Art Fair of the Damned
Occasionally, the Google alert on "necromancy" turns up something particularly amusing.An art fair is a supreme expression of repressed necrological urges. Necromancy is the practice of predicting the future through communication with the dead. An over indulgent involvement with the past to be sure, but one means by which some can feel a measure of control over their future. Like necromancy, commodification relies on examination of the past-that which has been successfully commodified-in order to predict what will sell in the future and determine how to sell it. Art fairs are the place to observe the transformation of art into commodity. Watch carefully and you can actually see art dissolve and drain into the die-cut molds of status symbols, decorative accessories and financial investments. If any inorganic object can be said to have life, it is art. Its dedifferentiation at art fairs, though celebrated by some on democratic grounds and by others on aesthetic, nonetheless represents a sort of ritualized death.