I think I’ve seen discussions about this before, and obviously the USSR produced art because we still see statues of Lenin today. But how does this translate in modern times with the instance of obscure art or other modern art? Often the purpose of that art is to explicitly go against societal norms for aesthetics.
Art causes people pleasure, that itself is a use. It also transmits cultural information.
But when people think about art and value, they think about ridiculously priced paintings that can’t possibly reflect those use values in most cases. This will sound like a joke, but being a tool for money-laundering (as many art auctions notoriously are) is also a genuine use-value (albeit not one we should promote).
Yeah, I agree with you there, but that kind of art isn’t what I’m talking about. A fucking banana duct taped to the wall? I get artistic expression, and especially art that goes against the norm. And to be honest I get the expression of anti-art that the banana implies. But it selling for $6M? Fucking asinine.
At the time, the banana was a pretty solid statement. It’s if anything an indicator of its influence that it seems to banal. I don’t know if its price being so inflated was due to just having the value of notoriety (social utilities are use values) or more money-laundering.
But my point was that I was talking about art that you’d respect, because those paintings might be cool and worthwhile, but that doesn’t mean they’re “really” worth $20M, which is a crude way of saying that their use value is extremely socially-grounded, whether by laundering, getting some immediate use out of having something famous (impressing clients, running a museum), or because its fame will be good for speculation (speculation itself is not reflective of use value, but the fame that is the basis for the speculation is, like how houses have a use value that is, along with certain other material and social factors, the basis for its value in speculation).
Price is not the same as value
In cases like “banana duct taped to wall”, I think we’re missing the forest for the trees. Art pieces like that are used as a tool for avoiding taxes for the bourgeoisie. So it isn’t the sale of art, it’s the sale of a capital-protecting-device, which has value so high because of how much capital one of said device is capable of protecting. Probably these art pieces’ values would crash the moment that laws passed which closed the loopholes used for prior mentioned tax avoidance scheme.