The big benefit to museum shops is their tax exempt status. Even the mall museum shops are tax exempt, giving them an advantage over competitors. I don't think the motivation is complex. Money rules. wc
----- Original Message ---- From: joseph berg <[email protected]> To: aesthetics-l <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, November 25, 2010 3:51:03 PM Subject: Re: Doesn't the commodification of art begin when people start viewing works of art primarily as gifts? On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 10:45 PM, joseph berg <[email protected]> wrote: > - An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to > have. > > Andy Warhol* * > The following essay says: - We further commodify art by selling off trinkets and replicas. Almost any museum one could go to will have a gift shop. They have become an accepted and expected part of one's museum visit. Gift shops reproduce art and artifacts into everything from posters and postcards to coffee mugs, aprons and children's games. One can send a postcard of a Monet painting they saw (but not necessarily understood or appreciated) to a friend and in some way prove to themselves and other that they are cultured. One can convince oneself of the reality of culture, that they have some hold on culture, all in exchange for money. One can therefore purchase culture. Some museums even have their gift shops on the web, eliminating the need to even visit the museum and see the art first hand. Along the same line with this are the chains of museum shops popping up in malls across the country. http://www.essaypride.com/essays.php?free_essay=2452320&title=Postmodernism-And-The-Commodification-Of-Art
