Entry No. 1 Art and it’s Perceived Value
https://www.georgiaokeeffe.org/long-leaf/
A reflection on “A Clarification on Art and Value” written by Daniel Spaulding
This paper focuses on the acknowledgment of how art can be or cannot be “classified ”. Spaulding describes in length about the absence of a correct direction for the reader to venture down when it comes to classifying art and even furthermore how that art can be valued. The single largest truth told in the art world is that art is valued at whatever it is “claimed to be” but only by the one speaking its value. Allow me to explain, If an art historian states a piece of art is valued at 1.2 million dollars because of it’s historical placement, context and age, (how long it has survived in time; durability and lack of deterioration(depending on its form)) and then say a curator claims it is twice that because of the reasons previously mentioned but also because, by it being declared to be worth that much is in itself adding “Value tax” because the historian gave the work credibility in a “expert field” and that status alone is worth the doubling of the original value.
A key point in his description of the value art is that of the “artistic labor” of the work. He states “artistic labor is not to subject to the rationality of socially necessary labor time.” To summarize the extensive journey a reader must take to get through his explanation he rationalizes that art making and production possesses a “dual character: it is at once the concrete labor (physical creating processes) that does into the making of particular things, and also the abstract labor (the mental, emotional, art making process) that exchanges as a equivalent in the market.”
Here’s how I took that key point, the idea that art is valued at the “time spent” into the creation weather is be physical, mental or emotional the value held by the artist will never align with the one who places commercial or cultural value to it. Think of the artist of the past, they would spend unknown amounts of time on sketches or preliminary designs to prepare for the final creation of a work and to them those hours spent sketching, designing, and planning what their work would look like was invaluable time of physical, mental, and emotional labor. That we are viewers of the work, even in the time it was created, couldn’t ever accurately give value to that labor. It will always be to much or to little. This is simply because “the artist posses a monopoly to their own name ” which is even a different lane of thought to the value of art only having that of what the creators name holds in value.
The other point that I’ve spent many restless nights having dreams and nightmares about is that “art history is the critical reconstruction of the historical dialect between the autonomy-relation and other social forms/relations that do not merely impinge on art, but which rather - weather negatively or positively - determine its form.
Here’s the thing, as an artist and a future curator and galleryist, I crave the innovative styles of art. I want to see how modern art is constantly adapting to it’s surroundings. And part of that thirst for more is born of humanic greed. I can acknowledge that seeing is not enough I need to know more and see more because what if I don’t see it all? It’s a reflection of my own fears of life but the reason I fall into that line of thinking is because of the continuous adaptability and strange trajectories of art. Yet, trajectories that are entirely unpredictable. Some of the greatest art in the world has come from times of strife and grief. Times where people are fighting back against their oppressors. Those works have stood the battle of time because of what they represent, and it’s difficult as a artist and curator of art to not reflect on the what ifs… but what if this happened instead or rather didn’t happen? Even if it is not the artists intention to make a comment on the political climate of the time of which the art was created. Someone somewhere who sees the work in the a time of political unease (lol legit has never ended) will relate it to the political issues at the time of viewing. Meaning even without the artists intent it is driven by the political climate.
Thus to the end of my derailed train of thought, can art ever not be political?