Re: nettime What if a work of net.art sold for $34 million?
My aim is to place in tension two different sets of values: those of the commercial art world (CAW) and those of telematic art (TA). To this end, my question proposes a scenario in which a work of art that does not satisfy CAW's basic conventions (e.g. as Florian notes, ease of exchange, signature, etc.) rises to the top of the heap in terms of market value. One might argue, following Stallabrass (nod to Matthias Kampmannhttps://www.facebook.com/matthias.kampmann.75's Fb comment), that any artworld in which an artwork - be it an abstract painting or a telematic network - attains values in the tens of millions of dollars reifies neoliberal ideology and its inherent commodity (and luxury) fetishism. In the first Fb response, Caroline Seck Langill shrewdly suggested that the money would be distributed like the artwork. And why not? There are economies in which the creation and hording/multiplying of wealth for its own sake is not valued as highly as sharing, gifting, and ritual expending. Yves Klein understood that over 50 years ago in his brilliant challenge to CAW Immaterial Pictorial Sensitivity Zones. This work could only be acquired through an exchange of gold (cast in the sea by the artist), for which s/he attained a certificate of authenticity, which was valid only when burned. Returning to ease of exchange, signature, etc., the basic conventions of CAW are not neutral qualities or formal characteristics. Rather, they embody deeply held ideological commitments, just as the basic conventions of Ascott's TA embody deeply held ideological commitments. So what are the implications if these worlds collide and CAW ends up valuing most highly (and putting its money where its mouth is) a work that challenges CAW's traditional values? If, as Langill intimates, CAW embraces Ascott's La Plissure and its ideology of distributed authorship, it would be logically consistent for CAWs actors to express those commitments by distributing the economic wealth generated by the sale of the work. But let's say CAW embraces Ascott but retains its capitalistic imperatives. Althusser might argue that any critical value of telematic art would be evacuated once it becomes interpellated by the hegemonic forces of the CAM. At the same time, by gaining the sort of public recognition that comes with great market success, Ascott commands a much larger stage (to say nothing of financial resources and cultural/political power) from which to infect CAM with ideas that undermine its economic system. One final thought (for now). In terms of art's use value, defined as the cultural capital accrued by a CAW collector today, a Richter painting has a great deal to offer. The appreciation in price of Richter's work also suggests that it has great investment value, hence the high price tag, i.e. its exchange value. I'm no economist but an artwork is not like a standard commodity in the sense that it has potentially significant value in terms of its contribution to the history of art and to the larger history of ideas (histories that are perpetually reconstructed and retold from various, ever changing future perspectives). Let's call that its posterity value. The history of western art from contrapposto to conceptual art celebrates innovation and embraces work that challenges the status quo. I suspect that a Richter painting has little posterity value, compared to Ascott's Plissure . In other words, at some point in the future, Ascott will be generally recognized as having made a more valuable contribution to the history of art and visual culture than Richter. The disparity between use value and posterity value, and between posterity value and exchange value, is at issue. Over time, as posterity value is established and renegotiated from various present perspectives, it becomes closely aligned with exchange value. Jaromil Rojo pointed out that The sword is double edged, investments in art aren't good just because they move market value *today*. Actually, they might be epic fails as well - and that's what is happening all over - as we speak - to several big capitals.Jaromil's point is insightful here, because I think $33 million for a Richter is destined to be an epic fail when the correction between posterity value and exchange value takes place - not because the art market is overvalued but because from the perspective of the future, it will be seen to have valued the wrong things. Ed Shanken www.artexetra.com On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 10:34 AM, Florian Cramer flrnc...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 8:24 AM, Edward Shanken rotorel...@gmail.com wrote: What would the world be like if Roy Ascott's La Plissure du Texte (1983) sold at auction for $34.2 million instead of Gerhard RIchter's ?Abstraktes Bild?? In what sort of world (and artworld) would that be possible? ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative
Re: nettime What if a work of net.art sold for $34 million?
On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 8:24 AM, Edward Shanken rotorel...@gmail.comwrote: What would the world be like if Roy Ascott's La Plissure du Texte (1983) sold at auction for $34.2 million instead of Gerhard RIchter's ?Abstraktes Bild?? In what sort of world (and artworld) would that be possible? This question is above all an economic one, as your wording implies. The answer must therefore be economic as well: Gerhard Richter's Abstraktes Bild is (a) an object that can be conveniently traded as a commodity and (b), on top of that, a unique object and an autograph. Since Roy Ascott's work is neither of them really, it does not have the same collector's value - aside from issues of art historical canonization. But to spin this question further: Roy Ascott's work may still have a decent art market value compared to other, earlier artistic collaborative writing projects that didn't qualify as media art but were more ephemera: for example, the letters of Ray Johnson's New York Correspondance [sic] School of the 1960s/1970s. You still find Johnson's 1965 artist book The Paper Snake for $100-$120 on abebooks. Or the Anecdoted Topography of Chance by Daniel Spoerri, Emmett Williams, Dieter Rot, Robert Filliou and Roland Topor, collaboratively written between 1962 and 1968 and, in my humble opinion, more interesting than Plissure du Texte, but neither with any significant art market value, nor to be found in any history of media art - because it just didn't involve electronics?! And ultimately, one may ask oneself why other networked experimental writing projects - for example those conducted by the Oulipo in the 1960s and 1970s - don't have any art market value at all, simply because they fall into the category of literature and not contemporary art. Conversely, one could call Lawrence Weiner a mediocre concrete poet who was clever enough to market his work as conceptual art instead of concrete poetry - so that his serigraphs sell for $700 and his autographs for up to $50,000. Etc. -F # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
nettime What if a work of net.art sold for $34 million?
What would the world be like if Roy Ascott's La Plissure du Texte (1983) sold at auction for $34.2 million instead of Gerhard RIchter's ?Abstraktes Bild?? In what sort of world (and artworld) would that be possible? I asked this question a couple days ago on Facebook and it has generated some interesting responses, which I'd like to share in order to get more feedback on this little mind experiment from Nettime readers. Here are a few responses, anonymized but in order, so far: 1. And that money would be distributed, like the artwork. 2. It would be a world in which people would be much more aware of the importance of play, just imagine 'playtime' at work, crawling around, turning over your desk, pretending it is a spaceship in which your colleagues begin a journey! A moment to delve into the inner narratives of the symbolic. It would be a world in which creativity was valued more than it is feared. 3. Good call. I really like this what the world would be if starting from an art auction, you are suggesting a way out the decadence in the art world and the impotence of art production. Thanks for this uplifting imagination exercise. 4. Well, the Richter they can carry home. What would they be carrying home with 'La Plissure ...? 5. I'm not sure it would mean a darn thing. Art sales in the tens of millions are so far out on the thin tail of the bell curve that they say very little about the mean. I do wish folks would stop picking on Richter though. He's a great artist, and it's not his fault the wealthy have decided to use his work as the coin of the realm. ES: For La Plissure... to have an exchange value of $30+ million would demand a complete retooling of not only the commercial artworld but a major overhaul of cultural values. I'm not picking on Richter, merely using him as an example of the commercial artworld's infatuation with retrograde forms of practice that are out of touch with aesthetic developments (to say nothing of techno-cultural developments) since the 1960s. Over four decades ago Kosuth wrote that Being an artist now means to question the nature of art. If one is questioning the nature of painting, one cannot be questioning the nature of art. If an artist accepts painting (or sculpture) he is accepting the tradition that goes with it. That's because the word art is general and the word painting is specific. Painting is a kind of art. If you make paintings you are already accepting (not questioning) the nature of art. By this logic, Richter might be a great painter, but he is not a great artist. On the other hand, La Plissure du Texte is a far superior work of art than any painting since 1969, when Kosuth called the bluff and the jig was over. 5.2 So a quote over four decades old is authoritative for art today? I think we've gotten beyond end-of-art thinking where the only legitimate art is art about art. Kosuth's way treats art like a star collapsing in on itself and becoming a black hole. All gravity and no light. 6. So a quote over four decades old is authoritative for art today? I think we've gotten beyond end-of-art thinking where the only legitimate art is art about art. Kosuth's way treats art like a star collapsing in on itself and becoming a black hole. All gravity and no light. 3.2 I believe time will tell. The sword is double edged, investments in art aren't good just because they move market value *today*. Actually, they might be epic fails as well - and that's what is happening all over - as we speak - to several big capitals. So that is pretty consequent with the times we are living isn't it? 'nuff said, lemme order that copy of PdT now to get it signed by Roy ... oh gosh I'm so materialistically OT tonight. Must be the visit to the Van Gogh last sunday. ES: In terms of use value, defined as the cultural capital accrued by a collector today within the contemporary commercial art world, Richter has a great deal to offer, hence the high price tag, i.e. its exchange value. However, an artwork potentially has value outside of classical economic theory: what it contributes to a continuously unfurling history of art (that is perpetually retold from ever changing future perspectives). Let's call that its posterity value. The history of western art from contrapposto to conceptual art celebrates innovation and embraces work that challenges the status quo. In this regard, Kosuth's perspective is as insightful today as it was 40 years ago. I suspect that a Richter painting has little posterity value, whereas I suspect that Ascott's Plissure has potentially great posterity value. In other words, at some point in the future, Ascott will be generally recognized as having made a more valuable contribution to the history of art than Richter. The disparity between use value and posterity value, and between posterity value and exchange value, is at issue. Over time, as posterity value is more firmly established and renegotiated from various present perspectives, it becomes closely
