Last night’s GI Primer organised by Transmission Gallery used Vasari’s The Lives of the Artists as a starting point to examine the ways we assign the ‘value’ of contemporary art. This is linked to the Transmission’s upcoming presentation for Glasgow International – an experiment in interpretation which reflects critically upon the ways in which value is assigned, accumulated and circulated with an exhibition of 6 new artworks where the authorship of the artists is not revealed.
In the Primer presentations by Dr Evelyn Welch, Fiona Jardine and Jan Verwoert and a discussion chaired by Dr Dominic Paterson, proposed lots of ideas around systems of value in the artworld ranging from: the signature of the artist as a guarantor of authority and capital; the development of artistic identity and cultural value from the Renaissance; the cult of anonymous publishing during the Enlightenment as a reaction against the representationalist position that presented value and meaning as rational; and the non-capital potential of states that can be part of the creative process, things happening when we get lost in exchanges, things like embarassment.
Hope to pick up on some of this with Transmission committee members at next week’s discussion, but it also reminded me that this event is an extension of the discussion which took place at the first Framework event last summer hosted by Jan Verwoert at Cove Park. There are 5 blogs entries below that reflect on the connections between these ideas and curatorial practice.