Partly Sunny: Art Market Predictions for 2012
Excerpts from the four-part series from Art+Auction magazine on the future of the art-market.
In an ever-changing world, we human beings are in constant search of context. We continuously look to define our reality through the acquisition of physical objects. These objects define our essence and bring our perceptions into a reality; these objects give our lives a philosophical context, a belief system, and a point of view. One of the great benefits of being human is the ability to have philosophical debates, and one of theses great debates is the context in which art should be valued. Should art be looked upon as an instrument of accumulating financial means? Or should art be distinguished from all social clutter as symbols of anthropological and cultural significance?
Many have attempted to bring clarity to this point: Bourdieu once said, ”The primary function of art is social […] The cultural practice used to distinguish classes and class fractions, to justify the domination by one another.” Schopenhauer held that art offers a way for people to temporarily escape the suffering that results from willing [living]. Tolstoy stated that, “Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is great matter.”
If one thing can be ascertained in the midst of this brilliant subjectivity, it’s that this debate will outlive this [post] and the ‘right’ philosophy on how art is to be consumed, acquired, valued, viewed, positioned, and marketed, will continue to be evaluated for generations to come.
In my opinion, I agree with Henry Fuseli who stated, “Art among a religious race produces relics; among a military one, trophies; among a commercial one, articles of trade.” This sequence of logic, for me, says that the judging [evaluating] of a work of art, deciding whether said work is good or bad, is very subjective, albeit some opinions have a higher degree of validity due to the specific evaluator’s level of concern or interest in the subject matter and his or her corollary expertise. Art within its very nature is highly [subjective] speculative; affecting its worth from academia, to finances and to all facets of cultural classism.
Notes