From: "Ian Verstegen" <iversteg-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: BHA: A query
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 01:10:57 PST


To the list,

I would like some direction on a problem I am trying to attack from a CR 
perspective.  I want to model our valuing of cultural objects (paintings, 
sculptures, “art objects” in general) somewhere between value absolutism and 
complete relativism.  It seems that CR would teach us to respect the 
relationality of the valuing situation, where something might be valuable in 
one context but not in another (critical) whereas these dispositional 
properties exist and are parts of the object (realism).  An example from an 
African art specialist, Chris Steiner, deals with the creation of an art 
market for west African slingshots, that did not exist before the 1980s and 
the efforts of a few collectors.  This is a complicated example because it 
also deals with what westerners want from the non-western world in the way 
of “authentic native arts.”  However, I would say that the handmade quality 
of these works had an attraction before the intervention of the art market 
while I am quite willing to concede that no one previously had valued them.  
Perhaps someone out there deep in economic theory has an idea?

Thanks!

Ian Verstegen
Temple-Rome
Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia, 15
00196 Rome
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