“Let me begin by describing a certain desirable experience common to the viewing and producing of art objects, which I will call the mystery of the object. This consists in having such objects appear to one as massive, charged, seemingly impenetrable presences, with their own inner workings and unique qualities. They sometimes seem to be almost anthropomorphic presences, alive and percipient like human beings. Viewing them is then a process of searching out and understanding their peculiar logic and structure, and discerning whatever it is that makes them unique…Marx’s conception of the fetishism of commodities was a critical one. He argued that it was a mistake to ascribe to objects their own logic and intelligence, supposed to be independent of human intervention, and to then suppose that the object was therefore subject to laws—the economic laws of the free market—that were beyond the ability of individual human beings to control, when in fact objects of human labor were merely catalysts for human interaction and existed within the context of human social and economic relations. We can apply the same criticism to this conception of art objects. That art objects have their mystery and their power to compel our attention is undeniable, and this is part of why they are important to us. They remind us of who we are and of the capacities for imagination and creativity that we have. But to infer from this that such objects are subject to laws and forces beyond human intervention or control is to make precisely the same mistake Marx rightly deplored. It is to abdicate responsibility for what happens to the object after it is made and for how it is to be understood, and to forget that we, after all, and not the object itself, control the object’s destiny. This then illegitimately licenses us to wring our hands over critical misinterpretations of the object, and unjust terms of exhibition and sale of the object, and—occasionally—even over the inflated pricing of art objects, all the while regarding the unfolding history of the object from the sidelines as though we were a passive theater audience, powerless to intervene in the course of the play.”

                                --Adrian Piper (“Performance and the Fetishism of Art Objects”)

We have seen that the philosopher Arthur Danto, while calling attention to the role of the artworld as conferring artistic status on objects, overall he was not critical of the process. Not so Adrian Piper (b. 1948). She goes further than Danto in her speculation on the artworld via an essay titled “Performance and the Fetishism of Art Objects” in which she critiques how we view art and then argues for a special status to be conferred to performance art. She is interested in a close examination of the mechanisms by which art is produced and viewed.

We have also seen that Walter Benjamin announced the destruction of the aura as a consequence of modern techniques of reproduction, but Piper’s view is somewhat different in as much as she does not share the view that the auratic character of art has been eroded and that indeed the contemporary artworld continues to value artworks exactly because of their uniqueness. It is the aura that Piper deconstructs, so to speak, to show that such a conception of art as auratic mystifies the real nature of the artistic process.

As Piper sees it, much of contemporary art involves the creation of objects which are intended to call attention to their own uniqueness. A urinal in a museum, or a crucifix up-side-down in a jar full of urine, or excrement on a canvas, is sure to attract attention whether or not the viewer is aware of the standard classical definition of art as the contemplation of Beauty. Often those “unique” works of art are utilized by bashers of religious traditions who rationalize it as art and invoke the freedom of art to express themselves as they see it, even when that freedom degenerates into slander and destruction of reputations. Which is to say, that according to Piper, much of contemporary art is self-consciously auratic; some would even suggest that it is narcissistic.

Heidegger, whom we have also previously examined, also points out in his Being and Time that all objects are unique although we often ignore this fact. They are submerged in the routines in which we employ them in order to realize our purposes and projects. So, Piper would suggest that one way to think about art, especially contemporary art, is to pluck their objects from their normal referential frames and ponder their specialness and uniqueness. This process, Piper argues is misguided. “The mystery of the object,” as she calls it, may indeed move us, but we ought to be aware of them not just in their singularity, for after all we do in fact compare works of art and group them and place them in historical social periods and treat them as instances of a kind in order to better understand them. According to Piper, not even a museum display can bring us face to face with the uniqueness of an object of art. To even think that such an immediated access to individuality is possible is to believe with the philosopher Wilfrid Sellars in “the myth of the given,” or the idea that we can gain access to a purely given content, without the interposition of any general conceptual element.

All of the above begs the question: Why does it seem so plausible that the meaning and value of art objects depend on their uniqueness? Piper’s answer is simply: because of their fetishistic character. Just as Marx used the concept of fetishism to explain the nature of the capitalist economy, Piper uses the same concept to argue against the fetishized artworld. Marx argues that the economy although constituted through human activity, something made by man, has the appearance of a realm in which things are in control and not man; things determine their own prices. Marx called this phenomenon the fetishization of the commodity, treating it as if had mystical powers of sort. Similarly, Piper argues, the fetishization of the artworld implies the treating of art objects as if they had a destiny beyond man’s control.

Thus, one of the essential aspects of art criticism, Piper argues, ought to be the exposing of this fetishistic character of art. The critic worth his/her salt ought to focus on the social structures determining the object’s production and exhibition. Which is to say, the criticism of art ought to be socially conscious and not treat art as if it belonged to a wholly autonomous realm of being. Once this transformed understanding of art is achieved, Piper goes on, then we ought to take a close look at performance art which differs from other art forms in virtue of the artist’s presence as integral constituent of the art object. Piper thinks that this gives performance art a unique immediacy for its audiences and a distinctive, socially engaged, critical power thus reducing its fetishism.

A few comments by way of critique.  If the above has echoes for the reader of Aristotle’s poetics and his concept of catharsis, the reader would not be wrong. In fact, I dare say that without a prior understanding of Aristotle’s poetics, the concept of art without fetishism can prove elusive and even undesirable, for nobody would relish a performance-art where animals and people were really tortured on stage or even murdered for real. There are indeed secret videos floating around in our brave new world where aesthetics has been divorced from ethics (secret because it remains a punishable crime to murder people on or off stage) wherein people are murdered for real for the “cathartic” aesthetic pleasure of sociopathic viewers. That is certainly not what Aristotle meant by catharsis. Indeed, when the boundary between reality and fiction is so misguidedly blurred, then one is bound to ask if the jury is still out on some aspects of modern art. Indeed, sometimes, it is good to know that the wheel has already been invented before attempting to reinvent it.