The (capitalistic) value of art

What is the value of art?

With the opening of our exhibition, our assistant (student) curator was tasked to put forth the price list for our art work. I personally thought that I would be happy if someone is even willing to pay (a small amount) for it given the nature of my art work (note: this is not the exhibited version). However, my curator thought otherwise and mentioned that I should have more pride in my work.

It becomes my personal interest to highlight the underlying capitalist ideology of art (and pride); pride here is reductively defined as the (opined) dollar-worth - an irony and a mockery. How much is your pride worth? And if you cannot fix a greenback value to your art work, how then can your art work be valued?

I would argue for the inclusion of a form of social-psychological value in that the art raises discussions, and prompts realizations of its social-psychological significance.

That is not to say that currency is not a type of social valuation; money is still, after all, a social tools created by human beings to facilitate institutionalized (capitalist) valuation. It does however shift the valuation of art from equivalence to polyvalence (I use these terms slightly differently from Victoria Grace's interpretation of Baudrillard in that polyvalence refers not only to the presence of multiple exchange values for subject with a certain used value, but also to the presence of distinct forms of exchange values i.e. not only currency, but also social/ psychological exchange.

I wonder if we will then be able to properly 'see' the value of art.