[Art-lover]

In an interesting article by Donald Kuspit "The value of art or the value of money", which today introduced the gans, asserts that "money has become more existentially significant than the art."
Continuing the theme, bringing to your attention an essay by Boris Groys, treats even stronger statement: the money began to have greater versatility than God.
Material not for the empiricists of the market and not for viewing on the diagonal, but it is useful to be familiar to all who seek understanding price paradoxes of modern art.
Place it in the Yield, though its rightful place - is fundamental set of problems of art - in the section theoretical aspects of art. Alas, such a reason is still there. : (

Article touches on a number of issues that are actively debated at the forum. For everyone who is plagued by nightmares about Hirst and Gapchinskuyu, read at night. : p

The text highlights some of the provisions that I found particularly impressive.

Boris Groys
Language of Money

Language, which today is usually resorted society, when he wants to talk about himself - is the language of money. Money provides the internal unity of our world - a function previously performed by religion. The current social, political and cultural reality at first glance seems very splintered, fragmented, pluralistic. For there is no unifying tradition of the significant ideas of mandatory political projects.

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Thus, it seems that modern man released, which one is experienced as a euphoric state of free floating, others - as depressing hollowness. But at the same time, all in the modern world wonderfully interconnected - because everything in this world has its price. Modern freedom receives concrete expression in the international market. Once we are freed from all traditional cultural identities, and overcame all the regional boundaries and renounced all general ideas, we begin fluctuated freely circulate, endlessly changing and infinitely transformed. In other words, man is likened to money. Dengopodobie as the ideal modern man replaced the likeness . Man has always sought to approach the supreme and universal, and find internal - albeit symbolically - unity with the Absolute. This absolute, defining each thing by its real, "objective" in the world - its true value - beyond all cultural and resulting opinions, values and attitudes, is today in the form of the international finance market. Each state is for the international market only region to compete with other regions for investment. Consequently, the state also appointed its own price - which finally denies the modern state of his former universalising and legitimize the role. It is especially important that the way the international financial markets seem to be inscrutable - as earlier ways of the Lord . We are talking about the market, but we do not see him. It connects everything, but that's why he escaped from the immediate contemplation. Money demand more of a flair, a certain feeling, a certain sensitivity, which can not transmit ordinary language. Therefore, the language of money is the most important ultimatum language of our culture. The ideal of this culture is no longer the preservation of their traditions, but not revolutionary elimination of these traditions, but rather a deconstruction in the form of a potentially infinite variation and combination. For Marx prefaced his analysis of capital analysis of its aesthetic function. Because the market assigns a completely different, heterogeneous things one and the same price, capital cancels all of our aesthetic and ideological order and hierarchy. And in fact: that, for example, connects the painting of Leonardo, the supply of oil, an advertising campaign in favor of a political party and the destruction of the city in an earthquake? It would seem that nothing - but, on the other hand, we have every reason to assume that all these so various things are one and the same price. Thus, money is an unattainable boundary of any artistic imagination - a much more surreal than any of surrealism, much more abstract than any abstract. So, we can say that we live in today is not in the era of atheism, in postutopicheskuyu era, as is often claimed. We live in an era of the new religion of money and the market, which had abolished all the old religion, mainly because of its claim to universality is even more radically. And yet I would like to offer below some, if not atheistic, then at least agnostic comments to this new religion. And, in particular, I would like to call into question the unifying role of the market, which is a central tenet of the religion. Is the market there is one? Is it possible to say that everything in the modern world fragmented - with the exception of the market? As a starting point for the formulation of the question, I would like to take the so-called "art market" and ask: is whether the art market is part of a general, universal, single market - or not? Of course, the first word that comes to mind when we now think about the culture, the word "financing". the impression that the art of our time finally became a part and function of the market. And even if you put forward a protest against the cultural dictates of the market, formulated the protest also in terms of monetary policy - to require public financial support. This sverhvlast monetary package is, incidentally, its own advantages. Naming the monetary value of works of art allows modern viewer to measure, differentiate and refine their aesthetic judgments. Without recourse to the monetary code aesthetic score would become for us a demonstration of little interest to choose between simple "yes" or "no" or "good" and "bad" or "like" and "not like". between these two options would not be space for a differentiated assessment of their own aesthetic sense. and calling the price of the artistic work gives a chance to judge the art is much more accurate and true. a work of art can, for example, say: "yes" for $ 2000, but "no" for 2500 $. Thus such a proposition does not mean that the utterance of his really would buy this product for an allocation, if he had such an opportunity. Rather, such a statement, we mark the invisible quantification of values to the boundary between the "yes" and "no" - the border, the transition is a qualitative assessment is transformed into its opposite. It is marking the one hand, relatively accurately, but, on the other - a very mysterious: where the viewer knows what distance separates "yes" and "no" and how to measure this distance? Here comes into play the universal dimension of money - utopian religious side of our sense of money . There are no objective laws of supply and demand for the artwork, which usually have only a single copy. All the usual considerations that justify the price reference to the name of the artist, his fame, and so forth, ultimately prove to be highly problematic. Rather, the figure indicating the amount that visitors "would be ready to pay for this work, is an expression of inner, purely subjective, aesthetic experience that is both internal, subjective feeling of money. art with a unique radicalism manifests a subjective, psychological dimension of money, the inner, mysterious link between the figure and the sense that often slips out of sight in the "objectivity" of a functioning economy and for which a daily show only indirect form, resorting to such a gentle treatment, such as "my dear" or "my treasure". This should immediately ask: expensive - but how expensive? Or: treasure - but what value? In the field of so-called human relations, this question of the exact figure, implitsiruemoy tender feelings usually repressed and remains unsaid. The situation is different in art. In fact, we can not even be aware that this work of art is worth exactly $ 2000. But we feel it. This strange, mysterious feeling - the inner sense to hide the presence of money in all things - makes us again and again involuntarily ask myself: how I feel in the presence of objects, valued in one or another amount? This question we ask ourselves and others when we get into someone's house: how much do you think, is this house? This question does not have to ascertain the degree of affluence landlord or real estate prices in the region. Rather, we feel in this house, we say, as in a house that is worth a million (in fact, no matter in what currency). And we want to know, do not deceive us this feeling. This feeling that arises in the presence of certain sums of money, it overtakes us everywhere in our civilization - in restaurants, museums, boutiques, but also in nature, since both the nature of today has become expensive. Thus, this feeling is the most profound and cherished among all our senses. So call the price of the artistic work does not mean to abandon aesthetic feelings and emotions and focus on the hard calculation. Conversely, when a picture, we ask ourselves intimate question: how I feel in the presence of this painting? Of course, we remember with the other paintings and the feelings that we have them called, and how much they cost . But we also remember the house in which there were in their home and travel, which have made, a restaurant, where eating and emotions, which, however experienced, and prices that are paid for it. Consequently, all life is summed up in the evaluation: this painting is worth $ 2000. And so, in the presence of this picture, we feel the same way as in the presence of $ 2000 - not a penny more or less. A friend of mine - an artist - once told me that no one art critic can not understand a work of art, because to really understand the product so buy it - and not write about it. and calling rates that you are willing to pay from his own purse for a work of art - that is the only interpretation, adequate art. Of course, this remark is very witty. But, ultimately, it implies the unconditional acceptance of the phenomenon that Marx once termed commodity fetishism and called the main feature of the psychology of capitalism. In capitalism, Marx says, the price of things is taken for its own internal quality - and labor invested in the production of this thing, as well as the laws of general economy, finding every thing a certain price, while slipping out of sight. Consequently, the feeling that arises in the presence of monetary value, Marx was both necessary and misleading. Accordingly, the role of social - and also, if you like art - criticism is to ask about the amount of labor that was invested in a particular product and through which the viewer of this product creates a feeling that arises in the presence of monetary value. At first glance, the evolution of contemporary art did, however, impossible such a critical formulation of the question, since the evolution is followed by a paradoxical rule: the smaller the labor invested in the work of art, so it is more expensive. Indeed, contemporary art is a paradox, or we would say, the Christian occupation: it is understood as the manifestation of inner, hidden, escaping from any direct sense of the value of things. a practicing Christian feels the presence of God above all these things, which do not appear at first glance, precious, expensive or luxurious. On the contrary, it is the poor, humble, sick and ugly cause the Christian sense of the presence of God . At the sight of a poor and ugly things Christian thought: it also abides in God, it is also a road to God. And that is what makes the viewer very clearly feel the omnipotence of God just by looking at poverty. Therefore, Christianity is particularly highly prized relics of poverty, suffering and martyrdom. Nothing shows more clearly the divine omnipotence, is assigned to money in our modern civilization, such as paradoxical, "Christian" the feeling with which a modern audience diagnose the presence of money in a work of art. That picture, poor marks worldly success, luxury, 'external' wealth, since the classical avant-garde have the highest chances to be identified as places where manifests really big money. The lack of direct experience of money, paradoxically, is interpreted as a sure sign of their latent presence. can say the words of a medieval monk, sitting on the floor in a cold cell: even here - and that means first of all here - there are god. So say today's picture, which can detect signs of valuable artistic traditions: even it costs money - and because it is particularly a lot of money. money here become intrinsic value, manifests itself primarily in the small, trivial and inconspicuous. The Art of Modernism incomprehensible without this new, kvazihristianskoy mysticism money, because it can not and does not want to assert itself on the visual level. Apparently, contemporary art has become a revelation of the deepest secrets of money: the true value of things can not be known by its external review - money is the secret hiding themselves. The modern artist - the holy of the religion of money or, in other words, mystical gambler, as he seeks to demonstrate the hidden value of things, transporting this thing specially created for this space, which is Epiphany divine omnipotence, or, equivalently , high art. Price works of art here becomes a promise, which can be performed only in a potentially infinite future, - and in the present can not be given to this is no guarantee. But rather it is the absence of such guarantees and promises the revelation of future prices. We know this: if the artist here and now achieved commercial success, we automatically assume that it works in the future will certainly lose their value - and thus its price. Only art that is now worth nothing, promises a rise in the price. But thereby manifested the true nature of modern religion of money. It is apocalyptic, as any authentic religion. And its central figure - a prophet who anticipates the imminent price. But if religion is apocalyptic and prophetic, it is divided into sects, schools, esoteric associations and warring religion. Language of the money is split, differentiated and internally contradictory. In fact, language of finance has today become a universal language of culture, primarily because it has subsequently become a very differentiated and split nature - even if it still maintains the illusion of integrity. This language accurately and without Labor can express all that had only a very unclear tried to express language in Religion and Utopia. Each artistic intention corresponds to the current specific type of financing. Aesthetic decisions are virtually identical to the financial decisions. If the artist is trying to succeed in business, the medial mass culture, it also necessarily decided in favor of certain content and certain aesthetic forms - and vice versa. If the content must be "provocative", while the shape of a "difficult", the artist from the beginning is counting on a narrow, minority, and if anything, elite audience, which, nevertheless, prepared to pay for such "difficult" art befitting price. So, speaking of the "art market" as such, should not lose sight of the enormous diversity of this market. commercial films, TV shows, pop music, advertising and other art forms for the general public, as well as, for example, literature, operate in an environment that is largely similar to the total turnover. The biggest commercial success are making with those authors and works that are attractive to the widest possible audience. Individual financial contributions made by individual consumers of this product, is negligible. Therefore crucial for the return of these arts has a high circulation. Соответственно в содержательном и формальном отношении эти искусства также близки товару. Они апеллируют к темам, которые "интересны людям", и используют методы, "аттрактивные для людей". И это отнюдь не легкая задача, поскольку установить в нашем текучем и расколотом обществе, что интересует людей, весьма непросто. Поэтому лишь немногие продукты массовой культуры оказываются эстетически и экономически эффективными, - но уж если это происходит, то они отражают общее настроение лучше всякого статистического исследования. Любая эстетическая критика, оценивающая художественные произведения, циркулирующие в рамках массовой культуры, без учета их экономического успеха, неадекватна своему предмету. Экономический успех является в данном случае лучшим доказательством эстетической удачи, ведь этот успех удостоверяет точность, с которой утверждаются и воспроизводятся определенные общие места - и такое выяснение и воспроизведение общих мест является одновременно критерием, по которому необходимо эстетически оценивать произведения массовой культуры.Однако многие другие искусства предполагают совершенно иные критерии экономического успеха - даже если речь также идет о рыночном успехе. Так, произведения живописи или скульптуры, а также реди-мэйда и фотографии, покупаются не большими тиражами, а в единственном экземпляре или очень маленьким тиражом. В этом случае делается ставка уже не на популярность, а, напротив, на раритетность. Чем выше содержательная и формальная уникальность и эксклюзивность таких произведений, тем больший успех они могут иметь в узком кругу собирателей, кураторов и критиков и тем более высокой цены они могут добиться. Стало быть, в таких единичных произведениях искусства оценивается не их популярность на свободном рынке, а, наоборот, их содержательная замкнутость, недоступность, "трудность". Именно провал на свободном рынке, доступном для широкой публики, ведет в данном случае к признанию и высокой оценке на закрытом рынке для посвященных. Если же художественное произведение слишком хорошо принимают на свободном рынке, то его цена на рынке для знатоков падает. Успех на одном рынке ведет к провалу на другом рынке - и наоборот. А это и означает, что единого рынка не существует. Тот, кто говорит о рынке "вообще" или о художественном рынке "вообще", пребывает во власти идеологической иллюзии. Наши рынки так же фрагментированы, как и все наше общество. Таким образом,не существует единых критериев рыночного успеха, существуют только частные критерии, которые релевантны для определенных, частных рынков - а вне своих сфер действия теряют всякое значение. Эти частные экономические критерии по сути тождественны соответствующим эстетическим - но также и политическим - критериям. Так что конфликт между эстетическим и экономическим абсолютно фиктивен: он возникает лишь в том случае, когда смешивают друг с другом различные рынки и начинают оценивать произведения, циркулирующие в рамках одного рынка, согласно критериям, справедливым для других рынков.Таким образом, мы можем говорить о "высоком искусстве" только по отношению к искусствам, продуцирующим уникальные предметы и потому ускользающим от широкой публики в силу не только эстетических, но и экономических причин. Тем самым стремление к эстетической оригинальности прежде всего ограничивается сферой искусств, которые не зависят от тиража и потому радикально и последовательно репрезентируют то, что мы называем художественным модернизмом. Художник в нашей цивилизации может получить более или менее хорошее экономическое обеспечение, когда его искусство нравится лишь немногим - всего лишь нескольким кураторам, галеристам и критикам.Эта ориентация на вкус меньшинства сообщила изобразительному искусству такую эстетическую динамику, о какой могут только мечтать те искусства, чей экономический успех зависит от одобрения большинства.Ни в литературе, ни в кино эстетически "трудные" формы и методы, в конце концов, так и не смогли утвердиться. Широкая публика не узнавала себя в трудных произведениях. Число их читателей и зрителей ограничивается в основном профессорами и студентами университетов, задача которых изучать и комментировать раритеты. Из-за этого современное искусство, истоки которого восходят к авангарду 20-х годов, в наше время все больше попадает под подозрение в антидемократизме, элитарности и даже заговоре - поскольку оно не вписывается в общий рынок и выстраивает собственный еретический, сектантский рынок. Такие авторы, как Бурдьё или Бодрийар, осуждают современное поставангардное искусство как экономическую стратегию, обслуживающую псевдоэлитарный вкус и тем самым уклоняющуюся от демократической легитимации. Основной смысл этой полемики вовсе не связан с критикой "богатых" во имя "бедных", как может показаться на первый взгляд. Элитарность часто смешивается с богатством. Однако история современного искусства дает нам немало примеров, показывающих, что те немногие, кто поддерживают прогрессивное искусство, необязательно принадлежат к числу самых богатых. Художник может экономически выжить - пусть и в скудных, минимальных условиях, - пользуясь финансовой поддержкой не особенно состоятельных друзей и покровителей.Следовательно, полемика против элитарного характера поставангардного искусства направлена не столько против богатых, сколько против возникновения закрытого рынка, отделяющегося от единых, открытых рынков. Такие изолированные, закрытые рынки для меньшинства вызывают недоверие, хотя никто не может сказать, чем же открытый массовый рынок лучше или, наоборот, хуже, чем рынок для меньшинства. Действительно, такое осуждение рынков для меньшинства необъяснимо из чисто экономических соображений: ведь в рамках экономической рациональности не должно быть никакой разницы между "правильным", то есть легитимируемым посредством свободных рынков, и "неправильным", элитарным рыночным успехом. Стало быть, осуждение рынков для меньшинства - феномен чисто идеологический. Закрытые, фрагментированные рынки критикуются здесь от имени свободного, единого рынка, как некогда закрытые протестантистские движения подвергались критике от имени единой, открытой, универсальной католической церкви. Если с тех пор наше общество научилось уважать "естественные", наследственные - например, этнические - меньшинства, то оно по-прежнему, как бы повинуясь инстинкту, отвергает "искусственные" меньшинства, возникающие благодаря эксклюзивным эстетическим преимуществам. Поэтому и успех на таких эксклюзивных рынках по морально-идеологическим причинам осуждается как "заговор". Определенная и очень энергичная фракция общественного мнения возлагает на открытые, экспансивные, всеохватывающие рынки свои утопические тоталитарные надежды, которые раньше инвестировались в католицизм или в социализм. Только это религиозно-идеологическое преображение единого рынка, связывающего между собой все "человечество" и обеспечивающего тотальную "коммуникацию" всех со всеми, может объяснить, почему очевидная фрагментация рынков - и прежде всего культурных рынков - вызывает столь аллергическую реакцию у некоторых авторов. Здесь окончательно проясняется внутреннее единство эстетических, идеологических и экономических стратегий. Сегодня речь идет уже не об оппозиции "коммерческого" "некоммерческому", или "рынка" "не-рынку", или "товара" (Ware) "истине" (Wahre), а о весьма разнородных и даже противоположных рыночных стратегиях в условиях многообразных, фрагментированных, гетерогенных рынков - об агностицизме денег и релятивизме рынка.Когда художник и критик делают сегодня тот или иной эстетический выбор, то одновременно они выбирают рынок, на котором этот выбор может иметь экономические шансы. Поэтому многие нынешние эстетико-экономические дискуссии представляются такими непрозрачными и требуют для своего понимания такого тщательного анализа. Если кто-то выступает за свободный рынок, на котором искусство якобы должно сохранить свою автономность, то делает он это только потому, что с самого начала догадывается, какого рода искусство способно выжить на этом свободном рынке - и втайне симпатизирует этому искусству. Разумеется, это верно и для тех, кто выступает в защиту эксклюзивных рынков, ведь они тоже имеют определенные эстетические предпочтения и хотят им дать экономический шанс. Однако речь идет не только о том, что культурные рынки претерпели фрагментацию и дифференциацию. Сегодня они могут быть заново сформированы и по-новому изобретены. В конце концов, рынок - в высшей степени искусственное образование, стабильность и функционирование которого зависит от многих явных и неявных конвенций, правил, ритуалов и обычаев. И прежде всего функционирование рынка зависит от спроса. Но так называемые "естественные" человеческие потребности крайне ограничены - и очень легко удовлетворяются. Поэтому экономика может развиваться только в том случае, если она преодолевает естественные потребности человека, если потребитель последовательно замещает свои естестве

nnye needs artificial, arbitrarily formed desires - if he begins to seek not only to natural necessity, but also to the allegedly unnecessary, excessive, excessive - in short, a culture . Previously, it was the social function of the aristocracy: to engage in innovative and at the same time exemplary consumption and constantly invent new, artificial, unprecedented demand, which could orient social production. Traditional artist-craftsman is only satisfied with their products, these aristocratic, artificial desires. Almost immediately after the elimination of traditional social position of the aristocracy as a result of the French Revolution, the bourgeoisie realized that an expanding economy on the masses and their natural needs, which at one time advocated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, sufficient to develop a modern economy. Soon after the French Revolution began imitating the lifestyle of the deposed aristocracy, and the artists originally played a leading role. For poets and artists of romance nominated cult extravagance, luxury, exquisite, exclusive of life, unusual taste. This was followed by various versions of dandyism and decadence, cultivated new forms of unnatural, "patient", artificially created desire. The artist became a special commissioner of the modern economy of the invention and development of new consumer desires, among which, incidentally, is owned and desire of simplicity, humility and asceticism. paradigmatic artist of today - is not so much a manufacturer as an exclusive, exemplary customer anonymously produced objects circulating in our culture. can be argued that in the contemporary art system are not new products , but only new methods, models of consumption and desire. In modern art invented consumption, which then once again consumed by society. The Art stands today is not the beginning of artistic production, but in the end. This is not making things, and its exclusive use - although such use, of course, may include artistic process and the transformation of things. Signed artist means not having made a definite object, and that he the subject used - with some particularly interesting way. I once asked one of his familiar American who took an active part in the events of 1968, which, in its view, the left of this glorious time. Her answer surprised me. She said: first of all, the movement in 1968 opened up many new markets - for rock music, for environmentally friendly food and many more for what. These markets are properly functioning to this day - thanks to them, many people get jobs and ensured its existence. I confess, I am such an interpretation of this event, like a lot more than the usual talk about the collapse of the then utopias in the victory of the single market. And I thought: what a pity that I did not write the history of political and aesthetic revolutions as the history of the markets - write it prevents, obviously, the belief in an autonomous, comprehensive, absolute reality of the common market. In fact, the market and money is not only the new language through which to us says absolute, but also the language in which we can articulate themselves - which is already happening, even if we do not yet fully aware.

© Art Magazine N ° 47