Another Art World, Part 2: Utopia of Freedom as a Market Value

Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber, in contemplating the relationship between the art world and industrialism, pick apart the lingering specter of the individual “genius” in contemporary art narratives. Even though institutional nods to artists from groups that have been historically left out of this classification may appear to signal a return to a collective focus, Dubrovsky and Graeber insist that a preoccupation with individual artists’ particular identities and biographies still boils down to a continuation of vertical Romanticism. The two writers look at the larger constellation of mega-exhibitions, pointing out the absurdity in each of these trying to be its own historic event. These “historic events,” they contend, aim to expand notions of contemporary art, leaving the whole field a constellation of rules and meta-rules. 

The full text published by e-flux here