#237 22 february 2016

The first stage of the evaluation process is a 

critical one. Indeed, this is a selection process 

that is set off — one that singles out, amongst 

all contemporary creations, those that deserve 

to be shown. Works are firstly selected through 

the training of artists, in specialised schools. 

The profession is learned and transmitted while 

taking stock of its specificities. Of course, artistic 

movements such as outsider art do not include 

this first stage, but this is not reason enough to 

ignore them in the midst of all contemporary 

artistic creations. The work of an artist who 

graduates from art school is evaluated by his 

or her teachers but also by critics or gallerists 

or curators. This first stage of evaluation thus 

takes place under an authority recognised as 

such by its institutional function. In this way, 

this is a critical stage that consists in sorting 

and selecting, detecting what may emerge 

as a new form. At this stage, the economic 

question is practically absent, or at least no 

more than a than a thought at the back of the 

mind. Evaluation is expressed through support 

or reticence, but from the perspective of an 

authority figure. In contemporary art, it is not 

rare to see artists accompanying their work with 

discourse that also offers keys to its evaluation 

without clamping down the work’s meaning. 

After this first circle of critics has operated, it is 

up to institutional networks to confirm this first 

evaluation. This time, it is the gallerist-collector 

duo that takes over.

The second stage of evaluation consists in 

widening the public’s recognition. It is at this 

point that an artist’s internationalisation comes 

into play, through big international fairs such as 

Art Basel, the FIAC, Frieze, etc. but also public 

institutions — the FRAC, kunsthallen, museums, 

art centres… — 

via their exhibition programming. 

And while the museum legitimates the artist, 

the opposite can also be said to be true! 

The process of recognition is thus two-way. 

Obviously, the Centre Pompidou could make 

no claims of being a great modern-art museum 

without presenting the works of Jeff Koons, but 

reciprocally, Jeff Koons is a major artist on the 

contemporary art scene in that he is part of this 

museum’s collection.

Finally, the third stage of evaluation is played 

out at the time when art is received by the 

media. At this stage, art is in the hands of 

what Philippe Dagen calls a “collective social 

operation” on which critical authority no longer 

has any real influence. It is replaced by the ballet 

of auction sales, the sparkling acquisitions of 

major collectors or else subject to the opinion 

of the public who do not necessarily take 

aesthetics alone into account. Recently, debate 

surrounding Anish Kapoor’s 

Dirty Corner in 

Versailles clearly shows a shift in evaluation 

criteria, whereby ideologies contaminate the 

aesthetic experience at the risk of sometimes 

overtaking it.

Finally, a work’s monetary value is an evaluation 

subject to great variability — as well as visibility. 

The work’s objective quality and its formal 

description are swapped for a symbolic 

exchange value; in other words, we give a work 

a meaning that applies for the time present and 

that plays on the intersubjective mode. The 

symbolic chain is now at work.

the issue of values and symbols

The issue of a work’s symbolic value arises 

during auction sales. Works become something 

like brands, and to design them, we often 

use metonymy. “It’s a Basquiat.” Descriptive 

evaluation gives way to prescriptive 

evaluation.

Aotw • 

How do we assess cont. art?

Dirty Corner (2011)

Anish Kapoor

© François Guillot

Walter Vanhaerents

© Karel Duerinckx

 

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#

237

 • 22 february 2016

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This prescriptive power is exercised by great 

art collectors, and in their trail, great museums, 

both private and public. When Budi Tek 

chooses to add to his collection a work by 

Adel Abdessemed, Anselm Kiefer or Maurizio 

Cattelan, this is a major mark of recognition for 

the work of these artists at the same time as a 

mark of the artist’s internationalisation. The same 

thing applies when Eli Broad, Steve Cohen, or 

François Pinault buy a work; the act itself causes 

the work’s value to be reconsidered, not merely 

on an economic level — even if the phenomenon 

remains much more complex as collectors don’t 

divulge all their acquisitions.

Risk-taking is therefore relatively moderate. 

Of course, these are still bets on the future, 

especially for French museums that cannot 

sell the works that they have purchased in that 

they belong to the country’s heritage. In such a 

system, it’s better not to make any mistakes.

As the evaluation of contemporary creation 

lacks the perspective of art history, it may be a 

prisoner of its time. It is like a snapshot taken 

at a specific moment, revealing the trend of 

the moment, the values of an era, that may 

sometimes overlook certain aspects. It also 

sometimes happens that some creations are 

so new that they take all their contemporaries 

unawares, placing the present into such a deep 

crisis that they will only reach the public later. 

Without the distance of art history, evaluation 

is based on the laws of desire and the mimetic 

attitude that this encourages; in other words a 

fashion effect which is sometimes very difficult 

to shake off.

Art history shows us the extent to which our 

evaluation of contemporary art evolves, and 

therefore how there is something contingent 

about it. It shows us that our evaluation can be 

reversible.

Aotw • 

How do we assess cont. art?

the perspective of history

Attempts to rationalise on the evaluation of 

contemporary art are perhaps vain. The issue of 

values does not hinge on rationality alone. It is 

accompanied by an element of imagination and 

symbolism that makes the evaluation process 

somewhat opaque. This is inevitable but all the 

more significant as we lack perspective, and 

history has not yet operated its selection.

What this also indicates is the fragility of the 

construction of meaning; an inherent fragility 

that we need not regret, but can uphold in order 

to better evaluate our evaluation. It is normal 

for us to overvalue art from our lifetime. Given 

that this art’s meaning is not yet stabilised, 

it is endowed with a patent symbolic reach 

that gives artworks the status of an object of 

positioning where rivalry can be played out. 

Meanwhile, old art is evaluated differently, with 

more perspective. This explains why speculation 

about its symbolic reach is less significant. 

The mechanism of evaluating contemporary 

art is complex and multifaceted, offering a 

reflection of the spirit of the times. It is highly 

instructive to observe evolutions in how a work 

is received. Spectators are generally more 

conservative than artists or players on the art 

field. Thankfully, in most cases, it is still the work 

that has the last word. Evaluation is the fruit 

of various temporalities juxtaposing different 

players, and the work of the symbolic that links 

all of these. Evaluation is a fragile mechanism, 

requiring prudence and a certain humility. It is a 

continually renewed venture that has something 

contingent about it, but that ultimately applies 

with the firmness of a necessity associated with 

the present time.

« Fernando Botero » 

Würth's Collection

Courtesy of Collection Würth 

Kar-a-sutra (2015)

Hamilton Anthea

Courtesy of Biennale de Lyon

© Blaise Adilon

 

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237

 • 22 february 2016

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