Published
Aug 1, 2025
Author
Nicolás Fabian
From Object to Event: Contemporary Art Between Action, Biennials, and the Market
From Object to Event: Contemporary Art Between Action, Biennials, and the Market
Since the 1960s, contemporary art has ceased to rest on the status of a self-sufficient object and has instead come to exist as an event. This dematerialization did not distance it from the market, rather it converted art into symbolic and experimental capital that gains substance when shared, certified, and re-inscribed in ever-renewed contexts. The genealogy of this shift can be traced to Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise (1935–1941), a small “portable museum” in which the artist miniaturized his own oeuvre and declared that the value of the work no longer resides in the “original” matrix, but in the idea of circulation (Cabanne, 1967).
By fitting inside a suitcase, the work unfolds into editions, certificates, and exhibition rights, depending on a discourse of authenticity that legitimizes each copy. Duchamp thus anticipates what Arthur Danto would later formulate, “without theory we see only things, not art” (Danto, 1997), and reveals as early as the 1930s the fundamental logic of branding, in which value arises from the statement of provenance that accompanies the copy and guarantees its symbolic uniqueness.
This shift from object to narrative reverberates in the tension between representation and presentation of the real that traverses later performative practices. When Deborah de Robertis, in Morri de l’Origine (2014), exposes her own sex before Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde, she makes explicit what David Santos identifies as the threshold where the museum tolerates the image but trembles before the living body. “The problem lies in the real body that shamelessly presents itself to public nudity and not merely in its representation” (Santos, 2019). The scandal does not erupt on the canvas, it takes place in the displacement of the gaze toward the event. At that instant, the work exists as the presence of a real that demands the viewer’s direct experience, and it is precisely this unrepeatable experience that becomes value. The fact that the institution must shape legal and mediating protocols to contain that presence underlines that the event, even when dematerialized, requires administrative, bureaucratic, and discursive infrastructures, exactly the same mechanisms that sustain a luxury brand.
The same logic underlies Franz Walther’s Werksatz (1963–1969), textile sets conceived to be activated by the public. Their ontology rests on action, there is only artwork when there is body, time, and use. However, the market responds by cataloguing photographs, usage instructions, and performance relics, transforming the critique of the permanent object into a business model based on the rarity of the act (Walther, 2017). Dematerialization, which seemed to deny conventional economies, in fact provides them with even more precious commodities, certificates, traces, and storytelling. The artwork becomes a system of licenses, and galleries transform into “chancellors of authenticity”, a role analogous to that of the brand manager who safeguards the consistency of a global logo.
It is at this point that the expansion of biennials and mega-fairs, particularly since the 1990s, gains full relevance. Godfrey (2020) observes that these events have become platforms of global legitimation in which curators act as creative directors of territorial narratives. Nicolas Bourriaud describes the contemporary exhibition as a “portal, generator of activities, a moment in an infinite chain of contributions” (Bourriaud, 2002). The ephemeral, replicable yet scarce action-work, dependent on certified presence, fits perfectly within this ecosystem. Biennials function as transactional seals, they guarantee visibility, confer value, and transform audience participation into proof of artistic existence.
As criticism migrates from the studio to the event space, it becomes institutional branding, and the host city transforms into a brand-identity capable of competing for flows of tourism and cultural investment. To understand how branding and art-as-action feed each other, one only needs to observe the proliferation of corporate foundations and brand museums. Boltanski and Esquerre (2016) describe this process as an “economy of enrichment”, which values what is endowed with narrative singularity and supposed cultural heritage. The Fondazione Prada in Milan, the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, and the Cartier Foundation convert financial capital into symbolic capital, multiplying it into material goods such as prestige and influence (Esparza & Montañez, 2022). Here, the curator assumes the role of brand-mediator, aligning the exhibition discourse with geopolitical positioning strategies. Venice reaffirms itself as a historical and touristic destination, Sharjah projects itself into the cultural geopolitics of the Gulf, and São Paulo consolidates its artistic cosmopolitanism through a Biennial sponsored by private conglomerates (Azevedo, 2024). The exhibition circuit thus becomes a laboratory of territorial marketing in which cultural performance validates economic performance.
This convergence intensifies with digital culture. The sale of Everyday – The First 5000 Days for 69.3 million dollars in 2021 established the NFT as a device of programmed scarcity (Christie’s, 2021). The blockchain code guarantees the uniqueness of a replicable file, reiterating the Duchampian logic of discursive legitimacy. More than a JPG, the collector buys the ownership narrative, inscribed in code and ratified by the media (Klein, 2021). The market of cryptomemes extends branding to global micro-communities, and collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club sell not only images but tribal belonging, access to exclusive events, and licensing rights, thus replicating in the digital universe the mechanism of distinction that Bourdieu (1993) described for cultural consumption.
This same principle drives the “experience economy” theorized by Pine and Gilmore (1999), which seeks to deliver unforgettable sensations and monetize them in the form of tickets, drops, or tokens. Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami mobilize this logic to scale their own personas, producing limited series, fashion collaborations, and merchandising that dissolve the boundary between artwork, product, and logo. The project The Currency (2022), in which Hirst makes the collector choose between keeping the NFT or the physical painting, dramatizes the tension between materiality and narrative value. The critique of consumer culture, present in Barbara Kruger or Hans Haacke, is absorbed by the very circuit of visibility it once sought to denounce, reinforcing Debord’s (1967) diagnosis of the spectacle’s ability to integrate dissent as marketable vocation.
On the plane of luxury, Jonathan Anderson’s Loewe allies itself with the African-American quilters of Gee’s Bend to clothe itself in artisanal capital, while Jacquemus, by transforming provincial landscapes into runways, turns the fashion show into a site-specific installation and the collection into a certified souvenir of geographic aura (García, 2025). Schroeder (2018) defines these ecosystems as brand worlds, micro-universes in which product, image, and space merge into a continuous experience, a strategy identical to that of temporary biennial pavilions or immersive exhibitions sponsored by streaming platforms. The distinction between cultural and commercial consumption collapses, both now depend on curatorial scripts, indexable hashtags, and engagement metrics.
If one adds to this the practices of “commodity activism”, in which artists and brands mobilize social causes to consolidate value, the picture becomes even more complex. Nike appropriates the iconography of Colin Kaepernick, Absolut builds LGBTQIAPN+ pride into a campaign axis, and global museums announce diversity policies while receiving funding from petroleum-based foundations. In this choreography, activism becomes a seal of moral authenticity, marketable as lifestyle. The historian Hal Foster (2004) had already warned of the paradoxical “nomadization” of critique, the more it tries to escape the system, the more it becomes the raw material of its expansion.
The interdependence between critique and branding becomes even more evident when anti-market gestures demand sophisticated systems of circulation. Hans Haacke maps speculative financial flows, but his pieces become million-dollar assets. Kruger satirizes advertising slogans but collaborates with Supreme and Dior, turning irony into fetish. The sharper the critique, the greater the aura, and the greater the aura, the stronger the negotiation. The market does not absorb only artworks, it absorbs stories, contradictions, and scandals, converting them into distinctive signs. The formula “critique becomes branding” ceases to be irony and becomes an operative diagnosis of contemporary visual culture.
Since the 1960s, contemporary art has ceased to rest on the status of a self-sufficient object and has instead come to exist as an event. This dematerialization did not distance it from the market, rather it converted art into symbolic and experimental capital that gains substance when shared, certified, and re-inscribed in ever-renewed contexts. The genealogy of this shift can be traced to Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise (1935–1941), a small “portable museum” in which the artist miniaturized his own oeuvre and declared that the value of the work no longer resides in the “original” matrix, but in the idea of circulation (Cabanne, 1967).
By fitting inside a suitcase, the work unfolds into editions, certificates, and exhibition rights, depending on a discourse of authenticity that legitimizes each copy. Duchamp thus anticipates what Arthur Danto would later formulate, “without theory we see only things, not art” (Danto, 1997), and reveals as early as the 1930s the fundamental logic of branding, in which value arises from the statement of provenance that accompanies the copy and guarantees its symbolic uniqueness.
This shift from object to narrative reverberates in the tension between representation and presentation of the real that traverses later performative practices. When Deborah de Robertis, in Morri de l’Origine (2014), exposes her own sex before Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde, she makes explicit what David Santos identifies as the threshold where the museum tolerates the image but trembles before the living body. “The problem lies in the real body that shamelessly presents itself to public nudity and not merely in its representation” (Santos, 2019). The scandal does not erupt on the canvas, it takes place in the displacement of the gaze toward the event. At that instant, the work exists as the presence of a real that demands the viewer’s direct experience, and it is precisely this unrepeatable experience that becomes value. The fact that the institution must shape legal and mediating protocols to contain that presence underlines that the event, even when dematerialized, requires administrative, bureaucratic, and discursive infrastructures, exactly the same mechanisms that sustain a luxury brand.
The same logic underlies Franz Walther’s Werksatz (1963–1969), textile sets conceived to be activated by the public. Their ontology rests on action, there is only artwork when there is body, time, and use. However, the market responds by cataloguing photographs, usage instructions, and performance relics, transforming the critique of the permanent object into a business model based on the rarity of the act (Walther, 2017). Dematerialization, which seemed to deny conventional economies, in fact provides them with even more precious commodities, certificates, traces, and storytelling. The artwork becomes a system of licenses, and galleries transform into “chancellors of authenticity”, a role analogous to that of the brand manager who safeguards the consistency of a global logo.
It is at this point that the expansion of biennials and mega-fairs, particularly since the 1990s, gains full relevance. Godfrey (2020) observes that these events have become platforms of global legitimation in which curators act as creative directors of territorial narratives. Nicolas Bourriaud describes the contemporary exhibition as a “portal, generator of activities, a moment in an infinite chain of contributions” (Bourriaud, 2002). The ephemeral, replicable yet scarce action-work, dependent on certified presence, fits perfectly within this ecosystem. Biennials function as transactional seals, they guarantee visibility, confer value, and transform audience participation into proof of artistic existence.
As criticism migrates from the studio to the event space, it becomes institutional branding, and the host city transforms into a brand-identity capable of competing for flows of tourism and cultural investment. To understand how branding and art-as-action feed each other, one only needs to observe the proliferation of corporate foundations and brand museums. Boltanski and Esquerre (2016) describe this process as an “economy of enrichment”, which values what is endowed with narrative singularity and supposed cultural heritage. The Fondazione Prada in Milan, the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, and the Cartier Foundation convert financial capital into symbolic capital, multiplying it into material goods such as prestige and influence (Esparza & Montañez, 2022). Here, the curator assumes the role of brand-mediator, aligning the exhibition discourse with geopolitical positioning strategies. Venice reaffirms itself as a historical and touristic destination, Sharjah projects itself into the cultural geopolitics of the Gulf, and São Paulo consolidates its artistic cosmopolitanism through a Biennial sponsored by private conglomerates (Azevedo, 2024). The exhibition circuit thus becomes a laboratory of territorial marketing in which cultural performance validates economic performance.
This convergence intensifies with digital culture. The sale of Everyday – The First 5000 Days for 69.3 million dollars in 2021 established the NFT as a device of programmed scarcity (Christie’s, 2021). The blockchain code guarantees the uniqueness of a replicable file, reiterating the Duchampian logic of discursive legitimacy. More than a JPG, the collector buys the ownership narrative, inscribed in code and ratified by the media (Klein, 2021). The market of cryptomemes extends branding to global micro-communities, and collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club sell not only images but tribal belonging, access to exclusive events, and licensing rights, thus replicating in the digital universe the mechanism of distinction that Bourdieu (1993) described for cultural consumption.
This same principle drives the “experience economy” theorized by Pine and Gilmore (1999), which seeks to deliver unforgettable sensations and monetize them in the form of tickets, drops, or tokens. Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami mobilize this logic to scale their own personas, producing limited series, fashion collaborations, and merchandising that dissolve the boundary between artwork, product, and logo. The project The Currency (2022), in which Hirst makes the collector choose between keeping the NFT or the physical painting, dramatizes the tension between materiality and narrative value. The critique of consumer culture, present in Barbara Kruger or Hans Haacke, is absorbed by the very circuit of visibility it once sought to denounce, reinforcing Debord’s (1967) diagnosis of the spectacle’s ability to integrate dissent as marketable vocation.
On the plane of luxury, Jonathan Anderson’s Loewe allies itself with the African-American quilters of Gee’s Bend to clothe itself in artisanal capital, while Jacquemus, by transforming provincial landscapes into runways, turns the fashion show into a site-specific installation and the collection into a certified souvenir of geographic aura (García, 2025). Schroeder (2018) defines these ecosystems as brand worlds, micro-universes in which product, image, and space merge into a continuous experience, a strategy identical to that of temporary biennial pavilions or immersive exhibitions sponsored by streaming platforms. The distinction between cultural and commercial consumption collapses, both now depend on curatorial scripts, indexable hashtags, and engagement metrics.
If one adds to this the practices of “commodity activism”, in which artists and brands mobilize social causes to consolidate value, the picture becomes even more complex. Nike appropriates the iconography of Colin Kaepernick, Absolut builds LGBTQIAPN+ pride into a campaign axis, and global museums announce diversity policies while receiving funding from petroleum-based foundations. In this choreography, activism becomes a seal of moral authenticity, marketable as lifestyle. The historian Hal Foster (2004) had already warned of the paradoxical “nomadization” of critique, the more it tries to escape the system, the more it becomes the raw material of its expansion.
The interdependence between critique and branding becomes even more evident when anti-market gestures demand sophisticated systems of circulation. Hans Haacke maps speculative financial flows, but his pieces become million-dollar assets. Kruger satirizes advertising slogans but collaborates with Supreme and Dior, turning irony into fetish. The sharper the critique, the greater the aura, and the greater the aura, the stronger the negotiation. The market does not absorb only artworks, it absorbs stories, contradictions, and scandals, converting them into distinctive signs. The formula “critique becomes branding” ceases to be irony and becomes an operative diagnosis of contemporary visual culture.
