My response to a recent post on Crit blog:
The great thing about art is that it shows how completely arbitrary capitalism is. Ed Kienholz (one of my favorite artists) bartered watercolor paintings to make ends meet. If he wanted to buy something for $4 he would paint the words “four dollars” on a sheet of paper and trade it for the merchandise. He did the exact same thing when he bought something for $5,000.
Does a check for $100,000 weigh more than a $10 bill?
Objects themselves, whether art objects or commodities, are worth nothing. Valuation exists in the world of concept and symbolism. That’s why conceptual art creates dissonance with our desire to put a price on everything. Material art plays within the existing capitalistic structure, and will always be hindered by it.
