Before the Mirror of the Age of Reification

“The culture industry turns art into a commodity,
and that commodity holds meaning only within its exchange value.”

– Theodor W. Adorno

In capitalist society, art can no longer remain solely in an independent and autonomous realm. Today, artworks are reduced to prices within the market’s evaluative systems; their lifespan is extended or erased depending on their investment potential.

Thus, the essence of a work becomes subsumed into a collector’s portfolio, vanishing like an apparition within the curves of auction charts.

Increasingly, art is restructured as a subsidiary of the market ecosystem, with the creative act itself subordinated to the logic of capital.
 
The arrival of the AI era will only accelerate this process. Algorithms will decode “profitable aesthetics” and replicate the market’s favored forms, replacing uniquely human creative territory with data-driven patterns, and ultimately converting them into price tags.

If fine art — humanity’s mirror of existence and barometer of creative spirit — fails to respond adequately, its future may become irreversibly eclipsed, fading forever into the shadows of capital and artificiality. Can it survive this great tide of reification?

Art is Art

“Art does not reproduce the visible; it makes visible.”

– Paul Klee

Art is a uniquely human mode of perception and thought — a way of seeing the world that no machine or market formula can truly replicate. Great works offer far more than visual pleasure; they pose questions about existence, society, time, and the human condition.

Pivotal turning points in art history — Renaissance humanism, the visual revolution of Impressionism, the deconstruction of 20th-century avant-garde — all emerged not from market demand, but from the artist’s engagement with their era’s questions and their vision for the world.

The essential power of art is realized in its “uselessness” and its capacity to discomfort, challenging uncertainty and ambiguity. It is in these acts of resistance and exploration that creative depth takes root.

Money is Money

“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

– Oscar Wilde

Money measures value only quantitatively, transforming it into units of exchange. It may serve the efficiency and mobility demanded by a desire-driven capitalism, but it is powerless to assess qualitative worth or contextual meaning.

When we interpret art’s value solely in monetary terms, the human dimensions of emotion and awakening are erased. Record-breaking auction prices may capture headlines and thrill speculators, but they are never a definitive measure of historical or cultural significance.
 
True aesthetic and art-historical evaluation — the “inner value” of art — is shaped in absolute proportion to the transformation of ideas over time. It is only through such density of vision, accumulated and matured, that humanity achieves its highest cultural and spiritual attainments.

Market is Market

“The moment an artwork becomes a commodity, its original use value is erased.”

– Walter Benjamin

The market is a necessary condition for human survival, facilitating the exchange of goods and services — and art is no exception. Artists must live, and the market can enable that. Yet the market itself cannot be art.
 
As long as humans exist, markets will persist. But history has never seen an art market directly proportional to the quality of creation. The greatest advancements in art occurred when the human spirit operated within creative realms untouched by direct market exchange.
 
The patronage of the Medici during the Renaissance remains legendary precisely because it was rooted in these principles. By contrast, the flood of paintings in the Dutch Golden Age, Japan’s art-buying frenzy during the 1980s asset bubble, and today’s ultra-high auction prices illustrate how the price mechanism can spiral out of control, detached from the essence of art.

How Can Fine Art Survive the Age of Reification?

“All genuine art is a form of resistance.”

– Albert Camus

When the balance between art, capital, and the market collapses, art becomes a tool of the market, the market distorts art, and money entrenches itself as the governing law of creation. This is now a global reality, not confined to any single nation.

For Korean contemporary art to endure — and thrive — in this context, three mutually reinforcing strategies are essential:
 

1. Strengthening Human Capital through Expertise

Korea must cultivate globally recognized professionals in market analysis, criticism, and curatorship. Independent critic networks, specialized curator pools, and data-savvy market analysts must work together to professionalize every stage of creation, curation, and distribution.

 
2. Building Long-Term International Exchange

Global engagement must go beyond one-off appearances. Korea should forge enduring relationships with leading museums, galleries, biennales, and art fairs, enabling artists, curators, and critics to circulate naturally within international networks and contribute meaningfully to global discourse.
 

3. Establishing a Reliable Institutional Infrastructure

Recognition in the global market demands robust archives, transparent transaction databases, research institutions, and preservation systems. Standardizing and digitizing provenance, exhibition history, and authenticity records will secure trust and position Korean art as a credible force.
 
Expertise fuels internationalization; internationalization demands infrastructure; and infrastructure sustains both. Only by advancing all three in balance can Korean contemporary art defend the integrity of creation while assuming a leading role in the global art world.

In Closing: Before the Final Mirror

“Aesthetics is at its purest when it resists the logic of the commodity.”

– Theodor W. Adorno

Throughout this series, we have examined how capitalism and the art market have transformed the structures of artistic value, and how fine art has been drawn into the gravitational pull of capital. From the fever of art fairs and auctions, to collector-driven distortions of value, to the structural weaknesses of institutional infrastructure, and finally, to the algorithmic pressures of AI — each chapter has been a critical reflection on the state of both the Korean and global art markets.
 
The purpose of this work is singular: to defend the most fundamental truth that art is a uniquely human act, and that its fruits must exist for humanity itself.
 
Fine art expands our perception and thought, offering values that can never be replaced by price tags or investment returns. Once art becomes mere ornament for the market or a tool of capital, it ceases to be art.

Reification today is not a passing phenomenon but a systemic malady — a dangerous misdirection in the global art market. When the market becomes the aim of creation, only the shell of price remains.
 
We now live in an age of hyper-speed and hyper-simultaneity, where technology, capital, and AI converge. Humanity has become both the observer and the observed, yet risks consuming even its own ruin as an “aesthetic scene.” Left unchecked, this trajectory will distort art beyond recovery.
 
For Korean contemporary art — and indeed, for the art of every nation facing the same crisis — this is the rarest and most urgent opportunity. It must secure creative quality and diversity, establish infrastructure at an international standard, and foster both artists and institutions that safeguard the essence of art.
 
Standing before the mirror of the Age of Reification, we have one imperative: to liberate art from the shadow of capital and protect the original act of creation for humanity. That — and only that — is the legacy we can honorably pass to the next generation.

Jay Jongho Kim graduated from the Department of Art Theory at Hongik University and earned his master's degree in Art Planning from the same university. From 1996 to 2006, he worked as a curator at Gallery Seomi, planning director at CAIS Gallery, head of the curatorial research team at Art Center Nabi, director at Gallery Hyundai, and curator at Gana New York. From 2008 to 2017, he served as the executive director of Doosan Gallery Seoul & New York and Doosan Residency New York, introducing Korean contemporary artists to the local scene in New York. After returning to Korea in 2017, he worked as an art consultant, conducting art education, collection consulting, and various art projects. In 2021, he founded A Project Company and is currently running the platforms K-ARTNOW.COM and K-ARTIST.COM, which aim to promote Korean contemporary art on the global stage.