Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Artworks As Commodities - Wps
Artworks As Commodities - Wps
Artworks As Commodities - Wps
John A. Walker, Not for Sale, (1975). Oil on canvas. Donated to Wolverhampton
Art Gallery. (This painting demands to be a commodity but the title insists it is not
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
contradiction with its appearance in the marketplace. To them the conjunction art:
money, art: business seems sordid and offensive. As a result, strange incongruities of
thought arise: works of art are described as 'priceless' despite the fact that
whenever they are offered for sale in auction rooms they fetch prices. It is generally
assumed that when artists make art they are motivated by the highest ideals (inner
necessity, self expression, the desire to comment politically, etc), hence they are not
expected to admit 'I did it for the money'. Nonetheless, artists have to eat and
therefore making money from art may be one reasonable motive for producing it.
Also, it is perfectly possible for an artist to have several motives some primary, some
secondary, some idealistic, some mercenary. Such motivations are not mutually
exclusive. Furthermore, the mere fact that an artist makes art for money is no
indication that the resulting work is of no artistic or intellectual value: the aesthetic
quality of a work is not determined by the motives of its maker. By the same token,
Since the idea of artistic independence has been so crucial to modernism, it may be
worth considering how certain of the founding fathers were able to maintain their
integrity and independence. Cézanne did not have to please a patron, a public, a
dealer or a market, he was under no compulsion to make art for a living because
once he inherited his father's money and land he gained financial independence for
life. Van Gogh was similarly protected from market forces by the subsidy his
brother Theo supplied. Manet and Degas were also affluent. The majority of artists
are not so fortunate, they need money in order to practice art at all. Many artists
take part-time or full-time employment in order to fund their art activities but this
obviously limits the time they can devote to art. Others rely upon a variety of
commissions, and so forth - in order to eke out a precarious living. Only a small
proportion of artists are successful enough to live from the sale of their work.
Most of the artworks produced by professional artists within the context of the
Western economic system become commodities once they leave the artist's studio
and are sold to collectors and museums via the dealer/private art gallery system of
production (tools, materials, equipment, etc), so in this respect they resemble small,
specialist market. They and their assistants expend mental and physical labour to
transform cheap materials (mostly) into higher value goods. (In 2007-2008 certain
British artists - Damien Hirst and Marc Quinn - used expensive materials such as
diamonds and gold to make art in order to increase its financial value at a time
Mark Quinn with gold sculpture of fashion model Kate Moss, 2008.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Higher value is also achieved via the labour of critics, press agents, dealers,
museum curators, collectors and auction houses plus the mass media who
consolidate the reputation or brand of the artist. (Turning them into art stars or
celebrities.) In those cases where artists receive regular payments from dealers in
return for all their output, their economic circumstances approximate more to the
condition of wage-labourers (that is, workers who sell their labour-power for a
by Marx in the first chapter of Das Kapital, commodities have a double aspect: first,
properties which satisfy human wants or needs of some sort; in short, they have use-
values; and second, they are depositories of value, that is, they can be exchanged for
money; in short, they have exchange-values. Marx argued that the exchange-value
of commodities has a purely social reality and derives from the human labour
expended in their production. While all the products of human labour have use-
with exchange-value in terms of money. One such historical epoch is, of course, the
To say that works of art have use-values conflicts with a common cliché about art,
received wisdom that art is useless is a myth, because it overlooks the various
decorative, symbolic, ideological, political, religious functions which art serves. The
idea that art is non-commercial is also a myth. The power of this myth to persist in
the non-correlation between aesthetic and monetary values: that is, there is no
necessary connection - a work of art with a high or low aesthetic value may be
worth millions or it may not; both values can also vary historically and from social
group to social group. In spite of the difficulties of explaining how works of art are
assigned their aesthetic and monetary values, it is clear from the above that art in
Before the development of a market in fine art objects, artists were retained by
royalty and the aristocracy; often they were treated as superior household servants.
ceiling decoration, a portrait, an altarpiece. Since the majority of such works were
executed for particular patrons who wanted to possess and use the works in
question, and for particular places (that is, fixed, physical settings), the resulting
objects did not become commodities offered for sale in an open market, bought and
sold again and again over the years for the purpose of profit. This type of
There are other kinds of artistic activity which also resist or sidestep com-
modification, Performance art, for example. (For instance, the 1960s’ auto-
destructive art events of Gustav Metzger, an artist who has managed to avoid his
fee. When a performance is repeated night after night - as in the theatre - actors are
paid a regular wage for the duration of the play's run. In this instance their
ceeds of ticket sales to the public, then exploitation of the actor's labour-power in
Let us now return to the topic of artworks as commodities. While the vast
majority of artists prefer to exclude issues of money and business from the
substance of their work, a few have addressed the commodity issue. Andy Warhol is
one artist who felt no guilt or scruples about the commercial aspects of art. In the
early 1960s, along with soup cans, his iconography encompassed dollar bills. Thus
images of money became worth money. And since the bills depicted were of low
Andy Warhol, 200 one dollar bills, (1962). Copyright Estate and Foundation of
$43.8 million.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
‘Business art is the step that comes after art. I started as a commercial artist, and I
want to finish as a business artist ... Being good in business is the most fascinating
kind of art ... making money is art and working is art and good business is the best
art." (1 )
range of media, to exploit publicity and to market his products in ways that many a
businessman must have envied. Warhol is anathema to many critics on the left
truth in these charges, but at least his work raises these issues, whereas the
humanist figure and landscape painters (e.g. Frank Auerbach) praised by the same
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another, more recent, example of a work of art self-reflexively illustrating its status
as commodity was Julian Opie's Cash This (1983) a witty, painted metal relief
sculpture which showed a cheque being signed by the artist. Here Opie
obtain cash. This work also revealed the vital role of the artist's signature as the
guarantee of authen-
ticity, individuality and value. The mischievous Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan (b.
1960) responded both to Warhol’s dollar painting and Opie’s cheque sculpture by
submitting a cheque for one dollar to auction at Christie’s Amsterdam in May 2009.
Amazingly, it fetched 10,000 Euros.
M. Cattelan, Untitled, signed 'Cattelan' (lower right), and dated '2/26/09' (upper
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It would, of course, be a delusion to assume that a work of art which exposed its
too is a commodity (unless the artist refuses ever to sell it). Nevertheless, in its
Such works by Warhol and Opie may disturb those viewers who wish to separate
commerce and culture, but their critical value is extremely limited. Hans Haacke's
oeuvre is more thoughtful and political: his photo-text, provenance pieces from the
documented the ownership history of two nineteenth century paintings and the
prices paid for them when they changed hands. Clinically, Haacke revealed the
intimate connections between the ownership of art, wealth, power and big business.
Hans Haacke, Manet Projekt ’74. This work - a text panel that was part of a planned
exposed the Nazi-era career of patron and Deutsche Bank chairman Hermann Josef
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
content - their use-value - is at odds with, or critical of, their status as commodities.
An obvious case in point are the writings of Marx and Engels. Their books argue for
the abolition of capitalism and private property, yet they are sold for profit by
privately owned publishing companies who, presumably, take the view that readers
will not take the Marxist message literally and abolish them! Similar paradoxes
occur in the realm of rock music: John Lennon, a multi-millionaire, wrote songs
about revolution, power to the people and imagining no possessions. Bow Wow
Wow's number C30, C60, C90, Go! (1981) encouraged listeners to tape record music
rather than to buy it. This song, inspired by Malcolm McLaren's anarchism, was
intended to embarrass the record company - EMI - that issued it and succeeded in
so doing. EMI did include a version of the song on one Bow Wow Wow compilation
- a Spanish version!
Jamie Reid (b. 1947), the designer of the Sex Pistols' punk graphics, held an
notice
Jamie Reid, An image for Suburban Press. Photo courtesy of Hamilton’s Gallery.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
to be attached to shop windows which claimed that the shop welcomed shoplifting.
Since this item was for sale its message was clearly at odds with its commodity
status. One wonders what the result of a court case would have been if a visitor to
the gallery had decided to take the instruction at face value and had stolen the piece.
In the discourse about art and culture, commodities and the commodification of
art are generally regarded as 'bad things'. But why precisely this should be so
dealers and collectors is that each time a profit is made artists are deprived of the
full fruits of their labour. Artists would, one assumes, welcome a law which gave
them a cut every time their works were sold so that they could benefit directly from
any increases in monetary value over time. (Such a law now exists: Droit de Suite or
(b) The second objection is much more subtle and complex. It is an objection made
While the criticism can be applied to art commodities, it is most often directed
towards mass culture, or what the Frankfurt School preferred to call the culture
industry. Modern forms of mass culture are really the consequence of the
reproduction) to the arts. Whereas it is clear that traditional works of art were
made for the sake of their use-values, this is not so clear in the case of mass culture.
As Adorno remarked: ‘Cultural entities typical of the culture industry are no longer
also commodities, they are commodities through and through.’ (3) In other words,
once a market exists it becomes possible to manufacture goods for the purpose of
exchange and profit rather than for use by the makers. Critics usually regard this
alters its character for the worse, for example, causing a loss of artistic integrity and
While it is tempting to conclude that goods made for sale and profit must be
artistically worthless, it is surely too simplistic a response. Not all popular films,
commodities must meet some needs in the audience or public otherwise they would
not sell, hence use-values cannot be dispensed with altogether. And, as we have
Adorno's critical assault on the culture industry can itself be criticized: it lacked
products; it treated the industry as monolithic; and it was extremely pessimistic. His
struggle for artists compelled to work within existing capitalist relations. It is this
possibility which more recent critics - especially those studying the realm of rock
Simon Frith, the sociologist and rock music critic, has expressed doubts about the
kind of analysis which sets art against business: ‘I don't believe that pitting art versus
business ... actually helps us in analysing a mass culture like rock. It is precisely
that rock is so important. Rock fans and rock performers alike want their music to be
tradictory. The music business constantly strives to control the market and public
taste but it never completely succeeds because consumers are active not passive, and
‘The rock industry, as a capitalist enterprise, doesn't sell some single, hegemonic idea,
but is, rather, a medium through which hundreds of ideas flow. Commercial logic
shapes these ideas, but ... efficient profit-making involves not the creation of "new
needs " and audience "manipulations" but, rather, the response to existing needs and
audience "satisfaction" ... The record industry must always try to mould its market
(this is the reality of rock-as-commodity), but this must always involve a struggle (this
sought to establish alternatives to the large record companies, 1980s pop groups
Sigue Sigue Sputnik (SSS) was a band which exemplified the new commercial
artificiality, their marketing strategy for gaining large advances from record
in interviews, articles and TV programmes about the group. Although a record was
eventually released for the public to buy, essentially the appeal of the band was the
spectacle of self-promotion itself. In other words, success was not measured in terms
of musical or visual aesthetics but in terms of playing and winning against the
system, manipulating it in order to supply cash and resources so that the game could
be continued. One cannot criticize SSS for hiding the truth, on the contrary, the
whole process was gleefully revealed. Somewhat surprisingly, instead of reacting
negatively 'This is a con trick, I won't buy their record' - a considerable number of
recessions. This is probably the reason for the appeal of TV soap operas such as
Dallas. Stories about power and money, business success or failure, captivate mass
audiences whether the stories are fictional or real - as in the business sections of
not been to make good films (that is relatively easy), but to raise the finance to make
them in the first place. (Marx claimed that the economic was determinant in the last
instance, but in artistic production it often seems determinant in the first instance.)
Tony James had the insight to realise that the spectacle of business struggle is
fascinating in its own right. He had the intelligence to see that designing a package,
Truly, Warhol's remarks about business art and the art of business have never been
more apt.
On the one hand it could be argued that such a strategy represents the ultimate in
'selling out' but, on the other hand, it could be argued that the strategy represents a
new level of frankness about the reality of culture within capitalism. Perhaps one
use-value of SSS is the knowledge they provided about the workings of the system.
To blame those rock groups who simultaneously expose and exploit art as
commodity is to displace criticism from where it really belongs - the system which
generates commodities in the first place. It is surely unfair to blame messengers for
the bad news they bring.
Examples have been cited from Pop music because the cultural/commercial
tendencies of the age are more extreme and vivid in such fields. However, as
distinctions between the production of art and mass culture industries dwindle,
those same tendencies are increasingly evident in the art world itself: witness the
1980s’ New York gallery scene and the aggressive marketing, hyping and packaging
of such art stars as Julian Schnabel, David Salle, etc. Keith Haring (1958-90), an
artist who was willing to undertake virtually any type of design commission,
responded frankly to these changes by opening a ‘Pop Shop’ to sell a range of his
products in large editions with prices to suit all pockets. (See http://www.pop-
shop.com/)
(Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas had a similar shop in London for a time. Julian
Opie also now has such a shop. See http://www.julianopieshop.com and Damien
other artists.)
Keith Haring in his Pop Shop, Lafayette St, New York, 1986. Photo Charles Dolfi-
Michels.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
exhibition entitled ‘Pop Life: Art in a Material World’ that addressed many of the
themes touched upon in this article and in my books Art in the Age of Mass Media,
(London & Sterling VA: Pluto Press, 3rd ed. 2001) and Art and Celebrity (London &
Sterling VA; Pluto Press, 2003). A preview statement declared that the exhibition
‘argues that Warhol’s most radical lesson is reflected in the work of artists of
our mass media culture, have infiltrated the publicity machine and the marketplace
expanding their reach beyond the art world and into the wider world of commerce,
these artists exploit channels that engage audiences both inside and outside the
gallery. The conflation of culture and commerce is typically seen as a betrayal of the
values associated with modern art; this exhibition contends that, for many artists
working after Warhol, to cross this line is to engage with modern life on its own
terms.’ (6)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again ,
(2) By the fetishism of commodities Marx meant ‘The social character of men's
labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that
between human beings appear as relations between things. See 'The fetishism of
(3) T. W. Adorno 'The culture industry reconsidered', New German Critique, Fall
(4) S. Frith, Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure, and the Politics of Rock, (London:
(6) http://www.huliq.com/13/84036/enjoy-pop-life-tate-modern
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a revised version of an article that first appeared in the Irish art magazine
CIRCA, (32) January-February 1987, pp. 26-30. John A. Walker is a painter and art
historian.