The Value Industry

Art | Culture | Ideas

Have you ever wondered how a work of art could be worth millions? Has the world gone mad when Damien Hirst sells a dead shark for $12 million or a Picasso painting goes for £20 million? Some people think that art has nothing to do with money, that true art does not have a price tag, but it is really difficult to believe this in a world where the contemporary art market is worth $62 billion a year. The problem, says philosopher Daniel Barnes, is that nowadays it is more difficult than ever to tell the difference between good art and expensive art. In The Value Industry, Barnes explores the relationship between art and money. He argues that art is valuable as both culture and economics, but these are radically different things and the art market constantly attempts to blur the boundaries. Through a heady mixture of art market news, art criticism and philosophy, Barnes demonstrates that, despite all the money and headlines, art will always survive the ravages of capitalism because it is worth so much more than money. High auction prices, billionaire collectors, celebrity endorsements and artists’ publicity stunts only serve to create the myth that the value of art is monetary, but the true value lies in the way that art enriches human existence.​

The Value Industry

Reflections on Art, Money and Celebrity


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Table of Contents

I. An Impossible Proposition – The Value Industry – For the Love of Art and Money – The Genesis of a Fable – Spot the Difference

II. The Expensive and the Good – The Simulacrum of Success – Peake Performance – Total Eclipse of the Art – Bringing Home the Bacon – Show and Sell

III. The Power of Myth – They Studied Sculpture at St Martins College… – The Great Dictator, or Rebel with a Cause – A Rolling Schnabel Gathers No Sparks – The Starry Heavens Above, the Moral Law Within – Narratives and Markets

IV. Authenticity and History – Laughing all the Way to the Banksy – The Value of an Idea in the Mind of Someone Living – The Birth of Value out of the Spirit of Experts – The Ursprung of Modern Art

V. Manufacturing Wonder – Everything You Steel Will Turn to Ash – We Need to Talk about Damien – The Pay Me Girl Has Had Enough of the Bleeps

VI. Weapons of Massive Consumption – Don’t Break My Art, My Achy Breaky Art – More Snoop Dogg than Snoop Doig – Franco, My Dear, I Don’t Give a Damn

VII. Anything and Nothing At All – For Richter or Poorer – I’d Be Safe and Warm, If I was in LA – Paintbrush Paparazzi – Anything and Nothing At All

VIII. Gazing into the Abyss – The Life of Brian and the Death of Art Criticism – Bacon’s Pound of Flesh – Top of the Flops – Gazing Balls – The Balloon Monkey is Not What It Seems