Objects of Value
February 12, 2009
How is economic value defined and determined? Does it correspond to an object's intrinsic qualities or is it purely a social construction? Fundamentally, what do we say about our culture and our society - about our selves - through the objects that we have chosen to value? This exhibition centers on the rich cultural history of traditionally valuable materials such as silver, diamonds, gold, etc., as well as the nearly visceral desires that these substances are capable of evoking. The exhibition also focuses on the important immaterial factors that underlie the determination of value: from a given object's emotional or religious significance to aspects of its life on the market, as well as the crucial if silent role played by human labor and the human body.
- exhibition description, from
Assignment:
Using you resources – your own knowledge and observations, the exhibition’s wall text, Rene Morales’ essay in the exhibition brochure, Janson’s text, Barnet’s Short Guide to Writing about Art, and the Baxandall reading – complete the questions below. You will be able to complete some of these today, but some questions will demand your attention over the week. The complete assignment is due Thursday, Feb 19.
Since you have one week to complete this assignment, I would like you to type your responses to the questions in paragraph form. Edit them to avoid spelling and grammatical errors. Cite the source of any quote or fact you reference.
Refer to the handout given in class for the questions. If you do not have a handout, please email me requesting a copy.
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Here are the questions:
ReplyDeleteUsing you resources – your own knowledge and observations, the exhibition’s wall text, Rene Morales’ essay in the exhibition brochure, Janson’s text, Barnet’s Short Guide to Writing about Art, and the Baxandall reading – complete the questions below. You will be able to complete some of these today, but some questions will demand your attention over the week. The complete assignment is due Thursday, Feb 19.
Since you have one week to complete this assignment, I would like you to type your responses to the questions in paragraph form. Edit them to avoid spelling and grammatical errors. Cite the source of any quote or fact you reference.
1. Choose one artwork that interests you in the exhibition. Go through the steps laid out below (Note: a-g are from Barnet’s Short Guide to Writing About Art.) Remember to provide the artist’s name, the artwork’s title and year of make at the beginning of your response. The result of this exercise will be a paragraph or two about your initial reaction to the work.
a. What is your first response to the work?
b. When and where was the work made? By whom and for whom?
c. What does the form contribute?
d. Where would the work originally have been seen?
e. What purpose did the work serve?
f. In what condition has the work survived?
g. What is the title? Does it help to illuminate the work?
2. Note which of a-g above is most important for explaining the purpose and significance of this work. Below are some questions which may help you delve into the meat, so to speak, of a work. Many of the works in Objects of Value are conceptual works of art, as opposed to painting and sculpture.
a. Is this a conceptual work of art, a sculpture or a painting? Is it a combination of any these?
b. How does this artwork fit into the theme of the exhibition?
c. Does this artwork draw on a specific idea or story? If so, what?
i. Is this story visible or discernible in the work or did someone, the curator or anyone else, have to tell you?
ii. Is the story commonly known among a certain group of people? Which group?
d. What does the artist communicate with this artwork? Do you think that the artist did a good job in getting this idea across?
3. Define the following terms in your own words. Give one example of each term, from the readings or the exhibition:
a. Conceptual art (hint: contrast conceptual art to the art forms you know – painting, architecture and sculpture. You can also use the index in Janson’s to point you to other examples.)
b. Representational vs. non-objective art (see Barnet, p45)
4. Summarize Morales’ account of different ways that value can be established in economic terms. (Refer to paragraphs 3 and 4 of Morales’ essay)
5. Give an example of an artwork which has a value that cannot be explained by the laws of supply and demand taught in economics class. In other words, name a work in the exhibition that fails “to register levels of value that arise from more abstract kinds of human relations than the straightforward exchange of currency and commodities”? (Exhibition introduction wall text) Does this artwork, then, seek to undermine these systems of establishing value? How and why?
6. Extra credit: What is the work or pair of works in the exhibition to which you have a strong reaction (enjoyment or disgust)? Identify the work(s), and explain your reaction.
7. Extra credit: Discuss one artwork in relation to Baxandall’s discussion of the importance of social history being intertwined with the way one sees art.