> “It’s an asset class like any other” says a lot about how market economics affect people’s conception of value. Indeed. There is a strong argument (does thi

> “It’s an asset class like any other” says a lot about how market economics affect people’s conception of value. Indeed. There is a strong argument (does this go back to Kant?) that art only "works" when it is not pragmatic. That a tool is not art, no matter how elegant and functional. Hence, if art nowadays works primarily as a financial instrument, it is not actually free to do the work of being art. If an art fair is visited with an eye to current and potential economic value, and the art at the fair is represented and even made with that eye, then it ceases to have the "that image saved my life on a sad day" or "I see in that painting the terror and fragility of existence" or such energy that we actually seek in the arts. (Of course, you could argue about whether anything pragmatic is not art, e.g. that industrial design is art. And things get really slippery with ceramics. As the article suggests, much great art has been made within very strict economies, often via commission. But a well made bowl or a portrait of a bishop are still not asset classes...)