Art and Value: Art’s Economic Exceptionalism in Classical, Neoclassical and Marxist Economics
- Submitting institution
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University of the Arts, London
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 104
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
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- Publisher
- Brill
- ISBN
- 9789004288140
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- March
- Year of publication
- 2015
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- Art and Value is the first comprehensive survey of the historical literature on art’s economic exceptionalism from Adam Smith to Gary Becker. Key debates on the economics of art, from the high prices artworks fetch at auction, to controversies over public subsidy of the arts, the 'cost disease' of artistic production, and neoliberal and post-Marxist theories of art, are examined in detail. By re-reading the history of mainstream economics and Marxist theory through art’s specific mode of production, it arrives at a Marxist theory of the artist as neither capitalist nor worker, and the artwork as neither commodity nor asset.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Art and Value is the first comprehensive survey of the historical literature on art’s economic exceptionalism from Adam Smith to Gary Becker. Key debates on the economics of art, from the high prices fetched by artworks at auction, to the controversies over public subsidy of the arts, the 'cost disease' of artistic production, and neoliberal and post-Marxist theories of art's incorporation into capitalism, are examined in detail. By re-reading the history of mainstream economics and Marxist theory through the lens of art’s specific mode of production, the book arrives at a new and original Marxist theory of the artist as neither capitalist nor worker, and the artwork as neither commodity nor asset.
Art and Value is also the first book to construct a Marxist theory of art’s economic exceptionalism by drawing on Marx’s key economic works. Hence, the book has put the Marxist politics of art on a new footing by refuting the economic basis for theories of art’s commodification, reification, incorporation into the culture industry and real subsumption. The book has been described as “By far the best and most comprehensive investigation of the commodity (and non-commodity) status of artworks” (Bryan Parkhurst, Assistant Professor of Music, University of Texas). The contribution of the book has been acknowledged by artists ("It opens an authentically new dimension in this long debate and, in doing so, shows us a model of artistic, and by extension, social and political freedom that can inspire hope, confidence, and daring”, Jeff Wall); philosophers (“Art and Value is the definitive retort to congeries of speculation on the commodity character of art (Jasper Bernes and Daniel Spaulding, Radical Philosophy), and economists (“Eschewing facile totalizations, [Beech] makes some much-needed theoretical distinctions rooted in Marx’s work”, Professor Andrew Kliman, Pace University, New York).
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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