Thursday, December 13, 2007

How the value of art is determined? Sometimes we covet and ascribe great value to art



Guest Writer

Art's true value (Part Four)


Money: the supreme icon


by Duane Snider

Even before I started collecting, I wondered how the value of art was determined. I wondered why some art became priceless and some was ignored or even reviled. It still puzzles me how some people feel so strongly about art that they become obsessed over it, while others seem indifferent.
Both the production and appreciation of art involves the search for unique, personal identity and a connection with the infinite. During this process art serves as the perfect vehicle for intensifying individual experience. Art offers an endless array of symbols that foster an understanding of life and the inner self.

Twisted

Landscape painting

by Michael Orwick

12x24" oils on canvas

available

It injects life into mundane experience. Art gives us stable, idealized images of all that is fragile and transitory, all that is timeless and permanent. The process of ascribing value to art has always been disjointed and messy. The subjective nature inherent in buying and selling art creates this mess. Art dealers, museum curators and art critics exploit this mess as a means to justify the monetary value they ascribe to the art and artists they happen to like. All too often selling art is a convoluted process in the most stylish wrapping. This is especially true in the blue-chip galleries.
The production of art brings into the world an endless variety of unique objects of beauty, pleasure and meaning. It also brings us images and ideas that disturb us and cause great discomfort.
Sometimes we covet and ascribe great value to art. Other times we chastise particular works of art as decadent and worthless. The judgments we make reflect the values and virtues we want to see in ourselves as well as the sins and transgressions within ourselves that we fear facing.
The time has come to tear away the fixation our culture has on the art business and rediscover the true value of art.

My special thanks again go out to Duane Snider
http://www.theartcounselor.com/


All the Best, Michael Orwick
www.michaelorwick.com

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