Value Of Great Art

3196 Words13 Pages
For the most part, there really isn’t much concrete value to art. Take a traditional painting for example, the relevant costs are the canvases and paint. There are of course exceptions such as large-scale architectural designs like Ai Weiwei’s Beijing National Stadium (Bird’s nest) or Jeff Koon’s large chrome sculptures. Still, even then the margins earned by certain artists on these works to many people can seem absurd. Having visited legitimate arts shows and auction houses this semester, what astonishes me the most are these ridiculous prices that are tagged on these works. Millions for a silk-screen depiction of a celebrity. Millions for a toilet. Useless objects brought together through appropriation becomes worth a fortune. Big artists can brand themselves to a point where even their shit can become proportionally worth what it is worth in gold. The modern art industry puts new meaning to “A man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” So the question that continuously goes through my minds is “What drives the high value put upon the art market?” Through the course of the semester, the readings and lectures have shed lights on a variety of forces that influence the perception of art and why it is worth what it is worth. At the end of the day, the art trade works within our current capitalist society so the movement of art culture correlates significantly with some business theories and consumer behavior. The high prices that the elite contemporary art shows go for reflect social structure, business practices, as well as the ability to express current culture. The most obvious driver for art values is because it is treated as a commodity for conspicuous consumption. This has been true throughout history as seen in beautiful paintings and sculptures in palaces or castles in which nobles show off their elite status through art. This reveals a part of human nature
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