DOI Artikel:
Prahl, Roman: [Rezension von: Ján Bakoš, Artwork through the Market. The Past and the Present]
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51713#0155
Bakos’s survey records the relevant discourse in
a broad range, from aesthetics to the specialised agen-
da of art history. He makes reference to theoretical
essays dealing with art in the Contemporary age in
which the notion of the market appears in the broad-
est sense of the word (for example Boris Groys). How-
ever the survey also includes relevant results of re-
search into the history of art dealing in the more spé-
cifie sense of the word, as well as the results of re-
search into other, relatively independent agendas of
art historical research carried out “from below”. From
the 1970s onwards, these agendas were formed by
the presenting and promoting of art, the art public,
collecting and the history of taste, which several of
the contributions in the Bratislava proceedings also
deal with.
A certain logic of the discourse and its present-
day results appears in Bakos's summary of his survey
(p. 52). The art-historical disparagement of the mar-
ket was caused above all by the ideology of Marxism
and Modernism whose viewpoints are superseded in
the Postmodernist history of art as well as in new
studies of the économie context of art production.
Those who read the survey of the discourse carefully,
however, will come across an interesting fact: Bakoš’s
rejection of the “vulgärsocio-economicdeterminism" men-
tioned in the last sentence of the summary is not
meant simply (generally) in relationship to these idé-
ologies but also (objectively) to the new studies of art
and their outward context that the concluding pages
of the survey are devoted to. This mental association
and its formulation are quite characteristic, since
Bakoš unwittingly refers back to the original polem-
ics between the founders of Marxism and “vulgär“
materialism and efforts to understand “determinism”
in social sciences in the männer of natural science.
This does not, of course, mean a contradiction in the
opinion or standpoint of his survey as one of the fea-
tures of the discourse on the relationship between art
and the market, since the more recent stage of this
discourse is perhaps in a sense not only “Postmod-
ernist” but also “Post-Marxist”.
Ján Bakoš has provided an important stimulus to
the necessary further articulation of Contemporary
discourse on what is a highly complex theme. Proof
of this is the fact that, with a delay, Czech art histo-
rians and experts have also espoused his theme, and
can now draw on the impulses of the Colloquium and
its proceedings.4 The Bratislava project and its pro-
ceedings thus remain highly inspiring in all regards.
Roman Prahl
4 PRAHL, R. — WINTER, T. (eds.): Proměny dějin umění. Mate-
riály II. sjezdu historiků umění [Changes in Art History. Mate-
rials of the 2nd Congress of Art HistoriansJ. Praha 2007. See
the materials of the second section of last year’s congress (Umě-
ní, památka a trh/Art, Culture Monument and Market).
149
a broad range, from aesthetics to the specialised agen-
da of art history. He makes reference to theoretical
essays dealing with art in the Contemporary age in
which the notion of the market appears in the broad-
est sense of the word (for example Boris Groys). How-
ever the survey also includes relevant results of re-
search into the history of art dealing in the more spé-
cifie sense of the word, as well as the results of re-
search into other, relatively independent agendas of
art historical research carried out “from below”. From
the 1970s onwards, these agendas were formed by
the presenting and promoting of art, the art public,
collecting and the history of taste, which several of
the contributions in the Bratislava proceedings also
deal with.
A certain logic of the discourse and its present-
day results appears in Bakos's summary of his survey
(p. 52). The art-historical disparagement of the mar-
ket was caused above all by the ideology of Marxism
and Modernism whose viewpoints are superseded in
the Postmodernist history of art as well as in new
studies of the économie context of art production.
Those who read the survey of the discourse carefully,
however, will come across an interesting fact: Bakoš’s
rejection of the “vulgärsocio-economicdeterminism" men-
tioned in the last sentence of the summary is not
meant simply (generally) in relationship to these idé-
ologies but also (objectively) to the new studies of art
and their outward context that the concluding pages
of the survey are devoted to. This mental association
and its formulation are quite characteristic, since
Bakoš unwittingly refers back to the original polem-
ics between the founders of Marxism and “vulgär“
materialism and efforts to understand “determinism”
in social sciences in the männer of natural science.
This does not, of course, mean a contradiction in the
opinion or standpoint of his survey as one of the fea-
tures of the discourse on the relationship between art
and the market, since the more recent stage of this
discourse is perhaps in a sense not only “Postmod-
ernist” but also “Post-Marxist”.
Ján Bakoš has provided an important stimulus to
the necessary further articulation of Contemporary
discourse on what is a highly complex theme. Proof
of this is the fact that, with a delay, Czech art histo-
rians and experts have also espoused his theme, and
can now draw on the impulses of the Colloquium and
its proceedings.4 The Bratislava project and its pro-
ceedings thus remain highly inspiring in all regards.
Roman Prahl
4 PRAHL, R. — WINTER, T. (eds.): Proměny dějin umění. Mate-
riály II. sjezdu historiků umění [Changes in Art History. Mate-
rials of the 2nd Congress of Art HistoriansJ. Praha 2007. See
the materials of the second section of last year’s congress (Umě-
ní, památka a trh/Art, Culture Monument and Market).
149