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London, AAH Annual Conference, April 10 - 12, 2014 Deadline: Nov 11, 2013 Values or Prices: Reconsidering the Relation between Art Criticism and the Art Market (Association of Art Historians plenary session) Convenor: Dr Matthew Bowman (University of Essex) Discussions on the art market quickly tend towards polarization and polemics. On the one hand, some artists and critics identify the art market with capitalism, thereby viewing its processes as concomitant with alienation, reification, and social dominance; on the other hand, some perceive the art market as the arbiter of aesthetic values and view within it evidence of the artworld’s buoyancy. Meanwhile, art criticism has repeatedly voiced a concern that it is powerless in the face of the market, its systems of symbolic value creation irrelevant or perverted by the emphasis upon prices. Art-historical writing, for its own part, largely neglects to record the costs paid for artworks, once again distancing artworks from the market. Values and prices, then, could hardly seem more opposed. These factors, arguably, render serious and open discussion on the art market difficult to undertake and yet surely make it all the more important to do so. The art market has grown and shifted emphasis: auction sales of contemporary art amounted to $44 million in 1998 and represented just 1.8% of the overall secondary market. By 2008, sales had risen to $1.3 billion and consisted 15.9% of the secondary market. This growth period has been especially accompanied by repeated claims regarding the critic’s powerlessness or irrelevancy. This session, then, undertakes a reconceptualization of the relation between market and critic. Whether through theoretical arguments or historical analysis, speakers are invited to consider, for example, if criticism should engineer a more pragmatic understanding of the market, take advantage of its supposed distance, or develop new models for comprehending or critiquing the market. Abstracts of no more than 250 words are to be sent to Dr Matthew Bowman (School of Philosophy and Art History at the University of Essex) at [log in to unmask] For more information on the 40th Annual Association of Art Historians conference: http://www.aah.org.uk/annual-conference/2014-conference ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~