— by Juan Toro
The work of art, meaning and exchange
5. It was said that we live in a time of simulation and that any discussion around representation is meaningless. Although it was believed exceeded, this exists as a classical problem in the idea of the hero and the topic of falsification. Thus, reproduction is not considered as art but at the same time if a work of art is not reviewed and does not appear in a journal or magazine then it fails to acquire the status of a work of art. It seems that to be defined as having value, i.e. as a work of art, a work would only have to be exhibited in a gallery and then be reproduced as a photograph in an art magazine. (Dam Graham).
10. From romanticism, artistic practice rests on the ethical dilemma: sense or exchange, art or trade. It is a work of art to the extent that someone is present in front of the work, giving sense. If it has no meaning, the only thing that could happen is a transaction or trade. But at the same time the value of a work of art is translated into consumer goods and therefore, has a price.
15. There is a certain isolation that hides something that goes unnoticed: the avant-garde, that privileged the sense of the exchange. Just as the bourgeois institution has favored the exchange above the meaning. That's why the market is generally seen as a neutral channel and foreign to art. It was the romanticism that has deepened this dichotomous dilemma. Trying to overcome this dilemma is to try to overcome romanticism, and this can not be like that, because the desire to try to overcome it is already a romantic pose.
20. In a book published in Antwerp in 1606 with the title Theatrum pictorium, which is the first illustrated catalog of a collection of a museum, it was the collection of Archduke William Loepoldo Belgium, the editor David Teniers warns explaining something that today would be no need to do: explaining that what he does are drawings and illustrations of the original paintings. He is also concerned to describe the spaces in which the works were installed and reproduces paintings drawings and engravings, as that, to transmit the works. Two things that are deducted from this, that the book is also a representation and painting and also the book, does not escape from the dubious status of being a representation of a representation. It is also an example of starting an inventory of artworks or a book of accounts there is the problem of how to display the images of the paintings listed in an inventory (catalog). I'm trying to highlight here is the distance between book, public and artworks. That represents the problem of desire for transmission without distance without the need of reading and the privilege of represented image, seen as best practice solution, rather than valued enlightenment.