Art and money

It has occurred to every one of us, the idea that stratospheric prices turn art into money, nothing more and nothing less. This idea certainly simplifies things. It even seems to explain things. But what, exactly, does it explain? I mean, if art is money, why pay money for it? Trying to salvage the idea that art is money, you might say, well, people pay cash for more abstract kinds of money--shares of stock, options, futures, securitized mortgages. . . so maybe at the high end of the market artworks are financial instruments of some sort. Or, at the very least, vehicles for investment, and of course some collectors--or, shall we say, buyers--do use art that way. Buy low, sell high.  In other words, art is not money, it's a commodity, if you use it to make a profit.
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But even the shrewdest art investor is not in it merely for the money.  Because a work of art is never merely a commodity, right?. It has a value you can't quantify. It is priceless. So, whatever you pay for it, you've gotten a bargain--and often it feels that, the more you pay, the better the bargain. An outrageously high price pays homage to pricelessness.   By paying too much you signal  your devotion to transcendent greatness. And what does transcendent greatness transcend? Mere money. So the transcendently great work of art--or the work of art so pricey that it simply must be great--functions as a sort of money laundering machine, but better, for it doesn't simply render your money clean. It lofts your money to a place far above the market, a heaven of socio-cultural prestige where considerations of price are lost in the glow of art-historical significance. So, no, art is not money, not even at the high end of the market in the hottest of boom times. Art is an investment vehicle that pays off with the blessings of history.

Contra Danto

Arthur Danto says that there is no visible difference between a Brillo Box by Andy Warhol and an ordinary, supermarket Brillo box. As I noted in an earlier post, this is simply wrong, as any fool can plainly see. Danto is no fool, so his error must have a purpose. What could it be? Gosh, I wonder. Danto is not only a philosopher but also an ambitious philosopher and ambitious philosophers have this in common with bright ten-year-olds: they are know-it-alls with an explanation for everything. So I wonder if Danto designed his Brillo Box error as the keystone of a total explanation of the history of art. If so, this is how it works:
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The history of art, according to Danto, is driven by a question: what is the relation between art and the world? From Neolithic times to the Abstract Expressionist era, various artists answered this question in various ways, not one of which was absolutely conclusive. Then along came Andy, who made Brillo Boxes indistinguishable from real Brillo boxes. Art and the world converged and the history of art came to an end. Gee whiz, Professor Danto, that's amazing! And so convenient. No more of those pesky art-historical problems, now that art history is over and done with.
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Danto's philosophizing does away with a large, messy subject and, even more helpfully, it shows us how to make sense of art without actually looking at it. And who, in our hectic, ADD-afflicted world doesn't need to cut corners? If you can acquire Danto's knack of looking but not seeing, it shouldn't be all that difficult to learn to listen without hearing, to read without understanding, and so on and on and on. The savings in time and energy—in other words, the increases in productivity—are potentially limitless, and isn't that what it's all about? Increased productivity?