Since the 1960s contemporary artists have been pondering over the question about art’s place in the network of societal connections. The market, cultural policies and art institutions have been racing with each other to use art as an instrument, to add value to it by using it as a socially beneficial function or a promising investment. Artists have always been aware of this state of affairs, and regardless of whether or not they feel comfortable with it, they get increasingly sensitive and reflective towards their own status as artists and, further, as artists creating values in a system of exchange of goods.
The work of art, the creative activity and their respective values make up the slippery and elusive notion that has the ability to either acquire full material pragmatism or dissolve into weightless abstraction. It is from the perspective of the artists’ own creative activities that the value of the creative process dissolves to symbols or speculation, relative or simply borrowed from inherited norms and conceptions about art and feeding itself upon its own myths, prejudices or complexes.
In searching for the answer of where creative work stands, making art is art, thinking about the value of art is the value of art, referring to art is art, describing a work of art is the work of art itself…
