The competitive image ecology of Contemporary Art Daily is a reflection of economic competition. With a record number of art students graduating from prestigious graduate programs in a market with less money to purchase their work, competition is more intense than ever. And althought art since the recession arguably looks more friendly and less strategic, it is, in fact, strategic to the point of paranoia, since it must compete within an increasingly rapid and invasive system of image distribution joined with a system of social surveillance and exchange.
Sanchez, Michael: “Contemporary Art, Daily.” In Art and Subjecthood: The Return of the Human Figure in Semiocapitalism, edited by Daniel Birnbaum, Isabelle Graw, and Nikolaus Hirsch, 52–61. Berlin: Sternberg, 2011.
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