Market and Con-temporary Art

This interesting book on "the curious economics of contemporary art" has just been published in Spanish. Written by an economist, professor Donald Thompson, is a good example of the theoretical benefits of joining art and economy.

As it always happens when aesthetic matters are involved, there are several ways of considering the central theme of the book: one, the amazing and crazy market of contemporary art. Another, market itself tends to be criticized when considered in art's world.

As every version of it art market has been de-regulated in the last two decades. One of the main expressions of this is the almost total disappearance of art criticism: except Robert Hudges, who considers brand-art pieces as "simple minded" works addressed to "business big-shots", art critics have been replaced by docile journalists that produce the "blither and rubbish" necessary for the "fatuity of art-world greed" (Hudges).

In architectural realm the situation is even worse, I am affraid: no respected critic has had the courage of denouncing brand-architecture and, which is more harmful in the long run, this whole situation has already contaminated architectural education. Today students of some of the best architecture schools in USA do not know who are Arnee Jacobsen, Utzon or Niemeyer, but they are saturated by con-temporay brand-architecture (temporary meaning that it is not going to last in time). The problem is that painting or sculpture can be hidden in a wardrobe, but architecture always involves public space and/or public money.

Do not miss the video with Hudges's critique on Hirst's work and the business of art:

Myths on the Death of Modern Architecture: Pruitt-Igoe again

Just as history in Fukuyama's death of history, modern architecture is coming back form the other world. The thing is that in both cases there were false burials. In both the media contributed greatly in building a new utopia: post-history and post-modernity were sophisticated ways of being inside history and modernity. Modern utopia, which has always been the enemy of modern refexive creativity, as it turns into collective what is strictly individual, is behind the political burial of modern architecture. As an example, watch the video on Robert Hudge's obituary of Modern Architecture and read the abstract of the research of Katherine Bristol on the subject:

“(…) In place of the myth, this paper offers a brief history of Pruitt-Igoe that demonstrates how its construction and management were shaped by profoundly embedded economic and political conditions in postwar St. Louis. It then outlines how each successive retelling of the Pruitt-Igoe story in both the national and architectural press has added new distortions and misinterpretations of the original events. The paper concludes by offering an interpretation of the Pruitt-Igoe myth as mystification. By placing the responsibility for the failure of public housing on designers, the myth shifts attention from the institutional or structural sources of public housing problems.”

“The Pruitt-Igoe Myth”, Katharine G. Bristol. Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 44, No. 3 (May, 1991), pp. 163-171