To be an artist in any way is a gift. A gifted painter or a gifted hairdresser or a gifted knitter. We all have a gift. Cooking is art. To be able to appreciate the gift shown to us in that moment is one of our greatest joys. To want to harbour and own that person or the product is a normal human condition. Human beings will always want to hold something special to themselves and take status from the fact others have to ask to see or touch whatever is their joy. Any toddler will tell you this. The art of the moment in one persons day is status. The art we own as a people is the story of our lives. Much like anyones photo album or cloud content. It is treasure for the window into our past that it creates. To know your pwn art and to enjoy what you can create is a treasure.

What if an art critic - with much influence in the art world - should turn against art that s displayed in exclusive galleries - and so doing-  damage the status of it.

- Were there examples in the past?

The contrary happend several times in the last two years:

Works with apparently no value proved to be Raphael's and Rembrandt's afterwards - Same gifted artist - same object - other context - other appreciation?

Paintings that are considered to be of little value then found to be created by atists that are popular will get a better price. People collect the works of artists that delight them. We all do in our National Gallerys. If an art critic were to express an opinion that a certain artist or artwork was of no accord he must proove his point. If his point was unproven then he would lose his status as an Art Critic. A status he owns and has worked hard for. A job that is putting bread on his table. It is unlikely an Art Critic would speak out and go against the grain. Most people work to live and so do not want to create waves in thier workplace.

Dear Jan,

- I quote:

“People collect the works of artists that delight them.”

But in our example (Raphael, Rembrandt)  the object stays the same - it's about the same painting - the work of art is the same - the esthetic experience of the object is the same - only its STATUS changes: from an ordinary to a famous maker.

 Then what is it that makes the difference?

- I quote:

“It is unlikely an Art Critic would speak out and go against the grain.” 

and compare with Suhail Mali, (Goldsmiths):

"critique takes a key role in the political economy of contemporary art’s marketization.  It gives substance to a moral involvement in contemporary art that is operationally central to the distinction between its primary (galeries) and secondary (auctions) markets. In so doing, critique serves to maintain the grip of the primary market over contemporary art." 

So critics could be hampered in their freedom of speech for reasons of art’s marketization? 

best wishes

Willy

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233498923_Critique_as_alibi_moral_differentiation_in_the_art_market

Article Critique as alibi: Moral differentiation in the art market

Hello Willy, you are asking a very big question. I will get back to you. All the best Jan

This is a very complex question. can i start by recommending three books before attempting to answer this question myself as an artist The books are as follows:

 Elkins, J  (1999)What Painting Is. Routledge: London

Bayles, D and Orland,T. (1993) Art and Fear . Continuum: London

The third book is useful but I skipped the politics. It is Berger,J (1958) A Painter of our Time. Pantheon Books: New York.

You might also find some parts of Vargas' book 'The Death of Culture' Interesting and those parts of Lefebvre's recently published book 'Meta-Philosophy' that deal with art and Praxis of interest. I will give your question some thought and attempt an answer later.

Best Derek

Thanks a lot for the biography Derek!!

Best wishes,

Willy

For example:

Here an important gallery advertises art as investment:

"Our aim has been to introduce collectors to emerging artists around the world whose works show strong potential to increase in value. (...) We are excited to share our  recommendations for 20 emerging artists to buy now, as well as our first-ever comprehensive report on the emerging art market.

This edition focuses on recent graduates from the most prestigious art schools in the United Kingdom. All of these artists are making distinctive work which is being recognized with international sales, awards, and invitations to participate in exhibitions and residencies." 

Hello, Willy,

The problem with art is the problem with Facebook and viral memes.  Some concepts posted die and others go viral on Facebook.  This has to do with shared learning social behavior.  I have been looking at viral memes (passed along photos with slogans on them, etc.) and the experimental psych studies on how these work sheds light on art rankings. 

People won't invest in art until has has gone "viral" to some degree, been validated by tastemaking elite communities.

So art to become "important" can only do so by being "viral" or certified.  There is no way to remove the status element since that it the mechanism by which value is ascribed. The main novelty is that now we have several global tastemaking communities who are starting to demand recognition in each other's domain (W. Europe, Eur-Asia, Africa.)

The keywords that might help are memes, social media, shared learning, cognitive evolution

Hope this helps,

Gloria

Hello Gloria,

The problem is that in art there was a turn around the sixties:

- controversial art became a bank investment -

that makes the natural "going viral" more problematic

So the question is : has avant-garde become institutional?

institutionalized = established = linked with status and investment.

So what's the relation between "validated by tastemaking elite communities"(art critique) and risk investment ?

- Should art be risk investment by nature?

Do critics always have the freedom of speech?

- An artist's Career can show ups and downs - do critics have the freedom to discuss this when status investment get involved? (see reaction here above)

And if contemporary art has become institutionalized. What about artist training?

Are students to be trained to deal with the art market - and the institutions that go with it? (art marketing?) 

Thank for your help,

Best wishes

Willy

Put otherwise:

Is the art world guided by "an invisible hand"

- or has it become "economics of regulation"?

Hello, Willy,

Having been a non-traditional (older) college art student in the1980s and early 1990s, there was not much help in marketing here at the University of Arizona.  The same went for creative writers and music students, I believe.

The nexus between individual artist and elites is in the shape of a pyramid of influence.  How some few artists near the peak, then become validated or go "viral" in influential communities may have several causes at once. You can construct them, of course.

Maybe smart colleges should have the actual investors and financial analysts come and teach as guest lecturers. Then, at least, students can learn far younger what success entails and double major in advertising and marketing. One painter wasn't doing anything unusual here in town, but she used all her training in PR and marketing and now has her own galleries, is probably a millionaire.  She used those "memes" that go viral and pounded the locals here with her PR and events.  She may never make the heights of elite art patronage but she can live comfortably.

Critics may have freedom of speech (my Ph.D. is in Rhetoric and English) but they are subject to the built-in biases of terminology that hamper judgment.  Some adjectives may spring to mind, for instance, to describe a woman painter but would not be used if the same paintings were created by a male. A scientific study could show some similar paintings by one artist with a male name and a female name and ask the critic to comment. It might have to be in two sittings a month apart so the critic doesn't guess it is the same artist.  Other types of built-in and structural (invisible) biases exist in language so--no--critics' free speech has its limits.  Make sense?

Glo

Makes sense indeed 

Rhetorics of art will be my next point I guess,

- thanks for the help Gloria!

the best,

Willy

Early art critics were advocates for an art with poor succes.

- From Baudelaire to Pierre Restany they went against the current.

The art they defended had no chance in musea

- only some "underground galeries" put them on display.

But these artists and shows made history.

Art stepped out of institution since the "impressionists" were kicked out of the "salon carrée du louvre" and had their peripheral show at the "Salon des Refusés" (1863)

- but they made their come back to the Salons 100 years after! 

Now called "Musea for contempory art" = the new art institutions.

And what about the critics?

Did they also made their way back to the Office?

That's my question.

Thanks to all contributors!

best wishes

Willy

let me put things strait here:

I love contemporary art - but I also love to play the devils advocate

There is a long history attached to art as a status symbol of power and wealth. Art is one way the very wealthy can obtain a differentiated status within their social group. What I mean is that owning art works brings with it a status beyond that of mere wealth. In other words it raises the status of a wealthy person above that of other wealthy persons. In this way art becomes a particular kind of fetishized commodity. The phantasmagorical commodity status of art very often rests upon the abstract language used by some art curators and people who write about art. Those of the wealthy that acquire the work of art, by association, are assumed to be privy to this form art-speak giving them additional status. Both Hegel and Nietzsche predicted the death of art. If not yet dead it is certainly on its last legs due to the appearance of art as spectacle and showmanship, hollowing out the work of art (and the artist). In my view art can be what Heidegger termed a ‘thing’ that entails more than just being an object. What this ‘more’ is I believe to be bound up with a praxis that is highly complex. These are my first thoughts but there will be more to come about the ‘more’, for without this ‘more’ art is dead.

Thanks Derek,

Indeed art always was a status symbol - among other.

But contemporary art made a long way before it couldn't be ignored anymore - 

Distinction in status matches the distinction in the market:

galeries - auctions / closed - open / exclusive-accessible

"The phantasmagorical commodity status of art very often rests upon the abstract language used by some art curators and people who write about art."   

as a matter of fact - the art philosophers of the late XX century, the advocates of the art of their time - democratized the way of thinking and writing about art by promoting the open lecture of an artwork.

Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes are good examples. 

They have tried to explain art in a way everybody can understand.

- but here is an other thing:

Open interpretation = inclusive : understandable to anybody in his or her way

Final interpretation = exclusive: your can understand it or not - but critics have the monopoly.

(What Hegel Nietzsche and Heidegger are concerned: I don't recall that they made much comment about status - rather the esthetic experience en the genius of the artist was their consern.)

I don't believe art can be dead - it's the "phoenix par excellence" let's say.

best wishes,

Willy

The ‘more’ I talked about in my answer would be a combination of Lefebvre’s praxis, mimesis and poesis. Let me first talk a little about mimesis in connection to your question. Much of the status of contemporary art is based on the artist’s intense pursuit of an ‘originality’ intimately linked to an anxiety to avoid the mimesis involved in influence, an originality driven by the art market’s demand for innovation. The great Harold Bloom has devoted one of the best books I have read to this anxiety entitled ‘The Anxiety of Influence’. His point is that only weaker artists and works avoid influence but that stronger artists and works embrace influence, misread or produce a misprision of their precursors but do not evade them. In my view it is the avoidance of influence that produces hollow artists, hollow works of spectacle and the hollow ‘double- Dutch’ (sorry about that) of much art criticism and curatorial statements. I will dig out some examples of recent art-speak and we can consider their broader accessibility. In this connection, and related to your reply, Bloom, as one of the foremost post-structuralist theorists of our time, is extremely critical of both Barthes and particularly Foucault in all his writings but in particular in his new book ‘The Canon of World Literature’.

You see I believe in the Canon of the visual arts and I do not see modernism as the radical break-with tradition that you  seem to do. In its greatest proponents there is a red thread running back a long way. There is in my view no binary, structuralist opposition between modernism and its precursors but a dialectical relation. Modernism ushered in a period of great works but no greater than other periods of history. There has always been a great deal of weak art that either blatantly imitated predecessors or, as in the present day, feverishly seeks  an originality that turns out to be hollow but which miraculously seems to escape real criticism.

Willy,

One not mentioned above is John Berger's Ways of Seeing, a Marrxist look at fine art.  He certainly explored the status issue.

These substrata of basic views about society always inform the appreciation of culture.  The difference is that Foucault et al. took these blinkers out of the shadows and called then what they were and are.  What were our parents' circumstances and how did our family regard the various differences in society?  No critic entirely escapes these factors, but to weigh in with just one is called economic determinism, if it is about class.  Race, gender are also issues, as well as religion.  Even religion is class-based with low church religion for the poor and high church for the wealthy.  It is complex because different factors cut across in any single person's mind.  One feminist theorist I used in my doctoral diss. calls these "nested variables" that are formed--not in isolation--but nested inside each other.  I can look her up if anyone wants that citation.

Dear Derek,

What is a Canon?

- It's the Global positioning system (gps) of art.

It's referential : there is no signification without continuity.

No speech without language: the same goes for all signification.

Signification is history

- But signification has to be discovered.

So the Canon can only show charted territories.

- For every discovery there is a name that goes with it

- For every discovery in art there is an artist's signature.

So what can artists do?

- A modern artist: breaking things apart:

Not the colour of the bottle in a still life - but this colour without the bottle nor the stil life - that's called abstraction.

= discovering uncharted territories

A post-modern artist: bringing things together:

take a pop art item and something of the expressionist - call it a Martin Kippenberger. = exploring what has already been charted

 So indeed - artists cannot work without influences

- but on the other hand they have to make their own mark. introduce their own style that differs them.

So they also can sign their own GPS (Canon) reference.

Now back to status:

Modern art (1850) made a severe break.

That’s the reason why people didn’t understand.

Lack of continuity - same problem ever since.

“What does this mean? - My 5 year old can do this better!”

So some authority was needed here:

-so they brought in a famous writer : Baudelaire was first.

The notion of  “modern” in relation to art was due to him. 

He was the first of an 100 year long list of critics, advocates of the Modern art.

At the end of modernism (1960) banking institutions began to buy works by living artists.

- Then things have changed: Galeries become important - critics follow - art has become serious business because of investment.

That’s the social change I wanted to question.

Has it to do with strong or weak art?

All lies in the appreciation of an audience in time

Nothing lasts for ever.

Only symbols last as long as there is a thinking human being

best wishes,

Willy

Jean Luc Godard wanted to change the cinematographic language because of  Marxism = agains Hollywood 

But he only attained the intellectuals in France - never the workers.

My concern lies not so much in determining all aspects of possible deterministic or "nested variables" involved in status anxiety.

I am more puzzled by the question of how can an art student learn to develop an attitude towards the art market.

If art is status linked - and galeries and critics are "streamlined" by it.

So be it!

But  students have to understand the art market mechanisms because sooner or later they have to deal with them.

- If they want to get in buseness

- or if they precisely want to know how to escape art market mechanisms

 to go with the current or agains it - to discide consciously which way to go.

(and here indeed the "nested variables" of the student's social background come into play - that's why schools are for - to mediate)

Willy,

That problem Goddard had was because he wasn't one of the workers, nor, perhaps, did he come from a worker's family.  I am working on a collection of short stories called Children of Steel, stories of people who grew up--as I did--in steel mill towns.  We can tell the difference between those who take on a place or a group because they intellectually want to do something with them or someone who feels empathy because from them or overcomes difference somehow.

This was a problem that Vincent van Gogh felt so keenly when he lived among the miners in le Borinage, Belgium.  He  succeeded in gaining their confidence when he shed some obvious affectations of the middle-class.  He "dressed down" and lived very simply if the film Lust for Life and the Stone van Gogh biography of that name are correct.

For me, the university course work was easier than hearing the stereotyping of working people in college or a total lack of awareness that some of those from places like le Borinage (or US equivalent) might be quite intelligent.

Art is in the eye--and the hand--of the creator. When it enters the gallery it becomes an article of commerce and is subject to those rules, including supply and demand, marketing and finance. The artist almost never participates in the gain or loss after an initial sale.

A museum is a (non-profit) business. At the intake end it functions by trading on tax abatement, celebrity and donor generosity. At the end facing the public it trades in the marketplaces of entertainment and education.

Status is derived from association with these forms of commerce and, in contemporary art products, occasionally by association with the creators who themselves may be personally engaging, entertaining and enlightening. Think of the bird in a gilded cage--a point on interest that, kept healthy, reflects on the owner and sets off his/her other possessions.

As Jon notes, there is a Venn diagram of three circles: artist, customer/patron, and venue.  The artists who make a connection to the other two do better in terms of financial success and fame, but the others also have a chance to become one whose work is broader than fashion/investment dictates in any given era. 

High value art is always viewed through a rear view mirror of the "certified by experts" so worthy of investing in.

By only giving a serious look at what someone else has already put a stamp of approval on, we miss every new artist of great innovation.  The few innovative artists who are praised by their contemporary critics have become the established artists of their day.

Is the interest in art for purposes of buying something others will pay high prices for or the enjoyment of the art?  Do we enjoy certain artworks because of the enjoyment of the art or because of thei artwork's ability to bring high prices?

This is possible to test.  Give random viewers a rating scale and show them pictures of art that is considered low value and high value.  See if the survey participants match the values held in the art market.  The only way to include professional critics is to show very obscure works to them or works from cultures they probably do not know well enough to judge which are valuable in that culture.  But we need to test how well professional critics do when faced with choices they do not already know the answers for, as well.  Good project for art history grad student.

The work of "Outsider artists' is gaining attention.  These are artists who--for various reasons--create art with no concern over the market value of their art.

How will this "Outsider' affect art?  Will the "Outsiders' be co-opted?  Stay tuned.

As a young student said some days ago: 

“you don’t know if it is funny unless you are not the only one laughing”

(Things can be funny to me but to no one else - and everybody can find something funny that I cannot.-  what goes here for jokes also goes for works of art as well)

There are two things here : 

1 - the personal esthetic experience and 

2 - the appreciation by a certain public, art critic, art market, …

1 and 2 can come together but not necessarily!

“Give random viewers a rating scale and show them pictures of art that is considered low value and high value.  See if the survey participants match the values held in the art market.” https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_relation_between_art_and_status_anxiety#584d9d0493553b3151169804 

If this should be a test - then what should be the RIGHT outcome?

- Does the rating match the art market significantly or not?

- Is the art market right - or are the random viewers?

First this problem:

Artists have learned a public how to look at art their way.

(artists showed their "possibility of art", they emancipated certain esthetics, indicated an object by signing, did esthetic discoveries, drew the attention on things that otherwise could never have had their place in a museum.)

So we look in the direction artists have pointed out for us 

- they learned us to perceive and to appreciate in a certain way.(As a matter of fact, great artists are above all adepts because no copy or variation can match the original, so artists are pushed forward by others in their trying to be successful in the same direction - it’s so simple as that!)

Neutrality is problematic in art: 

An evaluation will always necessarily be going in a certain direction: 

That one pointed out by a certain art-world.

(for example: if they like Picasso - they will choose “something picasso-like")

An art definition is always problematic because of neutrality

- not one fits a dictionary.

So disconnecting appreciation from context is an impossible mission.

Seconds:

We did put the market price as criteria (status linked esthetics)

So I have a problem with the Venn diagram of three circles: artist, customer/patron, and venue.

These are not separate worlds. They are linked in an unseparable way: 

(More like the angles of a triangle than the partial of Venn diagram)

We all look through a certain frame, a canvas; a context.

There is no "out of context" possibility. Artist, customer/patron, and venue are part of a context

The case of the displaced spectacles on floor of San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art shows it all:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/27/pair-of-glasses-left-on-us-gallery-floor-mistaken-for-art

When you put something on display as if a work of art- some public will take it.

In het case of the spectacles they even do an unconscious attempt to an art proposal - witch has been instantly rejected by the institution. 

These visitors became artists just for one moment without knowing this themselves!

And I think a lot af serious critics could be fooled as wel - (I don’t exclude myself from that!).

There is Parsons’ typology of museum visitors that goes form recognition (Example : “He! This looks like my dog!”)  to autonomous appreciation: (Example: “This looks like a Picasso but he has not that interiority, and the gestural is too pronounced, looks like the painting of an architect”) 

 so: public - artwork - market prise - seem linked as loose sand.

Price can be suggestive: first show the price and then the artwork and there will be parameter indicating connection. (=context)

Is time the best judge in art?

Time is change - it took a long time before the West discovered the beauty of African art.

(And then again: Art had nothing to do with Central African masks, they were made for quite other purposes.)

I think that the crisises specific to artistic work don’t match the fluctuations of an art market.

Nowadays artists become famous already at a young age.

So the product they make can be changing a lot over time. 

There are differences in style but also differences in appreciation (trends). 

Buying their work becomes risk investment  - as it should be, following the natural evolution of an artists career. 

When you invest in things you truly love you will be disappointed. You can get frustrated when your beloved art work looses its market value - but you keep on believing.  

But when it comes to status symbols it becomes quite a different story: Here the investment is not necessary linked with love but it is with status anxiety.

A collection cannot be ridiculed by critics - because in that case they are offending the collector’s status.

So  - Is the art market getting into the hands of guided economy for the part where status is involved?

Are critics still free to speak their mind when all of this is concerned? 

And how can artstudents - future artists - learn how to cope with these mechanisms?