Abstract
Building on critical theory, this article proposes a framework for understanding the value of art through the lens of economic theory, drawing a parallel between artistic and aesthetic value and the exchange and use value. By examining Immanuel Kant’s and Karl Marx’s theories, this article develops a framework for analyzing how aesthetic and artistic value function within the economy of art. The paper argues that akin to use value, aesthetic value arises from personal engagement and individual taste, whereas artistic value, analogous to exchange value, is constructed through institutional, art market, and social mechanisms. The final section applies this framework to contemporary debates, exploring how shifts in the valuation of art – when exchange value becomes its use value – signal a particular crisis of production in the art market under late neoliberal capitalism.
Keywords: artistic value, aesthetic value, exchange value, use value, commodification of art
Introduction
What is considered art today and valued as such is the result of a selective art history. Art’s valuation is not a neutral or objective process, but the result of historical, social, and ideological forces that have canonized certain practices while marginalizing others. The question of art’s value has been central to philosophical inquiry since the origins of aesthetics as an autonomous field. Contemporary philosophical trends and artistic practices reveal that the principles established by the masculine, Eurocentric tradition are neither universal nor exclusive in their correctness. Nevertheless, this article draws on Kant’s theory of aesthetics as the first to ground aesthetics in critical philosophy. In doing so, it deliberately continues within the tradition of rational thought – a tradition that has shaped today’s power dynamics and value systems in the field of fine art.
The critique of traditional aesthetic frameworks from a Marxist perspective has been developed by influential thinkers such as Friedrich Engels, Georgi Plekhanov, William Morris, Franz Mehring, Georg Lukács. Among them, Lukács, drawing on but also departing from Neo-Kantian terminology, argued that under capitalism, art loses its autonomous value and becomes subsumed by the logic of exchange, thereby reducing aesthetic experience to a commodity form. This critique of aesthetic autonomy has been extended in recent scholarship, notably in Michael Wayne’s Red Kant: Aesthetics, Marxism, and the Third Critique (2014), which revisits Kantian aesthetics through a Marxist lens. Wayne exposes the ideological undercurrents within Kant’s account of autonomy and highlights the class-based assumptions embedded in his conception of taste. Taken together, these thinkers demonstrate how Marxist aesthetics challenges the supposed neutrality of aesthetic categories by linking them to broader social and economic structures.
Simultaneously, in the tradition of continental philosophy, the concept of the „value” of art became increasingly elusive. Malcolm Budd’s Values of Art: Painting, Poetry, and Music (1995) exemplifies this shift, as he scrutinizes how aesthetic appreciation relates to artistic value across various forms, resisting simple reductionist accounts. Contemporary discussions further destabilize traditional notions of aesthetic value, emphasizing relational, experiential, and contextual dimensions rather than assuming intrinsic or universal standards.
An overview of recent contributions from leading international aesthetics journals highlights this evolution of thought. In The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (JAAC), Keren Gorodeisky’s article, “Aesthetic Value: The View from Here,” reconceptualizes aesthetic value as a form of normative appreciation distinct from both pleasure and moral worth, while other works, such as article “Aesthetic Value as a Relational Value” by Emily Brady explore the context-dependency of aesthetic worth. Similarly, The British Journal of Aesthetics (BJA) features James Shelley’s “The Default Theory of Aesthetic Value” which challenges reductionist theories by emphasizing the autonomy and irreducibility of aesthetic value, and Anthony Savile’s “Imagination and Aesthetic Value,” which reaffirms the role of imaginative engagement in aesthetic experience and valuation.
Value
Our lives are fundamentally shaped by experiences of value and the constant evaluation of those experiences. According to Simmel, life is meaningful only because the unfolding elements of reality possess an infinite variety of values (Simmel 2004:57). Just as „being” is essential to understanding existence, „value” is central to understanding its meaning and purpose (Simmel 2004: 57). However, value is not an intrinsic property of objects – it is not affixed to them like color or shape. Rather, objects are considered valuable because of the qualities we attribute to them (Simmel 2004: 57–60).
Human enjoyment, Simmel notes, is inherently individual and cannot be shared. It does not involve a reflective perception of the object or oneself in the moment of enjoyment, but rather a complete fusion with the experience (Simmel, 2004: 62). Aesthetic pleasure mirrors this condition. In admiration, we not only „forget ourselves,” but we cease to perceive the artwork as a separate object, becoming fully immersed in it (Simmel, 2004: 62). For Simmel, value arises through the separation of the object from the subject. Once distanced, the desired object acquires value (Simmel, 2004: 63). Desire, moreover, is closely tied to the rarity of the object; the more difficult it is to obtain, the greater its perceived value. Yet, because desires are subjective, so too are the values that derive from them. In order to objectify value, economic systems employ market valuation (Simmel, 2004: 62).
A commodity, according to Marx, is a thing that satisfies needs through its qualities, but whose value lies elsewhere (Marx 2009: 61). Its value is more enigmatic than mere utility. Marx uses the concept of commodity fetishism to analyze this phenomenon, suggesting that commodification obscures the social relations and labor processes behind production. Commodities appear autonomous, as if their value were innate. By amplifying desire, commodification distances consumers from the origins of the commodity, thereby manipulating its perceived value. Marx thus distinguishes two fundamental types of value – use and exchange – around which this paper’s theory of art value is structured.
Aesthetic Value as Use Value
Marx, citing Locke, states that value is determined by a good’s immediate utility for the consumer (Marx 2009: 62). Every object or service possesses a use value, which manifests in emotional, domestic, or practical benefits (Marx 2009: 62). “Use-value constitutes the material content of property” – it is the body of the commodity. For example, iron itself is use-value (Marx 2009: 62). Importantly, this use value typically benefits other members of society, not the producer (Marx 2009: 62). Furthermore, use value is only realized through consumption. The perceived function of a commodity thus depends not on the object alone, but on how it is situated within our imagined or actual socio-economic systems (Simmel 2004: 65).
The aesthetic value of art functions analogously to use value, as it offers aesthetic gratification through subjective experience. While aesthetic value is not an inherent feature of the object, it generates the illusion of being intrinsic. The emotional resonance of an artwork appears to be fused with the object itself, confronting the subject as though autonomous (Simmel, 2004, p. 70). Kant affirms that aesthetic judgment cannot be anything but subjective, aesthetic value lies outside the bounds of logic – it can only be liked or disliked (Kant 2019: 56).
Simmel reinforces that when we admire, we lose ourselves and no longer perceive the work of art as something external – we are absorbed in the act of admiration (Simmel 2004: 62). Beauty, as a category, transcends visual form and unites all art forms. The experience of beauty – whether in a person or a painting – is felt, not seen. Yet, not all that is aesthetically pleasing qualifies as art, and not all art possesses aesthetic value. Here, two distinct values emerge: aesthetic value, which parallels use value, and artistic value, which corresponds to exchange value. Understanding these distinctions is complicated further by the art market’s tendency to exchange works that lack aesthetic merit.
Artistic Value as Exchange Value
While aesthetic value originates from subjective engagement, artistic value is produced through external validation – via institutional, market, and social mechanisms. Only works deemed art possess artistic value, and what qualifies as such is determined by the art market: museums, galleries, auction houses, art foundations, and related institutions. Crucially, an artwork’s exchange value is not necessarily tied to its aesthetic merit. A work with minimal or no aesthetic appeal may nonetheless achieve significant art market value when endorsed by influential institutions. In contemporary art markets, speculation often inflates prices far beyond any intrinsic artistic worth. Primarily, this issue arises from the neglect of the critical distinction between subjectively constructed aesthetic value and externally imposed artistic value, a conceptual ambiguity that is strategically employed to perpetuate artificially competitive dynamics within the art market.
Mona Lisa vs. The Reaper
A work of art possessing artistic value may be understood as an art commodity. Although artistic values are commonly framed as qualitatively distinct, in practice, they differ only in quantitative terms. For instance, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is regarded as possessing greater artistic value than Rusecki’s The Reaper. If such distinctions were grounded solely in subjective aesthetic judgment – based on individual taste – it would be impossible to reach a consensus on their relative value. Consequently, artistic value should not be seen as inherently different from exchange value. Rather, it functions as such within the confines of a closed art market. An artwork that is neither valued nor purchased is not intrinsically devoid of worth – it merely lacks exchange value. The true use value of art lies in its capacity to affect and engage human beings, a function entirely independent of its marketability or potential for exchange.
Crisis of Production
In The Road to Serfdom (2002), Friedrich Hayek identifies the neoliberal state’s central task as fostering competition in service sectors – such as the arts – that Adam Smith recognized as socially beneficial yet inherently unprofitable (Hayek 2002: 32). Within this framework, competition in the art market is artificially stimulated. As a result, art’s use value becomes secondary to its exchange value. Artworks are increasingly viewed as financial assets – commodities whose primary function is not to be experienced but to be exchanged for greater returns. Like other assets– stocks, real estate, derivatives – art becomes part of a diversified investment portfolio, acquiring a veneer of cultural capital.
If capital were used to acquire use value alone, it would cease to grow and thus lose its role as capital. In this case, aesthetic consumption does not yield financial gain. Once removed from circulation, money invested in an artwork stagnates as “treasure”, no longer generating profit (Marx 2009: 199–201). An investor purchases art solely for resale at a higher price, and this behavior becomes normative. Still, those unable to resell, reveal a more profound truth: art has become, to use Marx’s terminology, a golden puppet of capital. To combat this, galleries often impose non-sale agreements to preserve the illusion that artworks retain aesthetic value. Yet, in practice, these contracts – ranging from three to ten years – are routinely ignored in an unregulated art market. The result is a closed system of pure exchange, akin to cryptocurrency and stock markets, where the aesthetic value of the artwork is irrelevant, because the only use value the artwork holds is its exchange value.
This transformation of the art market creates a production crisis: art is produced solely as an exchange object, with no obligation to generate aesthetic or affective resonance. Following Marx’s argument that a commodity must first be a use-item (Marx 2009: 68), the “use” of art becomes its ability to be traded. Thus, artworks are reduced to financial instruments, and their critical or cultural value is increasingly measured in price comparisons alone.
Conclusion
This paper has examined the parallel between aesthetic and artistic value and Marx’s categories of use and exchange value. Aesthetic value remains personal and non-exchangeable, while art value is conferred through institutional and economic systems. In the contemporary art world, these forms of valuation are in tension, with speculative exchange value often eclipsing aesthetic engagement. Understanding this dichotomy is crucial for rethinking the role of art in both economic and cultural contexts.
Under neoliberal capitalism, the perception of artworks has shifted – they are now investment objects judged by exchangeability rather than taste. This article has proposed a perspective of art value grounded in market circulation, comprising artistic-exchange value (realized through trade) and use value (defined by aesthetic perception and taste, rooted in Kantian aesthetics).
This dual framework helps illuminate the mechanisms by which art value is constructed in the absence of aesthetic merit. While art may serve the function of providing aesthetic pleasure, this function cannot be standardized. Aesthetic value is therefore incompatible with exchange value, which relies on comparison and quantification within market systems.
References
1. Budd, M. 1995. Values of Art: Painting, Poetry, and Music New York: Penguin Books.
2. Brady, E. 2023. ‘Aesthetic Value as a Relational Value’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 81(1): 81–82.
3. Gorodeisky, K. 2023. ‘Aesthetic Value: The View from Here’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 81: 85–86.4. Hayek, F. A. 2002. Kelias į vergovę (trans. A. Degutis). Lietuvos laisvosios rinkos institutas.
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6. Lukács, Georg. 1971. The Theory of the Novel: A Historico-Philosophical Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature. (trans. Anna Bostock). London: The Merlin Press. Originally published 1920.
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8. Savile, A. 2006. ‘Imagination and Aesthetic Value’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, 46(3): 248–258.
9. Simmel, G. 2004. The Philosophy of Money (trans. T. Bottomore & D. Frisby). London, New York: Routledge Press.
10. Shelley, J. 2019. ‘The Default Theory of Aesthetic Value’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, 59(1):1–12.
11. Wayne, M. 2014. Red Kant: Aesthetics, Marxism, and the Third Critique London: Bloomsbury Publishing
The article is based on the author’s master’s final degree project “Value In Digital Financial Markets”.
Ieva Gražytė, KTU, Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities