Jenn and Emily raise an interesting point for the project, that is whether and how to include objects that resist monetization. These things are often meant to be art (though sometimes they are meant to be artistic), but they are equally meant to be impossible to package and monetize. Some whole art schools (Dadaism, for instance) were at least in part predicated on a critique of bourgeois society, art markets very much included.
In many ways, this is the inverse of someone like Damien Hirst, Murakami, or Warhol, whose art is commentary on consumption culture by making it hyper-consumptive and hyper-marketable (and marketed). So if we are going to include art whose artistic value is that it is meant to be commodified, we should probably include its inverse.
Theoretically, I can see how this would work. IMHO, one of the main things that has to happen to art in order to achieve commoditization (I usually use that word interchangeably with commodification) is for it to be turned into something durable, alienable, singular, while still retaining its cultural value.
One piece of the 'formatting the market' puzzle
I have in mind how this works, in most cases it is simply that the object itself is both the art and the commodity. But these are really distinct things. In the case of a performance, the art is ephemeral and impossible to ‘sell’ (though we could of course sell tickets to the performance); so to make it salable, it has to be made into a video recording, and that could be bought and sold. Likewise street art – people chiseling Banksy murals off of concrete walls, for instance. It’s not that the art is not art when it’s performance, it just can’t be bought and sold in that form.
But someone like Bill Viola sells pieces for hundreds of thousands of dollars (that piece, Quintet of the Silent, came in at US$274,816). The description in the catalog read:
Video installation comprised of single-channel colour video on wall-mounted plasma display. 72.4 x 120.7 x 10.2 cm. (28 1/2 x 47 1/2 x 4 in). This work is from an edition of five and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.
So theoretically, I would say yes and yes, that we can and should study art that cannot be monetized. Because it means that the ‘other’ art can be monetized, and I want to know how that works.
But (and there is always a but), how to do this? Practically and empirically, how would we incorporate tribal art or performance art or video art into the project? It seems that we might interview avant-garde art gallerists? Can we do this without bumping into the primary market/secondary market division? I’ve become more practical nowadays to say that we can only study it if its possible, but not to let perfect be the enemy of the good. How can we include this kind of art?
Comments
‘Can’t be monetized’ is an interesting concept because it admits of different dimensions. Off the top, and indulging in loose thinking here, resistance to monetization can be: (1) the object itself is ephemeral and lacks material stability or continuity; (2) the object is subject to other institutional forces, such as legal prohibitions, that prevents it from being monetized at a given point of time, or perhaps for perpetuity, (3) the object isn’t recognized by the ‘system’ as *art*, and can’t be incorporated into art pricing / market systems; (4) can’t be monetized *for you* but can be for museums, or ‘connected’ people, or auction houses, or dealers. Each limitation seems to give rise to compensatory mechanisms. Agents, for instance, could be seen as having the function of heightening the probability that artistic performances (which are monetizable, but only for a select # of people able to buy tickets and attend) are nevertheless available to unspecified future audiences, thus leading to a ‘generalizability’ of the ‘art’ through monetary function. Forgeries, reproductions, and underground art markets are other ways of making unavailable art available. (In fact, I think monetization might be an instance of the problem of how to make the unavailable available, and thus inevitably to whom and for how much and for what purposes).
Among the specialists your team might be talking to are art lawyers (perhaps that was in the proposal). I find the stuff on blockage discount rules pretty interesting, since it’s a minor example of how pricing is sensitive to expectations of what (and how much) is going to be available in the near/long-term future. Of course that’s what prices are, but it seems to have a weird dynamic in art markets – waiting for estates to clean out their closets, to put it tactlessly.
I like Andrew’s point a lot. I hope the team will address it in a future communique.
Oh…yes, agreed. I think art lawyers should make the list of people to talk to.
I left a reply about this topic in another post. I see some problems with pursuing these topics. If we did speak with avant-garde gallerists, do we think they would have enough information on the topic of selling performance art and street art? Has it even really been done?
When I think of buying and selling art, I think of owning art. And unless the street art is graffiti on the side of your house, there isn’t a way to really own these things. Therefore, I wouldn’t consider paying money to watch a performance artist as buying the artwork. Things can get complicated, however, when these performances are videotaped.
Currently, at PS1 there is an exhibition entitled 100 years that offers a century worth of performance art chronologically and in different media, mainly in print and on video. Dadaist poem manuscripts start off the exhibition, while videotapings of more recent performances bring the show to its end. It would be interesting to know how many copies there are of the videos and whether there is some sort of exclusive ownership deal.
Anyway, my point is these things are fuzzy. Once we get started on the serious interviewing and data-gathering, these sorts of issues that seem interesting now might get overwhelming.
The Antwerpen “Sound of Music” video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k
The Grand Central Station “Freeze”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo
These are perfect examples of investment of resources by those consuming the product or service. The model is the co-operative.
When you watch these, consider the intensive EDITING that went into the production of the video, apart from the performance itself. That, too, is part of the cost of the service or product.
When you apply for a grant, the granting agency is the first consumer.
If you round up volunteers, then they are the investors.
To argue that art has no price is to claim that when you do not pay your light bill, the electricity is “free” in violation of the laws of thermodynamics. Everything has a cost. Everything has a price. If you cannot track all of the costs — or choose not to — that does not make them go away.