Both the Usher and Collection possess highly valued collectables as they house various items from historical artefacts, grand cutlery sets and an array of oil paintings. All of the above collections are treated with such respect whilst guarded behind the confinements of glass cabinets and signs informing that you must not touch the artist’s work. This therefore begs the question: are all collections valued collectables? Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy the novel City of Glass follows Stillman, a person who wonders the streets of New York collecting a vast amount of abandoned items. Stillman claims that every object has a similarity, that similarity being that every item has to perform a function. Stillman uses an umbrella to explain himself: ‘an umbrella is an umbrella because of its function to protect us from the rain, if it is stripped of its material is it still an umbrella?’ (Auster, 77, 2011) Stillman’s quest is to acquire broken objects and give them new definitions which is exactly what we aim to do in our performance by obtaining lost, broken and abandoned objects and give them a new meaning within a gallery setting. Some may ask: does putting these items in a museum or gallery make them art or something to be respected? In placing these everyday objects in a site such as the Usher and Collection it automatically changes the object’s function as it becomes something to be appreciated, not used.
John Dalson’s ‘Multi Coloured Plastic Installation’ piece is valued at $14,000, a small amount of money in comparison to other artists such as Damien Hirst who sold his piece ‘Lullaby Spring’ for $17.2 million in 2007, but a lot of money nonetheless. Essentially Dalson has curated a valuable piece which was created through unvalued objects. To the naked eye, these objects would not be deemed as art, but by carefully placing them as part of an installation in a gallery the objects take on a new function. Ultimately however, ‘there is no way to establish the quality of a certain picture or oeuvre. One cannot even judge objectively whether a given work constitutes art or not. No technical or logical standards exist by which to proceed. The quality of art cannot be proven or disproven by scientific method’ (Bonus and Ronte, 1997, 104). Rather, value in the arts is often attributed through social contexts such as the site of which it is displayed and the status of the artist themselves. This provides our group with an interesting line of investigation as we continue to question the conventions of gallery spaces.
Works Cited:
Auster, P. (2011) The New York Trilogy. London: Faber and Faber.
Bonus, H. and Ronte, D. (1997) Credibility and Economic Value in the Visual Arts. Journal of Cultural Economics, 21 (2) 103-118.