The Economy of Painting: Notes on the vitality of a Success-Medium

In the words of guest speaker Isabelle Graw: 
Painting is usually associated with various aesthetic, emotional, symbolic and economic values. In this talk, “painting” refers to all those (often non painterly) artistic practices that draw on thepicture on canvas in manifold ways. I consider paintings, unlike normal commodities, to beunique material objects that bring their singular author and her privileged artistic labour intoplay. Against this backdrop it will be demonstrated how paintings are commodities of a special kind because they nourish the vitalistic fantasy that their value is somewhat substantial or seemingly contained within them. I will also consider the changed situation that has resultedfrom the global pandemic: If paintings’ special value depends on their unique materiality as something that can be perceived as I have argued, how is their value affected once they can onlybe contemplated in so-called “online viewing rooms”? I will propose that the value of paintings stands on shaky ground under such conditions.

Isabelle Graw (Frankfurt am Main/Berlin) is Professor of Art Theory and Art History at the Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Künste–Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main. In 1990 Graw and Stefan Germer founded the quarterly magazine Texte zur Kunst. In 2003, Graw and Daniel Birnbaum founded the Institut für Kunstkritik at the Städelschule.

Pictura is an event dedicated to the presentation and exhibition of contemporary painting in the expanded field, across the city of Montreal during the months of November and December 2020.

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