Capitalist Art
Art Under Capitalism: Avant Garde Inflation
In this essay, we explore art under capitalism, also referred to as “capitalist art” which describes artworks bought and sold the private art market system predominant in the United States and in other countries. Our cultural emphasis on capitalism and the private ownership of artwork influences which artworks are considered noteworthy. Higher prices are conflated with quality, and ownership of quality (expensive) artwork is conflated with sophistication. This equation parallels the interests that ultra-wealthy individuals have in maintaining the capitalist system that benefits them. Capitalist art provides a medium of exchange that also confers social status, and these qualities overshadow any aesthetic or intellectual attributes of the artwork.
Artwork is the combination of materials and human imagination resulting in something which may have no utility other than to please the creator. Nearly every human being engages in some form of artistic production over the course of our lives. Occasionally, some creations and/or creators stand out due to extraordinary skill, imagination, or topicality, but artistic production is a core aspect of humanity.
“Art of art’s sake,” a dictum launched in the 19th century, separated artistic production from regard for audience or social context. Often, capitalist artworks achieving the status of “high” or “fine” in the U.S. and Europe over the last century or so did so in part due to the inability of people outside the circles of artmaking and art criticism to connect with the art. When coupled with high prices paid by wealthy individuals, capitalist art signifies the wealth and sophistication of the owner as well as the distance between the owner and the lives of most people. The “art world” became smaller and exclusive to reinforce the status of those who pay for the art.
Capitalist art equates artistic value with cash value and sophistication with exclusivity. The work is valued at the amount of money someone is willing to pay for it. In the United States’ version of late capitalism, cash value is the only generally accepted measure of value. Try paying your dentist with a painting. (Actually, Marcel Duchamp did exactly that, but most artists must pay cash for dentistry like everyone else.)
Capitalism and Art: Only a Few Famous Artists
In the United States, we have some public funding for the arts, but the diminutive levels of support are easy targets for individuals critical of publicly funded programs. Under capitalism, artists are expected to support themselves through sales of their work to individuals. Capitalist art is expected to increase in value over time. The death of a famous artist isn’t the end of a talented life as much as an end to the artist’s production and the beginning of the remaining works being scarce commodities.
When art objects simply become another means of exchanging money, scarcity becomes a critical component of value. Therefore, only a few artists can receive the high level of attention (fame) that supports high prices. When capitalist art dominates our concept of valuable art, there’s only room for a few individuals to garner fame and fortune, and the vast bulk of artists work in obscurity for little or no remuneration.
The Paradox of Anti-Capitalist Art
Land Art and Conceptual Art projects of the 1960s and 1970s attempted critique of capitalist art by rendering products unavailable for exchange. Land Art, such as Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, is tied to its place, and can’t be relocated at the whim of a collector. While Conceptual Art theoretically has no tangible product, artists usually documented the art with text or photographs which could be available for collection.
Banksy provides a poignant and humorous counterpoint to capitalist art. His figures spray painted on walls in public spaces conjure thoughts of oppression and resistance, satire, and suffering. His painting “Girl with Balloon” that sold for $1.4 million at auction promptly self-shredded after the sale and sold again later for $25.4 million. Banksy is a clever and skillful artist, but the fate of “Girl With Balloon” points more toward the vast sums of disposable wealth available to some than it does to artistic quality of the shredded painting.
Capitalist Art Sounds Expensive
“Comedian” by Maurizio Cattelan
To be meaningful to a capitalist art must be expensive. Recall “Comedian” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan: a banana duct-taped to the gallery wall which sold for $6.2 million. Technically, the buyer purchased a certificate of authenticity allowing him or her to duct-tape a banana to a wall and call it “Comedian,” but the newsworthiness and aesthetic value of the artwork comes from its price not its actual concept or execution.
The strategy of “buy low, sell high” encapsulates the private art gallery system. In addition to receiving 50%-75% of the purchase price of an artwork, galleries publicize the high prices of their artists’ works to justify ever higher prices. For many private galleries, the art collectors they connect with are more important than the artists they show because the collectors buy the work that supports the gallery. And to keep wealthy art collectors interested, the gallery’s art must be expensive and appear to be increasing in value.
Art As Investment: Can You Get Rich(er)?
Some capitalists promote the idea that any sufficiently shrewd individual can become wealthy in a capitalist system. But to maintain its value, capitalist art must be exclusive. The world of collectors with the disposable wealth available to acquire expensive artworks is small and insular. A wealthy individual could purchase expensive artwork, but the process of selling that work at a higher price to someone else is usually complicated and shielded from scrutiny.
The ”Panama Papers,” a cache of 11.5 million files hacked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca in 2016 revealed the interrelations between art auction houses, tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands, shell companies, and ultra-wealthy individuals to profit from high-profile auctions while maintaining anonymity. Yes, when you’re already rich, it’s possible to collude with others to enrich yourself using art, but buying an expensive artwork doesn’t automatically admit you to the exclusive art world. It’s easier for those who are ultra-wealthy to exchange art and cash among their ultra-wealthy friends. Rather than enrich an owner, capitalist art simply provides another medium of exchange of pre-existing wealth.
Art as Investment: The Role of Speculation
Artworks managed as cash-valuable assets are often kept away from public view. This protects the works from any damage that might reduce their value and helps to reinforce their status as rare commodities. But removing artwork from public access dims the vitality that inspired the artist to create it. When an artwork is acquired for the goal of profitability, all other values are overshadowed by its cash value. Capitalist art destroys artistic experience.
The Suppression of Artistic Community
The current trend of “art stars” dominating the attention of critics, collectors, and the public encourages artists to develop their careers independently rather than explore, document, and publicize shared vision and concerns. The school- or movement-orientations of the past: impressionism, expressionism, or surrealism no longer appear. The singular art star serves the interests of capital by linking artistic quality to individuals whose work can be more easily rationed to the market and by suppressing artists from organizing themselves and creating means of monetizing their production outside the capitalist markets.
The ”neo-geo” art movement of the 1980s was one of the last declared art movements, and while some of its members tried to critique consumerism, it ultimately celebrated artwork as a market commodity. One of its more successful proponents, Jeff Koons, while he is wealthy and famous, is to art what Fox News is to news: a veneer of art that primarily functions to promote the interests of the ultra-wealthy.
The Decline of Artistic Autonomy
The dearth of public funding to support a diversity of artists reflecting the cultural diversity of the United States and our World leaves artists seeking to make their living with their art in the position of creating works that individuals will purchase. Often this takes the form of commissions, where an artist is paid to create something specific for a specific individual. Some artists work in printed matter such as prints or books that have lower unit prices and are thus more generally affordable. But most artists seeking to earn a livelihood by creating according to their own vision and talent will have difficulty earning enough money to support themselves.
By commodifying artwork and limiting which artists are supported, capitalist art suppresses diversity and artistic autonomy. This also serves the interests of the beneficiaries of capitalism by maintaining exclusivity and reducing the emergence of voices that might be critical of capitalism.
Anti-Capitalist Art: Democracy or Poverty?
The artist Hans Haacke has a long history of sharp criticism of excessive wealth accumulation. Some of his work cites specific examples of capitalist exploitation and dehumanization. His 1978 sculpture “Tiffany Cares” consists of a silver plaque inscribed with the text of an advertisement run by Tiffany and Co. in the New York Times justifying millionaires. Text printed inside the lid of the velvet-lined box reads: “The 9,240,000 unemployed in the United States demand the immediate creation of more millionaires.” This witty and poignant sculpture points to inequality that has grown much worse since the 1970s. While Mr. Haacke maintains a successful art career, very few artists achieve support with such themes despite broad public awareness of their veracity.
“Tiffany Cares” by Hans Haacke
Social media responses to the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO indicate broad public awareness that our capitalist institutions primarily serve the interests of the wealthy. While making art critical of capitalism or excessive wealth accumulation may reflect public sentiments, receiving financial support for such work is rare. Few artists make a living with their art, and fewer still sell art that criticizes the commodification of art under capitalism.
The Trajectory of Art Under Capitalism
Arguably, the existence of wealthy individuals, whether in castles or cathedrals, results in artwork that reflects their preferences. The art produced under modern late capitalism may look different from paintings and sculptures of the past, but the implied status of the patron versus the public generally remains steadily in support of concentrated wealth.
Does Society Expect Capitalist Art?
At the time of this writing, it seems that people expect art to be a commodity with its value equal to its market price. Museum visitors may seek out specific works based on notoriety, but aside from liking or not liking what they see, there is a running assumption that the works are in a museum and thus have cash value which makes them valuable.
We shouldn’t expect art institutions to collect artwork critical of the wealthy population that supports the institutions. As we are forced to work longer hours to obtain the money we need to support ourselves and our communities, the emotional and intellectual stimulation of art may seem less relevant to our daily lives. If this economic trend continues, it seems likely that public support for art will continue to decline, and the professional art world will continue to shrink.
Capitalist Art and Technology
Computers increased flexibility and productivity for many artists, and internet-based projects increased the number of people artists could reach. Technology has a democratizing aspect in its potential to expand an individual’s ability to generate and disseminate interesting creative projects, but under capitalism the products must be monetized.
Using block chain technology, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) provide proof of authenticity that facilitates “ownership” of digital artworks. The art product associated with the NFT is still a digital file that can be copied without purchasing the NFT, and ownership of the NFT does not convey copyright to the associated work, so the market value of an NFT appears to be based on popularity with those who have money to spend on such things.
One aspect of technology that consistently inspires its development is technology’s potential for enhancing or replacing human labor. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has a long history in the visual arts, but over the last 20 years or so the availability and ease of use of the technology has expanded so far that AI-generated artworks win competitions and are purchased at auction. To maintain its status as a valuable commodity, it seems that some aspect of an artwork should involve exclusivity. Pablo Picasso is deceased, so no more Picassos will be created. AI-generated artwork has no defined end date, so the cache associated with a finite number of products shouldn’t apply. Artificial intelligence is already replacing the need to hire artists for tasks such as illustration. It remains to be seen whether computer-generated art will fully compete with human-generated art for wall space in galleries and museums.
Art ownership ≠ Art support
Capitalism reduces all things to commodities in the service accumulating wealth for the benefit of wealthy individuals. Capitalists don’t acquire art to support artists; they acquire art to promote and enrich themselves.
While artists, and everyone, need to earn a living, artists should be aware of what inspires them to produce. How do the artist’s products represent her in the world? What impression does the artist seek to make on others?
Our capitalist system drives us toward money as the measure of our success, but most artists work very hard for such a shallow measure, and few working artists earn a living from selling their work. Artists’ lives exemplify the union of work and life, labor and love. After an artwork is created, if we have the strength and resources, we proceed to the next one.