Communicating Vessels : The Trouble with Value

Description

Tent. Krakov, Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art, 16-12-2017, 18-03-2018 ; Eindhoven, Onomatopee, 22-04-2018, 27-07-2018. - The Trouble with Value discusses the tangled story of the symbolic and economic value that a work of art holds, being a product of its maker’s labour; with an attempt to provide insights into current notions of value and value systems surrounding us. Any artwork is subject to a web of assessments, expressed from the perspective of experts and audiences. Among those actors in this judgmental spectacle are curators, critics, art historians, philosophers, art dealers, and of course the public too. Institutions and the machinery of the art market complete this disposition. Aside from the monetary evaluation of artworks and their unregulated market, the criteria for an artwork’s quality and its merit remain rather vague. Despite this fact the contemporary art world is persistently fixated on the “value” of art: wanting to recognize what is “new” and “original”, “relevant”, “challenging” or “radical”. Yet, is it possible to truly recognize what makes a work of art “outstanding” or “contemporary”, those qualities which are telling of their time while also carrying universal modes of understanding? The whole is made from a not-quite-transparent set of determinants that are difficult to break down. As usual, it is much easier to reflect on the past, for a look back provides examples of views and ideologies that defined – perhaps in a rather simple way – values and “qualities” of artistic creations. This is how the development of the canon of art has reached a condition where, despite continual redefinition and deconstruction, its rate of change is tardy at best. Well, don’t we all like tunes we already know?