On Art and Commodity Form

Abstract

A translation of the substantial introduction to Nicholas Brown’s book Autonomy. The Social Ontology of Art under Capitalism. At the starting point of his reflections, the author places the obvious observation that a contemporary work of art is, in principle, also a commodity, that is, it functions or may begin to function on the market in a similar way to the rest of commodities. As a counter to what he sees as the dominant aesthetic ideology of modernity, i.e., equating the work of art with all other commodities, Brown is interested in whether we can establish some inalienable (not reducible to differences of viewpoints, opinions, etc.) ontological difference between the work of art and all the rest of the products circulating on the market, between the work of art and the capitalist commodity. As he argues after Marx, Hegel reinterpreting Kant and Walter Benn Michaels, the element that allows us to distinguish a work of art from the rest of commodities is its meaning, which is the same as the intention of its author and could not be equated with the use value. This account of the difference between a work of art and a commodity then allows Brown to defend the understanding of aesthetic autonomy that is central to his book.