appreciation in production that is totally separate from any outer experiences or events away from the studio
i.e. - Jason Pollock, Autumn Rhythm, 1950
He is a formalist Critic, Formalism describes that art exists separate from society and culture He say "the history of American painting, is a kind of emptying out of content and a move toward revealing the inherent quality of the materials used", "Pollock brings painting to form of painting with a piece that is in and of itself because he broke away from a typical way of painting and placing it on a floor rather than an easel", "painting is autonomous and there are qualities that have nothing to do with the outside and painting should be only concerned with itself
Victor Burgin takes a very elitist take of judging value and art
Link to a scan of the writing Tell a story of art that is increasingly concerned with context for the meaning and how that builds it's value.
Questions for Thought
- How does it relate to their context?
- Is the context formative of the art?
- Is the context of the art determining its value?
Within the space there is a suspension of time, and it effects and brings a sense of timelessness giving the symbolic value of being right or bringing a sense of tradition It makes us forget our body and demotes the body as part of the perception of artwork, brings a strange aurora of space and an attention to the senses of the eyes
The Gallery space is NOT a value neutral container, but a historical system of values
i.e. Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917 In a gallery space a urinal could look like an artwork.
1970s was an incredible time for art with an expansion of the possibilities for art and the creation. A breakdown of what normally would have been separate of medium, merging together.
Using all of these fields to bring a broader understanding of the art with psychology and anthropology
"It is take that art is not hermetic and autonomous but bound up with the social and economic movements of the time, as well as conditioned by both artistic tradition and aesthetic ideology" Dawn Ades, 1983
Taste has a basis in class, accumulation of cultural capital that brings a status within a group
Oscar Murillo, is used to talk about this sky rocketing of financial value without historical value. Taking one of his works and saying it takes 20 hours and costs hypothetically 100,000 pounds if he made it in half the time the price wouldn't drop which goes against the Marxist theory of labor
Artrank.com Keeps up on the "stocks" for artist works Has no relation to the historical value and the context, just pure monetary values Merlin Carpenter, Die Collector Scum, 2008
