MARKETS

Markets is series of mechanical drawings that addresses the current trends of commodification, globalization, and increasing mechanization of human labor.

From the start of the industrial revolution 200 years ago, technology has upended existing economic and social structures in both positive and negative ways, changing our perceptions of individuals in relation to those around us and also to the value of goods and services that people produce. This continuum of technological improvement, uninterrupted up to our current digital age, has resulted in a constant reassessment of that which we hold precious. Frequently, this change of thought is spurred by the devaluation of crafted objects due to mechanization or globalization of human labor, which makes once rare and time intensive crafts widely available at a fraction of the price.

From the industrial revolution, which deflated the value of textiles, paper, and iron, to the modern era, through which lithography, photography, and television allowed for the propagation of mass media, to the digital era where images and video are extravagantly consumable and disposable, the agency of artists has grown progressively smaller and smaller despite these innovations

As the mediums of craft were replaced by machines and the expertise of depiction and representation were replaced by photographic reproduction, the art economy shifted to a gallery/museum system, which controlled access to art and commodified the output of artists.

Artists were expected to adhere to a conformed style that defined their output, whose value was determined by size, medium, and rarity. This model robs artists of their labor as the more work that they make, the less rare the commodity is and thus less valuable; meanwhile, the gallery or museum profits by restricting access to ownership thus inventing scarcity in the marketplace. Ultimately, these institutions are the true winners when the artist dies, as the manufacture of new works dries up and the body of artworks as commodities becomes finite (resulting in a natural increase of price and profit which the artist will never see).

Markets is a body of work that addresses these shifts in the economic landscape of the art world and the world in general. Each piece, drawn using a mechanical plotter, addresses an aspect of the technological, financial, and material aspects of making art in a chaotically changing world and the bewilderment, anxiety, and constant adjustments that result from 200 years of forceful change. Taken together, the viewer is free to thread the significance of each individual work with its neighbors, creating a broader, personalized narrative from these facets of the larger contemporary experience.

In an attempt to redefine the market for artworks and shift the power from the gallery paradigm that discourages demand for artwork and penalizes living artists for creating work, each drawing is for sale on a dynamic pricing scale that encourages the propagation of the image and also rewards patrons for their investment in the image.

Mechanization has allowed for the replication of images ad infinitum which means that with each reiteration of the object, the value is depreciated in turn. But rather than restricting the reproduction of the image to a single iteration or set edition (which fetishizes the object and creates scarcity in order to create value) instead a graduated pricing scale is implemented. This means that each subsequent image produced is sold at a price higher than the previous one, creating open ended, demand based commerce. In addition, a cash dividend is paid to all existing owners of the image with each future purchase, meaning that additional sales benefit not just the artist, but the current owners as well.

As the price increases, so does the dividend, creating a marketplace that benefits the living artist, as well as those who have invested in the artwork, more like a publicly held stock rather than a finite commodity. Thus, the role of the gallery would become that of a middleman who is incentivized to sell, by profiting on creating value rather than creating rarity, benefiting all of the players involved in the transaction. By shifting the incentives around, the art market becomes a system that benefits the artist, consumer, and the salesperson instead of a market defined by elitism and capital reserves necessary to drive up price in secondary markets.

Undeniably, the forces of mechanization, digitization, globalization, and commodification have drastically changed the role that artists play. Like a candle burning on both ends, the value of our goods produced has decreased at the same time that our ability to profit from our labor has been restricted. If our audience is to benefit from our continued, undervalued work, we have to incentivize them to share our goals of financial success while also shifting the current market paradigm to align with the producer and consumer’s needs over that of the interest of the middleman. And while these tools that robotize skills seem to rob artists of their ability to imbue their work with value, perhaps it is actually just a matter of perspective, and it is a restructuring of the market that will pave the way for a sustainable solution to creative labor in a digitized, mechanical world.