Your essential question, "Why does abstract or conceptual art sell for more than representational art?
This is not, I am quite sure, the essential question. Neither prices nor titles nor the subjects of the work is part of the question, -----Original Message----- From: William Conger <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, Jan 18, 2011 11:09 am Subject: Re: representation and its sgnification Your essential question, "Why does abstract or conceptual art sell for more than representational art?" is really a complaint -- stemming from unnamed causes -- about some aspect of the art world where all sorts of conditions affect the valuing of particular artworks. I know several representational artists (variants of the realist genre) whose work sells for 6 figures, well above the amounts regularly attained by equally well-known abstract artists. And vice-versa. The number one reason for artwork prices is the artist's reputation within a fairly narrow set of artists working in the same general category: realist, abstract, conceptual, etc., up to maybe a dozen different genres and sub-genres. For example, there is still a high-end market for landscape painting even though it's not much discussed in the art press. The same goes for portraiture, or animal painting, or commemorative sculpture, both past and present. To just randomly pick "representational" art without more specific identity (indicating whose work, when, how does it compare with other work by the same artist, peers, etc.) and ask why it's less valued than some other randomly picked or vaguely referenced "abstract" work is not really a question but a generalized and rather empty complaint. One could easily pick any of tens of thousands of abstract works and say they are less valued than some representational works, and then one could easily replace the order of those genres with any other genres in any position and draw the same conclusion. Bad representational art is less valued than good abstract art and an artist's reputation -- track record of shows, collections, sales, etc. is the quickest way to generalize about the relative likelihood of a given work being "bad" or not. It is not a guarantee but hopeful, informed opinion, albeit frequently short-lived. Since I've been reading some Longinus lately, let me paraphrase one of his better observations: Good fortune is one of the essentials of genius. So, lucky and extraordinarily good artists of whatever genre usually obtain better prices for their work than the unlucky but equally good, and certainly better than the unlucky bad. As for the lucky but bad artists, ah, there's the rub. There's always an abundance of those. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, January 18, 2011 9:19:19 AM Subject: Re: representation and its sgnification I know I'm being incoherent. If I could frame the question properly I wouldn't need to ask it. In this caes "representational art" means a tradition,probably. I don't think it means any art that depicts an already coded image because I don't think the problem includes the internal coding system of "representational art". I think signify is being used in a referential sense. I n a general sense abstract or conceptual art sells for more than most representational art-Rembrant is an exception. A picture of a literal image of a marsh is not given as much respect as a picture of some paint titled "marsh"-why is this? It isn't the importance of titles and the title doesn't determine the quality of either piece. -----Original Message----- From: William Conger <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, Jan 17, 2011 9:29 pm Subject: Re: representation and its sgnification These questions border on the incoherent. What does representational art signify now? Here's a perfect example of the creative use of words as signs. Does representational art mean in this case, imitations of other so-called representational art, a tradition? Does it mean any art that is intended to depict something already coded, a conventional image? And what do we make of the word signify here? Does it mean significance in the qualitative sense or in doe it mean to point to, in a referential sense? Then the question about monetary values, what do we make of that? Is it really possible that a certain class or genre of art sells for more (anywhere?) than another? If you offer a genuine Rembrandt for sale on Craiglist, what would it earn? Most likely a whole, whole lot less than if it were offered at Sotheby's. As for titles, how do they determine quality of art? I once named an abstract painting Marsh. Although I don't think any painting can really be abstract and any image will evoke allusions, narratives, fantasies, the title Marsh, in this case, evokes images of marsh-like conditions, fecund, muddy, not easy to build upon, deceptive, etc. -- and in particular, the unwelcome environment where Chicago was built in the 19C -- and one may liken those conditions to art itself, as if art were a marsh too. So a word may be disjointed from its typical image and put to service with its many other acquired "meanings" just as we do with shapes and colors. Together they unlock new concepts, paradoxes, and visual adventure. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, January 17, 2011 8:05:43 PM Subject: Re: representation and its sgnification I want to know what representational art signifies now. Is it , only art if it's old and craft if it's new, ,-what? If new abstract and conceptual art sells for a lot more than representational art, why is that and what does it say about representational art?, You see an abstract painting called something or other marsh-it's art of unknown value, you see a representative painting of a marsh-it's a jigsaw. Contrast and explain. -----Original Message----- From: William Conger <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, Jan 17, 2011 5:23 pm Subject: Re: representation and its sgnification One could argue that all signs are made by people. A photograph, for instance, is not a sign until someone designates it. wc
