New Book Explores the Relationship Between Art and Capitalism
Dr Danielle Child has published a new edited book, , bringing together international scholarship to examine the complex and evolving relationship between art and capitalism.
Published by Routledge as part of the聽Routledge Research in Art and Politics聽series, the volume moves beyond understanding capitalism simply as an economic system in which artworks are bought and sold. Instead, it considers the wider ways in which capitalist structures shape artistic production, creative labour, technologies, cultural institutions and the conditions within which art is produced and experienced.
Edited by , the collection brings together 24 contributors offering diverse perspectives on the relationship between art and capitalism since the advent of modernity. The book is organised around five key themes:聽Art Markets, Money and Myths; Work, Labour and the Artist; Capitalist Technologies; Spaces of Art and Capital: Institutions and Beyond; and Crisis, Contestation and Critique.
Reflecting on the publication of the book, Dr Child said: 鈥淐ompiling a coherent edited monograph is not an easy task (especially when covering such a vast subject!). It involves drawing on established networks built over many years, discovering new researchers, supporting ECRs, and building working relationships and trust with your authors."
I am really pleased that Art and Capitalism is finally out in the world; it brings together a diverse range of perspectives from 24 fantastic contributors in conversation with one another, and without which it simply would not have been possible.
Contributors explore subjects ranging from art markets, artistic labour and the contemporary craft economy to racial capitalism, artificial intelligence and artistic practice, private museums, global cultural institutions, extractivism and colonialism. Questions of race, gender, class and global and geographical inequality run throughout the collection.
By bringing these perspectives into conversation, Art and Capitalism: A Contemporary Perspective demonstrates how the relationship between art and capitalism extends beyond questions of commerce to encompass the social, political, technological and institutional conditions of cultural production. It also considers how artists and cultural practitioners have contested capitalist structures and imagined alternative ways of working and organising.
The book will be of interest to scholars, students and practitioners working across art history, fine art, museum studies, curatorial studies, politics and visual culture.
Art and Capitalism: A Contemporary Perspective, edited by Danielle Child, is published by Routledge: