Visual Culture: UVC - Art as a commodity

I was somewhat concerned to find that the required reading was not in the Course Reader! Contact with my tutor revealed that a presumed typo had been amended when there was no need. I suppose it makes a difference from the typo that has not been amended but it does make you wonder who is doing the proof reading and whether the final version issued to students is signed off by the author.

My tutor did point me in the direction of a web page that included the relevant passage but having worked my way through ten pages of Marx and noticed that there was only a requirement to read a couple of pages in the Reader  I was left with a feeling that I am not really sure what I am responding to. (Mind you this is not an uncommon feeling when I have read Marx.)

We are told that "Marx had a particular view of 'commodity' that has informed many views of the consumer society and can be seen to have an impact on the way that collectors of artworks regard the desire to collect." We are offered no evidence that this is the case and whether the use of the term "can be seen" is simply the view of the author of the Course or is a widely accepted view. We are then asked if we can see ways in which this may help us to understand the art market.

In the selected passage Marx distinguishes between the 'value' of an article as provided by the level of expenditure of human labour (perhaps the equivalent of the 'cost' of the article to the producer as used in modern accounting) and the 'exchange value' of an article i.e the amount someone will pay in kind say by the provision of labour; by the aggregate of products that would be seen as a reasonable equivalent ( one of my products will 'buy' 10 of his products as seen in some swap shops); or, more commonly, by the tendering of accepted currency.  The latter system, that is dominant in modern society where there is no social interaction between the producer and the buyer, attempts to provide a common commodity (money) that offers a fair system for the exchange of products. That the system is far from fair is seen daily as markets in commodities are manipulated by speculators who never handle the products that they buy and sell and over which the majority of people have virtually no control.

Turning our attention to art the 'value' of art lies in the cost of the materials used and the time spent on producing the final product. Yet here we have a paradox - the cost of labour is not capable of being calculated in a meaningful way. Unless in some arbitrary fashion the 'hourly' rate of the producer is calculated and indeed the number of hours worked agreed then the cost of labour is not known. There is an exception to this and that is where the artist is not directly involved in the production providing only an idea and a 'name' such as the works of Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst. Presumably the actual producers i.e. the painters are paid an agreed rate that bears little relationship to the money that is made. Art therefore has no 'value' unless we ascribe to the idea of a mystical value that belongs to the genius of the artist and the level of his suffering.

Art acquires 'exchange value' when it is offered and accepted in payment for something else. Stories abound of artists paying their bar bills by offering a painting and myths abound of the long lost work by a now famous artist that were discovered in a dusty storeroom in some bar or cafe. I presume, although having no direct evidence, that this practice continues. Perhaps Wetherspoons have a company policy on the acceptance of art and legends are circulated of the manager who turned down an early Damien Hirst!. For the most part art is exchanged for currency and on occasion for a great deal of money. Again there will be (apart from the sponsorship of an artist by a wealthy patron) little social contact between the producer (artist) and the buyer. For the buyer it is simply a product. How he sees his purchase is very much a personal thing. He may appreciate it as a great work of art to which he responds emotionally. He may see it as an investment that in time will give him a good level of return. He may obtain it simply because he wants to own something that no one else has and may take this obsession to extreme lengths. He may want to demonstrate his wealth and 'taste' in an obvious way by of ostentatious display in properties he owns. It is of course be a combination of any of these things. What can be said that the reasons are as varied as there are purchasers of art and that to attempt to provide a reason applicable to all is doomed to failure.

Does Marx's views help us to understand the art market? Only insofar as it helps us to understand any market. There is nothing unique about the art market that has many characteristics of say the sale of antique cars. Products are 'advertised' as desirable and by their acquisition it is suggested that the purchaser will attain some desirable end that will set him/her apart from the crowd. Prices way beyond the 'value' will be paid because by the retention of high prices the buyers in the market reinforce how the market is regulated and, where there is an element of snobbery, ensures that the number of new entrants is kept to an elite few.


In the Journal of Contemporary Art October 1986 Koons reveals that he is an ideas person and that he turn to others, more skilled than him, to produce the final product. In a sense his works are the product of a manufactory where the relevant labour skills are brought together to create the 'idea' of one person. What is less clear is the relationship between the ideas man and the producers and whether there is an equal division of the fruits of their co-operation. I would guess not. His ideas are borrowed and on one or two occasions have been shown to be directly used. He usually obtains the legal rights to the object of his work which he makes clear comes from the 'ready-made' and 'enlarges the parameters'. His work is an exaggeration of the familiar that may have appeal to the wider world and not just to the elite art-lovers.

I cannot see how the required reading helps us to understand the work of Koons other than in the general sense of 'value' and 'exchange value'. There is no evidence in what I have been able to find that Koons was affected by these concepts.

It is stated that the work of Koons influenced the work of  Damien Hirst who produced an 18 foot version of a fourteen inch anatomical toy. Hirst also uses others to produce his ideas and there is a story that sums up the art world that one of the artists who was leaving the studio asked to be allowed to take one of Hirst's works. He suggested that she took one of her own but she declined as she wanted the 'name' that guaranteed that its 'exchange value' would be considerably higher. Perhaps what we should be examing the 'exchange value' of the artist rather than his/her works.