excerpt
excerpt from Air Guitar by Dave Hickey.....
"First: Art is not a commodity. It has no intrinsic value or staple application. Corn is a commodity, and so is long-distance service, since the operative difference between bushels of corn and minutes of long-distance service is the price. Price distinguishes commodities that are otherwise similar and destabilizes the market, whereas price likens works of art that are dissimilar and stabilzes the market. When I trade a work by Kenny Price for a work by John Baldessari, as I did once, I am not conducting a commodity transaction, I am hopefully engaging in a subtle negotiation of analogous social value.
Second: Art and money never touch. They exist in parallel universes of value at comprable levels of cultural generalization: Art does nothing to money but translate it. Money does nothing to art but facilitate its dissemination and buy the occasional box of Wheaties for the artist or art dealer. Thus, when you trade a piece of green paper with a picture on it, signed by a bureaucrat, for a piece of white paper with a picture on it, signed by an artist, you haven't bought anything, since neither piece of paper is worth anything. You have translated your investment and your faith from one universe to another."
later....
"Money is the emblem of the risks you're willing to take to have a say in the way something looks. If you don't take risks, if you only confirm the prescience of previous investors, you aquire no power, create no constituancies, and have no effect. ... In order to have any say at all, then, one must take risks and do so persuasively, and continue to do so."
anybody want to buy me the book? the gallery address is fine for shipping. link.
