Sophie Cras

The goal of this fellowship is to complete two chapters of my doctoral dissertation dealing with the emergence of economics as a theme for contemporary art in Europe and in the United States from 1955 to 1975. The first chapter is focused on artists who emphasized the act and the place of selling in their work rather than the objects sold. The second chapter questions the way money became a primary motif in 1960s art. This research project involves three major methodological stakes. Firstly, it overlooks traditional artistic and geographic categories to build a demonstration that is not based on artistic movements nor national boundaries, but that emphasizes instead connections between diverse practices at an international level. Secondly, this research necessitates the use of a wide range of approaches—from iconography to textual or conceptual analysis—to propose convincing readings of very different artworks. Thirdly, this project is committed to interdisciplinary work: not only economic history, but also economic theory and philosophy, as well as anthropology and sociology, will be essential to my investigation of artistic practices involving economics as a theme.

The two chapters which I will complete at the Smithsonian are part of a general dissertation structure based on economic concepts. Questions of the marketplace, price, currency, the financial market, and finally, of the economic system as a whole, will constitute the five chapters of this dissertation. Each chapter will confront diverse artworks and artists from Europe and the United States. Artists’ fascination with selling and money (as a symbol or a visual motif) has already been the object of a few exhibitions in the past twenty years; however, these exhibitions have mainly focused on very recent art (1980s to present) and generally fail to historicize the moment of birth of these themes in international contemporary art.