Art & Money
Art’s relationship to money has long been fraught. On the one hand, art supposedly places individual expression above the profit motive, yet on the other hand, artworks circulate as expensive luxury commodities. How can artworks be unique, non-fungible cultural objects yet also vehicles for collateralized debt, money laundering, tax evasion, speculative investment, and real estate development? Has art simply become money? Can money be art? This course examines these, and other contradictions, about the long and complicated entanglement of art and money in modernity with particular attention on the period since the 1960s. We will address theories of value, trace the history of the art market, interrogate the politics of arts funding, explore the so-called financialization of art, look at ways artists have represented, exploited, or challenged the connections between art and money, and consider art’s role within the broader economic system.