justin-wolf: “This paper examines the conditions of contemporary artistic production, specifically for the artists working within the capitalistic economic system whether their engagement is direct or indirect. One of the conditions that will be discussed at length is the role of the market and public in today’s artistic production. As Boris Groys puts it in his essay Introduction: Poetics vs. Aesthetics if, in the past, the religious and political authorities determined the content of work through the patronage system, today, artists, have gained a sense of autonomy from these authorities, but are as much as obliged to address the interests of the public.[1] Artists no longerhave to depict the scenes from the Bible anymore, but much artistic production today takes place with the understanding (and the projection) of its own marketability in the art market and desirability from the public as preliminary conditions. This is especially true for career artists, whose artistic production equals their livelihood and preferred source of income (as opposed to taking a ‘day job’). For them, the question of how to acquire marketability and desirability of their artistic products becomes a serious existential consideration. However, even if capitalism is not the artists’ immediate economic system, since capitalism is the de facto economic system of the global economy—and necessarily, the global art market—even artistic production in non-capitalistic systems eventually becomes measured in capitalistic principles. This forces us to reevaluate why we make things that we make, when the success of artistic products does not exclusively stem from the work within, but becomes quantifiable in terms of its market success and institutional acceptance. In such cases, the artistic products lose its ability to assert values of its own to itself but rather become a recipient of it. In other words, conditions of contemporary artistic production encourage subordination of the artist’s autonomy to his or her audience. Though it seems like artists are free to make whatever they wish, the scope of the their freedom is not themselves but, rather, the aesthetic sensibility of the viewers who assigns value to the artistic products.”