What is the true value of art? Is there a science to it, or is it purely notional?

An interesting column ‘Calculating value’ by Kishore Singh in Business Standard tries to search ‘the justification for an artist’s prices’. The art fraternity might do well to reflect on it if it is to stay relevant when the next, inevitable boom comes around, notes the writer. In fact, the broad point raised is about the capriciousness of the markets that has people asking: At what price, art?

“When, last year, someone paid that amount for a painting - a single work by the artist F N Souza at a Christie’s auction, you couldn’t help but ask: What is the value of art? How is it priced? Is there a science to it, or is it purely notional?

“Inherently, it is the artist (who is the brand) you buy, though the value of what he uses to create that product is negligible — usually no more than a piece of cloth, some dabs of paint and a frame, worth no more than a few thousand rupees. Sometimes, of course, artists use other materials — shopfuls of utensils, as in the case of Subodh Gupta; metal and stone in the hands of sculptors; sometimes even gold, or silver, or diamonds — but the sum of the scrap has little real value.”

Kishore Singh, trying to fathom the justification for an artist’s (market) prices, notes:  “It does raise the question: If books, which are about ideas, and fashion, which is about statements, and architecture, which is about space, has a contextualized value, why must we pay so much for art that the price – rather than the content – becomes more important?”