Art and money

I'm watching the Robert Hughes documentary, The Mona Lisa Curse, which you can view on YouTube in 12 - 6 minute segments. It explores the effects of the commodification of art on our experience of, or even the possibility of, it. Today, he says, we don't view the pieces of art on the walls of museum without the question "How much is it worth?" hanging around in our heads. Often this question is the primary question. And often we use the answer to the question "against" the piece, as a condemnation of the person or organization that owns it, and even as a critique of the piece itself (remember the "Voice of Fire" (pictured) purchase by the National Gallery of Canada.)

It is, in the discussion of the meaning and impact of a piece of art, patently absurd to include in the conversation, the amount paid for it. Barnett Newman's painting speaks for itself. His oeuvre speaks for itself. And it speaks clearly only if we're not talking about the usefulness (ie. the monetary "value") of it. Art is, as Oscar Wilde says, useless - it cannot have utility in any common sense of the word. It exists on a transcendent level. It engages us in questions of the meaning and significance of our lives.  When we assign a use-value, or utility, to it, a la Bentham, the art of it, that is, its quest to engage us in a conversation about meaning, and its attempt to answer the great questions of being - Who am I? and What am I doing here? - evaporate into a haze of investment and profit potential.

Rode 56 ks today (the Rosetown loop) at an average of 31.5 kph.