Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology - uncopy

But this sort of manipulative marketing has forced alienating consequences into my so-
cial life as an artist. A monopoly creates conditions which could never come about otherwise:
I am “created” by the market as merely part of a labor force, an unorganized one, but still a
labor force. The size of this force has, significantly, augmented itself out of all proportion to
the present market demand (compare the number of artists working in New York now to, say,
the number twenty-five years ago). And remember all the while that, for market efficiency, the
supply must meet the demand and demand is now governed by market manipulation, not the
market by demand. 3 Moreover, once the market conceives of me as merely a unit in a labor
force, I am also aware I can be replaced at any time by an equivalent (as defined by the market)
unit. So organizational efficiency begins to dominate me to the extent that my subjective worth
and “work” become defused.
This increased labor force represents an expanded market, something which is also apparent
when we recall once again that twenty-five years ago the market for American art was
largely a national one which has since developed into an international market with gigantic
foreign sales. Such expansion, initially dependent on competition, has the effect of systematically
and diabolically destroying the competitive nature of the market. In the old market, it
would seem to me, artists competed more openly to sell their products and, despite an evergrowing
incentive to calculate as to the market and its buyers, the market was still dominated
by private patrons. But in the new monopoly, we “compete” differently. Perhaps I can suggest
how by pointing briefly to the emergence of corporate monopolies in the United States in the
early part of this century. For the first time, each individual was conceived as being “trained so
as to be effective individually as an economic unit, and fit to be organized with his fellows so
they can work efficiently together.” 4 The old individualism was transformed into a new “economic
individualism,” which placed monetary self-interest above all else . . . this was to be the
“true individualism.” Thus my individualism was to be the result of my specialization in the
service of the corporately organized society, and my specialization was the result of newly organized
compulsory educational systems. Such was the rhetoric of the shift from the “irresponsible
waste” of a competitive market to the monopolistic market of corporate industry through
which the power of concentrated wealth was foreseen as the way to the great American dream.
Now that strikes me as roughly the way in which, more recently, the art market has
developed: the “new” artist no longer conceives of a personal relation to the market. It becomes
merely an economic, hence more impersonal, relation. This means my role of “artist” has become
one befitting a trained and efficient economic unit, my “work” has become a mere reflex
of my specialized role, and I am encouraged to regard the market as really none of my business.
ian burn the art market 323