Blank Canvas, #1

"Blank Canvas" (framed photograph 20" x 15") within the context of a life

Imagine a pure form, or purer, of "adding value" to an object.

We would need to begin with an object with no obvious connection to "value" in the sense that gold does, diamonds, platinum, etc., something that lacks the appeal of cultural significance, celebrity, or anything else that easily commodifies a thing.

An artist may add value through painting or sculpting. There was a canvas stretched, and paint applied, and later, if successful, the object sells for enormous amounts of money. There are a number of examples.

If even a semblance of value is added to an object, there is a reflection of art. Hirst's skull, for instance, would have been just as conceptually valid if one penny had been added to the commodity value of the bone and metal and rock.

"Blank Canvas" appears at the Grand Finale!

To call a thing "Blank Canvas" suggests that a work could be executed on top of it. And that this work would be the art.

To display a blank canvas suggests that the the artwork is the context of the object.

An exchange reveals value. What people say about a thing, where they put it, etc., can be viewed metaphorically as paint, and the physical object as the canvas. This is similar to the way Pollock viewed his painting as being "above" the canvas.

The story of the person who buys a work of art is infused into that work.