(Money girl - source net)
Research
scholar, art critic and a budding curator, Premjish Achari writes to me asking
a very pertinent question regarding art and money. He formulates the question
in the following fashion: With the advent of art boom in India, most of the art
players including the conscience keepers of the scene, the critics, have
developed a tendency to look at the price tag of a work of art than the work
itself. Debates on aesthetics, the relevance of art as a socio-political tool
and so on have taken a backseat as art today is treated as a commodity. My
question is, is it going to be like this for a long time? Do we need to develop
new strategies to understand this phenomenon or the theoretical tools developed
by Marx, Frankfurt School or Frederick Jameson are still good enough to analyse
this situation? If art becomes a commodity, what all does it become what all
does it lose in the process of becoming a commodity?
Succinctly
put by Premjish, these questions address a wide range of issues faced by the
art scene/s all over the world. Premjish asks whether art is going to be a
commodity forever or is it a passing phase? Interestingly, after the
international market recession hit Indian shores and affected the art scene
quite badly, the regular players ask the same question but in a different mood:
Is this recession going to be a permanent feature or is it a passing phase?
These questions show the two sides of the same coin. Art is a commodity,
whether you like it or not and there is money in art. Only issue is, the money
that has been poured into art/business, is slightly dried up now. So the
concern is, is it going to be like this forever or is it going to change for
the good? While Premjish’s concern is to de-link art from money and take it
more as a vehicle of human sublimation and redemption, the other group’s
concern is to link art back to its commodity status.
(Cave paintings from Bimbedka, Madhya Pradesh)
At the
outset itself, let me put it quite straight- art has become a commodity and
there is a business involved in art. Andy Warhol had once famously said that
the best form of art is business. Perhaps Warhol was expressing the
materialistic conditions of his times when the US was gaining undisputable
position as the leader of the world economy. However, we also know that the art
of art is hiding art. Today, this dictum is changed- today the art of art is
splurging on it, if not by the artist, but by the buyers, collectors, dealers
and so on. Any sociological enquiry would take us to the very basic fact that
in the beginning art was not a commodity and over a period of time it became a
commodity with monetary values attached to it. When did this transition exactly
happen?
It is said
that art came as an expression of human activities, sentiments and emotions
including hunting, love and fear. Those people who lived in the jungles did not
think of art as a form of commodity. They drew images on the cave walls or
inscribed messages on the rocks, carved shapes in wood and so on. These
activities should be seen as a part of human beings’ cognitive development
vis-a-vis his environment. Then as settlements developed, these expressions got
religious and ritualistic dimensions. This also shows a transition of this
human activity (of making something that we call art today) from
individualistic pursuits to collective engagements. When art became a tool of
proto-religious practice some kind of organizational aspect came around it. Art
became a part of the establishment (in whatever forms) and the artist became a
man of ‘status’ patronised by the respective establishments. This helped in
developing guilds with a master craftsman/artist at its head and innumerable
apprentices under him.
(Andy Warhol)
The words, ‘patron’
and ‘patronage’ are very important in understanding the transformation of art
from a human expression to commodity. Once artistic expression became a part of
the establishment, the establishment heads automatically became the patrons of
such ‘artists’. A new social relationship was developed between the artists and
the patrons in the evolving socio-religious structures. This relationship gave
some sort of permanency to artistic activities and even outside the religious
practices, art came to have a relevance and reason at least for the artist who
had pursued it. Sophistication of expression, derivation of visual linguistics
and grammar, evolution of patters, symbolic logic of representation and so on
evolved as a result of this process. And the patrons helped the artists to ‘codify’
their times visually and permanently for the sake of the posterity. The
development of religions and their insistence on the notion of life after death
(a visible life here and an invisible life beyond) might have induced a desire
for ‘eternity’ (which could pass from this life to the other life) amongst the
artists as well as the patrons.
The origin
of commodification of art could be traced somewhere here in this historical
interface of religion and social life. Both in the western and the eastern
societies we see temples and religious centres, including the caves selected
for spiritual recess, becoming the centres of art. In these sites art became a
prime thing thanks to royal patronage. Art that was an integral part of the
architecture became a visual symbol for the opulence of power and glory of the
patron. Kings and emperors wanted to tell the world about their glory and ‘eternity’
through commissioning works of art. Though we see, artistic process is
commodified (as it is paid by patrons), the very result of it (the works of art)
was not commodified. Patronage for art became a very strong political,
religious and social symbolism of power. A cursory glance at the history of the
Medici family in Rome would tell how art patronage was an integral part of
political, religious and social manoeuvrings.
(Cosimo di Medici)
In the post
Renaissance period, with the waning of fiefdoms all over the world and the
proliferation of industrialization and colonial incursions, guilds were
shattered and the genius of the individual artist was recognized (artistic
genius started evolving by the 14th century). But in the new
socio-political scenario, artist was a loner and destitute though fired by
genius was devoid of materialistic support. Stabilization of power brought economic
profits for many kingdoms, fiefdoms, colonial governments and so on and they
all now wanted to ‘promote’ the art and culture by patronizing the individual
artist. This also was partially led by the idea of ‘eternity’ of the yester
years. If you remember, most of the travelling artists of the colonial period
did the same thinking that the local chieftains and royalties would commission
them to do family portraits and related glories.
Stabilization
power not only brought economic surplus but also it brought the abstract
notions of tradition and culture. Conservation and preservation of certain
values and the objects that embodied those values became an imperative for many
of the patrons. This was the origin of museums. It started off as a house of
curios and slowly developed into the museums that we know today. When something
could be collected and preserved, or when something could be detached from its
functional role and brought as an object for aesthetic contemplation, it
assumed the value of a work of art. That means museumification of objects led
to the idea of detaching the functional value of ‘art’ from its locations and
turning it completely into an object of aesthetic contemplation. In that sense,
works of art commissioned by the patrons from the individual artists became ‘alienated’
(in the Marxian sense) objects de-linked from their actual function of
documenting a family history or locality for establishing ‘eternity’. This
private commissioning of works for preservation, therefore alienated aesthetic
contemplation seems to have given commodity status to a work of art.
(Louvre Museum, Paris)
Even in this
situation, the preserve-able works of art were not commissioned for ‘exchange’.
Any object becomes a commodity when it assumes the power of exchange for value.
Hence, we should say that art became a commodity when the patrons started
exchanging/bartering/ or even buying and selling works of art for the sake of
preservation. That means there happened a further alienation; in this context
the buyer does not commission a work of art, instead he ‘collects’ it for the
sake of keeping or further exchanging. At the same time, these activities gave
the buyer the assurance of ‘eternity’, ‘social status’ and so on. By this time,
individual artists were also growing up as strong social presences. They were
not just artisans and apprentices in guilds. They were individuals with clear
cut political, religious and social affiliations. In that sense, these
individual artists were expressing their ‘opinion’ through their aesthetical
expressions. Those who acquired the works from these artists were in fact endorsing
that view of the artist or finding those views akin to those held dear by the ‘buyers’
themselves.
Works of art
got a pure sense of commodity with the advent of galleries, which in fact was a
by product of the house of curios or museums. Galleries came to play a major
role in art scene by 19th century, as places of aesthetic
contemplation and places of buying and selling art. The patrons now could visit
a gallery, look at a work of art at their own leisure. They were entertained by
the gallerists. They could meet the artists, make friends with them, meet
people of equal footing in the society and so on. Slowly galleries became hubs
of art activities as artists find the galleries and easy option for finding
patronage without moving around with their wares like hawkers. Though galleries
came in as a by product of museum thinking, it did not have anything to do with
museum as a philosophical discourse. Galleries were commercial places brought
in by the changing social realities of the times.
(Karl Marx)
However,
pure commodiification of a work of art happened once the museums and galleries
started developing a nexus between them and their practices. By the 20th
century, galleries had taken a strong position in the chain of art production,
dissemination and consumption. The more powerful a gallery became the more its
presence felt in the scene. Slowly it led to the arbitration of taste and the
birth of gallerists as taste makes or connoisseurs. The rich and powerful, who
now became patrons of art for their own reasons (of which surplus money and
profit take a major part) did not have much time to mingle with artists or
their environments. Gallerists and other taste makers (critics and writers)
decided the buying tendencies for them. It was a happy situation. Artists
needed money and the new buying class mediated by the gallerists and art
critics and other taste makers provided a good ambience for producing and
buying art. Selling in the secondary market was yet to come.
Secondary
market sales therefore art as a pure commodity which has a resale value and an
appreciation unlike many other commodities (other than real estate) was the new
phenomenon. When any commodity whose production is less compared to the demand,
secondary market become operational. In the case of art, thanks to the auction
houses, gallery-museum nexus, works of art came to have an investment
potential. It is much nuanced a phenomenon than said. A work of art assumes
investment values when it is treated as an abstract commodity with attributable
values than real values. Attributable values are proportionate with history,
culture, nationalism, status, politics, power, religion, biography, name, fame,
fortune, myth and so on. Each buyer in the art market has a reason from a
basket of reasons to pick up a work of art. The very same reason could be
applicable for many others. Hence there is a demand against a short supply as
works of art are not produced in assembly line (boom made it an assembly line
production, which was the flipside of it). This disparity between demand and
supply causes increase in the price, which indicates the investment value. And
it is projected that in the pyramid of art hierarchy, an artist who has the
potential to reach a museum (as a collectible), he is the one who is to be
collected. This causes a flurry of activities in the secondary market. When he
is in absolute short supply, people look for someone who works like ‘him’. This
leads to a speculation that every artist is capable enough to reach ‘museum’.
(Frederick Jameson)
This is what
exactly happened during our boom time (2005- 2008); hopeless speculation and
mindless buying. The market players including the gallerists (those who were
taste makers of yester years just fell from that position to just hawkers),
critics, writers and everyone was asked to do lip service for the secondary
market activities. Everyone became a star because of the projected short supply
and everyone’s fate to be in a museum. This situation is bound to change.
Coming to
the other aspects of Premjish’s questions: Art cannot be now reversed from its
commodity status. What could be changed is the speculation that says everyone
is a great artist and bound to end up in museums. To clear the situation, we
need to demarcate investors from art collectors. What is common in both the
parties is their tendencies to offload works of art as and when they feel it.
What is uncommon about them is their ways of purchasing and keeping a work of
art. When an investor buys a work of art, he goes by the words of the ‘seller’
who masquerades as a consultant. A consultant, as she is a part of the machine
called market, would tell the investor that X or Y is going to be a museum
artist in the coming future. With the help of chart and data, she would prove
that her arguments are fool proof. Hence the investor puts in money thinking
only about the profit that he is going to make in the coming five years. The
gap between buying and the five years wait gives him enough satisfaction as a ‘collector’
and as a ‘cultured’ person. But a collector is absolutely different in his ways
of collecting. He would not go by a consultant’s words. He has his gut feelings
about an artist and he is always a student of his collection. He may collect an
artist who would never reach a museum, still he would be happy about his
collection. He offloads some of the works from his collection when he grows
tired of those works. He either makes use of the funds to buy new works or
create room for other works to breath freely.
(Premjish Achari)
Art as a
socio-political tool is an effective notion still. So long as a work of art is
produced by a human being, who is not ‘programmed’ like a cyborg, he/she is
going to express his responses to the social events and situations in his works
of art. They become subtle or volatile registration of the same, whether he is
bought by a collector or an investor. Real art writers and critics would find
him at some stage even if he is living in a forest. Problem of our country, as
far as art is concerned, is the lack of funding for independent projects. Artists
become addicted to money matters and deviate from their chosen path when they
are allured by the glitter and glamour of the art market. If there is funding,
artists could do their work and be happy. In those countries where funding
system is prevalent, artists write projects, apply for funds and do their
works. Only those people who have intelligent projects get funding. In this
world everyone cannot be a successful artist, if success is measured by monetary
gains. Finally, art market is an irreversible phenomenon. We could use Marxist,
Neo-Marxist and Jameson-ian theories to analyse and understand this phenomenon
and implement them as corrective tools for larger common good. I am optimistic
about that day when more and more artists turn towards sustainable art
projects. I am sure there would be a day when artist would step out of their
studios and do agriculture or retreat from this maddening world and like the
sages of our golden times become the conscience our society.
3 comments:
Brilliant analysis...read it twice and loved it more. Keep writing and inspiring!!!
I enjoyed the read Johny, and like Premjish says it is an excellent and clear explanation as to how art valuation and the relation of artists to money has come to the point that we are at today. But you lose me a bit at the end when you state "If there is funding, artists could do their work and be happy. In those countries where funding system is prevalent, artists write projects, apply for funds and do their works. Only those people who have intelligent projects get funding." Once upon a time in the US there was plenty of funding for artists and art projects provided though both national and localized government structures. But the artists who were selected to receive funds through "writing projects, applying for funds" were often only those artists who fit particular political strategies or had insider links to those with the power to make the selections. Artists without the requisite art degrees need not apply, and we all know that some of the greatest artists have come from among the self-taught. So the result of these programs was a lot of blah, uninspired, politically correct art funded by art-bureaucrats. I had a critic friend back in Milwaukee who was fond of saying he had never met an artist who had won a government grant that did any work of merit. I am not saying that there should not be government support for the arts...of course there should.. but I do question the idealized notion that government funding for artists is a cure-all for what ails us.
thanks it was lovely and full of information...
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