Friday, April 4, 2008

False Value

In a Post Structural sense, value in art exists as an arbitrary structure created by institutions and individuals taste. So, the cultural elite decide what valued art is. Of course, if this were true, how has art become more democratic? Maybe the elite are following a trend toward democratic tendencies. I suspect that if the value was truly arbitrary, elites would resist the trends of the society, because they are suppose to set the trends. So, if value in art is not arbitrary, need what is the value of the art? How do we measure the value of art? Can some of the value of art be from arbitrary forces?

4 comments:

Luciano Del Fabro said...

i didnt understand the whole text coz my english is quite poor, im from argentina and end up here becuz of C Wool, this was the ONLY blog who had him in interests ja. Anyway i think people value the artist name instead of the art, its a shame, a lot of true genius artists are left behind because of this. Saludos! Adios!

Troy Camplin said...

Value is determined by information content. To some extent information can be arbitrary. If someone as a joke decides to promote a piece he dislikes or finds to be ridiculous, he will work to create value in peoples' minds. The irony is that the people he thinks he has fooled now do in fact find it valuable, though he does not (the false information is accepted as true, and made true for that person). Sometimes I get the feeling that the postmodernists are doing just that with people much of the time.

The truly great works are those that continue to provide information to the viewer/reader/listener and thus increase in value over time.

Crashdummie said...

Value is something that even if the society has created a norm, it is individual, just as tast and preferences. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, and so does the admiration for the art. But then again, as luciano said, many people don’t get art but are more into the artist because they are famous. Art should move us and evoke a reaction, whatever it might be.

The crime against art is being indifferent.

Troy Camplin said...

You might want to take a look at my posting earlier about the nature of beauty. It is a common saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but increasingly that is demonstrably false. Or, partially false (as my list of what makes something beautiful shows).

Certainly value has a strong subjective element to it, but it is not entirely subjective. Water has a high value for everyone, though it certainly has a higher value for someone who is thirsty. We all need food, but only want certain kinds, thus placing different values on different kinds of food.

Do we need art? Psychologically, spiritually, I think so. So there is some sort of baseline value to it. The subjectivity comes in with certain tastes, etc.