"Irrational exuberance of the contemporary art market is about the breeding of money, not the fertility of art," SUNY Professor Donald Kuspit opines, "and that commercially precious works of art have become the organ grinder’s monkeys of money." In his article "Art Values or Money Values" in Artnet, Kuspit underlines that the hierarchy of values has been shaken, and it has determined money atop of the spiritual value of the work of art. In art scene where critics have become the mere "intellectual losers" in Kuspit's words, money has arisen as the only determining factor for value. Hence, he argues, money that has become the only raison d'etre of art, leaves no room for the independent evaluation of art. Rather than making an overgeneralized and simple statement that money creates art, Kuspit emphasizes that art's value has been guaranteed by how much it is worth. Thus, validation of art, in Kuspit's view, now depends on money that defeated the intrinsic value of the work of art as well as the critics' criteria; and this is leading and will continue to lead to the rise of "defective artists."
On the other hand, Toby Lichtig criticizes Kuspit's remarks that embody a "comical pomposity." According to his essay "Has Money Contaminated the Art World?", speculation in art should be considered as regrettable, but normal. His argument implies the 'musts' for critics in a realist way. Although it does not seem facile, critics should raise their voices, and "speak louder than money with their expertise." Moreover, public interest often focuses on art that is valuable in monetary terms. However, this does not mean that the audience is inevitably going to accept the "schlock of the new" which risks overvaluing itself. At this point, we need to trust to curators, Lichtig says.
This discussion paves the way for the role of shock value in contemporary art scene. After the divorce of art and aesthetics, art has included works with the beauty to be appreciated with 'taste' in Hume's perspective as well as disturbing or totally new works that reflect the shock value. Contemporary art focused on new ideas and their patenting sometimes may produce 'bad' works with good publicity and high value in price. At this point, I quote Lichtig: "We can lose count of the amount of times certain conceptual artists might try to surprise us; and it is only once they have done so the first time - once they are a safe bet - that money is interested. Damien Hirst can now stuff a porcupine, skewer it on a stick, call it "The Ugliness of Transcendence" and earn a million. There's nothing we can do about Charles Saatchi putting a price on this. But that doesn't mean we necessarily have to take it seriously."
