Realism, Value and Money

Lyotard, Jean-François. “Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?” The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

Jean-François Lyotard writes The Postmodern Condition as a philosopher and literary theorist on what he sees as the current state of postmodernism as a theory but also where it becomes evident in culture.

In this particular excerpt Lyotard talks about the function of the avant-garde as questioning the nature of reality, the reality implicated within art (75). So the art object questions it’s own status as art and how we come to value it. The other side of this view comes from a form of realism that Lyotard describes as seeking “unity, simplicity, communicatibility” (75). It frontally attacks experimentation by the avant-garde in the arts and brings a priori criteria for aesthetic judgment to art, ignoring or rejecting that which can’t be subsumed into its accepted structure (75,76).

Here Lyotard describes a struggle that seems well documented in art history e.g. the relationship between the French Academy and Salon and the avant-garde. It’s hard to see an assault on experimentation still existing. Although, a line I can see being drawn here is between a realism which only values accepted aesthetic expressions and a realism of money. In a culture of eclecticism, as Lyotard describes it, the value of artwork can be judged by its value on a capitalism market. I find it interesting how Lyotard then discounts value as defined by individual taste with one sentence (76).

Lyotard seems to prefer a realism that allows marketplace value to reveal the value of art as it “accommodates all tendencies” (76).

This is not a nice thought for the artist, especially when interpretation and individual meaning seem so important. Could the impossibility of reconciling individual tastes and opinions, which only “entertain(s) oneself”, leave profits as the most effective system for evaluating art?

Well, art is an individual experience. This does not mean we can’t agree on the value of an artwork, but the value that defines ones experience of art is what we take away or project on to it. This almost seems a given in a contemporary art school context. The way a large price tag values an artwork, though, is interesting to consider. It is an entirely different system of evaluation that, instead of nodding one’s head in quite appreciation we physically empty large amounts of bank account real estate in appreciation and hope lots of people are looking.

10 most expensive paintings ever sold
http://www.recoveryourlife.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1598426

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http://kellydevinethomas.com/2008/12/23/the-most-expensive-living-artists/