Dear List; Why do we fret over the art as commodity in today's world. . And why not look to the distant past to see how closely linked art and money were? Abbot Suger, in his lavish 12C building of St-Denis, used the richest materials and jewels, etc., as a metaphor to illustrate the richness of heaven. For some reason, modernity has justified art partly on its spiritual value without ever determining what that is. Perhaps Kandinsky came closest when he spoke of 'inner necessity" as the spiritual impulse; others did as much in different terms. But no-one can say what, exactly, the spiritual is and how it is embedded in art, beyond alluding to it it largely romantic form. At least Suger was honest enough to admit he couldn't "express" spirituality in material terms without metaphor, without equating the uniqueness of the former with the rarity of the latter. Thus the richer, rarer and more costly a thing is the more easily we can attribute to it the elusive spiritual substances that otherwise escape our grasp. True for Suger, true for today's money-based art market.
We know a big diamond is not a spiritual presence but we easily accept the pretense through metaphor; likewise, we know that a painting costing a million dollars is not necessarily a significant, spiritually imbued artwork, but we can accept the pretense that it is through its market value, especially if that value is freely determined by a public auction. The question regarding art and money deserves closer analysis than it gets. It deserves a study of how we place value on immaterial qualities, or how and why we think they exist at all or have any value. It is one thing to value material things with money as a relatively simple process. It is another thing altogether to try to value immaterial beliefs, customs, symbols, knowledge, feelings, and the like, in material ways. It is of course done all the time anyway. For example, every court in the land does this on a routine basis in determining settlements or compensations. Art is just one of many, many examples. We don't really have any alternatives. We are matter, art is matter, matter is equated with matter. The spiritual, the aesthetic, the subjective "qualities" of experience and desire, etc., are not matter. But, paradoxically, they cannot exist except by metaphor; that is, as if they were matter. I plead to either bring this Art and Commodity issue up to a more interesting level or drop it. The banal underlying interest of those who focus on art-money is political and generally ultra-conservative, as if one can separate the moral and spiritual qualities of life from its material reality. Strangely, the argument enables "free-market" amoral exploitation because after all, the important things, the spiritual things are unsullied by money. wc
