Art and Finance: Morals, Pictures, Money, and Something More
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Art and Finance: Morals, Pictures, Money, and Something More Kunst en financiën: moraal, afbeeldingen, geld, plus iets extra’s Thesis to obtain the degree of Doctor from the Erasmus University Rotterdam by command of the rector magnificus Prof.dr. H.A.P. Pols and in accordance with the decision of the Doctorate Board. The public defence shall be held on November 24th 2017 at 09:30 hrs By Peter Bruce Booth born in Melbourne, Australia Doctoral Committee: Promotor: Prof.dr. A. Klamer Other members: Prof.dr. M. Hutter Prof.dr. C.B.G. Langeveld Prof.dr. S. J. Magala Co-promotor: Dr. E. Dekker Art and Finance: Morals, Pictures, Money, and Something More Peter Booth Acknowledgements I began this project with an ambition, but perhaps little more than feeling of the direction I wanted the research to take. I would like to express my gratitude to Arjo Klamer for giving me the space for my doctoral work to develop into something much more personal than might otherwise been the case. My research has been strongly influenced by our discussions and his writing, and I am sure that this will become even clearer to me in time. Importantly, Arjo made interventions now and again that forced me to question many of beliefs that I entered this project with. So I am very grateful to Arjo for his advice, friendship, and his approach to doctoral supervision. I would also like to thank Erwin Dekker for his critique and suggestions through of several rounds of revision to my chapter on valuation morality and choice, and for his more general assistance in my PhD candidacy. Living in Oslo, travelling up and down to Rotterdam every few months, and having phone and Skype calls in between, I have been very dependent on the help of Yme Branjtes. So I would like to express my thanks for his efforts in making all of this work. I would like to thank Gillian Warner-Søderholm at BI Norwegian Business School for her ongoing support on my doctoral work, and in particular, her kind offer of an office in Oslo from which much of this research was done. I would also like to express my gratitude to Anne-Britt Gran for her valuable contributions across several chapters and, as someone I work with, her efforts to make sure I had the space to prioritize my doctoral work. Finally, I would like to thank my partner, Kristine, for her friendship, support and love. Table of Contents 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Motivation and aims .......................................................................................... 3 1.2 Identifying options for a methodological approach ............................................. 5 1.3 An economic framing of art and finance ............................................................. 7 1.3.1 Economic (financial) value ..................................................................................... 8 1.3.2 A financial value based analysis of art and finance................................................ 8 1.3.3 Problems with the economic approach to value ................................................. 10 1.4 A cultural framing of art and finance ................................................................ 12 1.4.1 A cultural value based analysis of art and finance ............................................... 13 1.4.2 Problems with the cultural approach to value ..................................................... 14 1.5 Inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary framing of art and finance ................... 15 1.5.1 An inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary analysis of art and finance .............. 15 1.5.2 Problems with the inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary approach to value .. 19 1.6 Values revisited and a methodological way forward ......................................... 21 1.7 Philosophical framing of research ..................................................................... 22 1.8 Dissertation structure ...................................................................................... 24 2 The speculative social role of art and finance ........................................................... 32 2.1 Closing the gap between art and finance – in context ....................................... 33 2.2 When speculation and belief converge ............................................................. 34 2.3 Speculation, semi-autonomy and abstraction ................................................... 36 2.4 Art and finance as semi-autonomous fields ...................................................... 38 2.5 Art and finance as highly abstracted fields ........................................................ 40 2.6 Art and finance as natural sites of ‘belief–speculation’ ..................................... 43 2.7 The role of speculation in art and finance ......................................................... 44 2.8 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 45 3 Less hostile (financialized) worlds ............................................................................ 50 3.1 A transeconomic/transaesthetic approach ....................................................... 51 3.2 The characteristics of art .................................................................................. 53 3.3 The artistic properties of contemporary finance ............................................... 54 3.3.1 Possessing positive aesthetic properties ............................................................. 54 3.3.2 Skill or virtuosity ................................................................................................... 56 3.3.3 Novelty and creativity .......................................................................................... 56 3.3.4 Representation ..................................................................................................... 57 3.3.5 Special focus ......................................................................................................... 58 3.3.6 Emotional saturation ............................................................................................ 59 3.3.7 Art traditions and institutions, and the intention to be art ................................. 60 3.4 Art as a transdisciplinary field .......................................................................... 61 3.5 Re-evaluating art’s relationship to a transdisciplinary (aesthetic) market.......... 62 3.6 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 64 4 Valuation morality and choices in art and finance .................................................... 69 4.1 Valuation morality ........................................................................................... 70 4.2 Valuation morals in art and finance .................................................................. 73 4.3 A rational choice theory approach to modelling valuation morals ..................... 74 4.3.1 Challenges posed by valuation moral norms ....................................................... 74 4.3.2 Morality as a decision rule ................................................................................... 75 4.3.3 RCT and valuation morals grounded in consequentialist reasoning.................... 75 4.3.4 RCT and valuation morals grounded in deontological reasoning ........................ 77 4.3.5 RCT and valuation moral norms grounded in virtue ethics ................................. 79 4.3.6 Evidence of robustness of preference assumptions ............................................ 80 4.3.7 RCT when instrumental reasoning ceases to dominate choice ........................... 81 4.4 A cognitivist approach to modelling valuation morals ....................................... 81 4.4.1 The cognitivist approach and non-instrumental forms of reasoning .................. 82 4.4.2 Non-commensurability of choice ......................................................................... 83 4.4.3 RCT as a particular case of the cognitivist framework ......................................... 84 4.4.4 Application of the cognitivist approach ............................................................... 84 4.5 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 86 5 The valorisation of art: what artists are up against ................................................... 93 5.1 What are the issues? What are the questions? ................................................. 93 5.2 The value of art: a thing, a conversation, or something else? ............................ 94 5.3 Different spheres, different logics .................................................................... 95 5.4 Valorisation, value conflict and power often starts at home ............................. 96 5.5 Valorisation, compromise, and power in the governmental sphere................... 98 5.6 No man or woman is an island ....................................................................... 101 5.7 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 103 6 Conclusion............................................................................................................. 107 6.1 Findings ......................................................................................................... 108 6.2 Theoretical implications ................................................................................