What is the Value of Art?

Wednesday, March 8, 2023 - from correspondence with LAILA REZAI

works on paper - 2024.005 - 01.05.23 - 11.5 x 9 inches

What is the Value of Art?

Value is something I have thought about many times over the years. There are many kinds of value beyond monetary. All of the different kinds of value are too many to enumerate but a small sample would be cultural value, therapeutic, emotional, social, political, historical, personal, market, etc. and so on. Art is often valued by circumstances beyond the artist or the art.

For instance, after World War II, the global power shift to the United States created the need for the USA to become a cultural leader and this gave rise to Abstract Expressionism as a uniquely American art form and Jackson Pollock became the poster boy for the new cultural dominance of the USA on a global stage. This was basically a political fabrication. Then eventually Pop Art took over as a dominate focus promoting Americanism via images through a commercial lens.

In that moment I am not sure how many artists understood this dynamic or maybe they did and played into it. European art ideas were still being played out but many of the European artists migrated to the US during and after WWII. So that is an interesting convergence of multiple forms of value. If collectors are looking to acquire the art that has the maximum probability of being ‘important’ and has sustained relevance and historical longevity, then they are going to be looking for art that contains similar convergences of multiple forms of value and that speak to the times in which they are made.

Because of the multiple interests of artists, dealers, collectors, critics, curators and institutions, markets are created to acquire and stockpile the works considered the best examples of a period. How that is determined depends on what art rises to the top of the pecking order and that drives monetary value. These are things beyond the artists. The other players are the ones who decide among themselves and it might take decades before the dust settles on what art goes forward as the canonical narrative and what gets left behind.

At this moment in history there are so many working artists that it is probably creating something of a crisis as far as figuring out where the main thread is or if there even is one.

So, where do I and my work fit into that picture? I really don’t know. In the present we artists are all in the trenches doing our own thing and can’t really see the whole picture or what perceived direction things are going in. There is too much to keep up with and it is beyond any individual to fully grasp. So any artist needs to first turn inward and follow their own intuition rather that looking outward for direction.

When it comes down to me, I am the one who gives value to my work first and foremost by continuously working and contemplating and theorizing and interacting with other artists whose work is interesting to me and who are exploring similar ideas that I am exploring.  I have to value what I am doing, I have to believe in it, to stand behind it, and study the responses to it. If I am happy to keep going everyday when I wake up in the morning, then the work has value to me. Ultimately, that is what matters and gives it value.