In the previous essay, “The Age of Role Reversal,” we examined how essence is obscured by the non-essential. This chapter turns to the loss of value—a deeper layer of that same inversion. Here, “value” does not refer to market price. It signifies the belief in authenticity, autonomy, and inner necessity that once made art possible as art—a shared yet invisible agreement that sustained the meaning of artistic creation.

Today, contemporary art appears more dazzling than ever. Art fairs around the world draw hundreds of thousands of visitors, and record-breaking prices are set at auctions. In Korea as well, Frieze Seoul has become a focal point for the Asian art market, while regional fairs such as Art Busan and Art Gwangju continue to expand. Social media feeds are flooded with exhibition snapshots, and blockbuster shows draw long lines of eager visitors.

In capitalist society, art can no longer remain solely in an independent and autonomous realm. Today, artworks are reduced to prices within the market’s evaluative systems; their lifespan is extended or erased depending on their investment potential.

“Who bought that piece?” This question often wields more power than the artwork’s intrinsic aesthetics or philosophy. In today’s art world, the collector is not merely a purchaser but a powerful actor who structures value and inscribes narrative.

In the 21st century, late capitalism has evolved beyond an economy of production and consumption into a system where symbols and signs dominate value. Jean Baudrillard called this the “political economy of the sign,” where the symbolic meaning of things supersedes their material substance. In such a system, commodities are no longer just physical objects—they are bundles of signs, socially coded and ideologically charged.

Fine art has always touched the deepest strata of the human spirit. It is not simply the skill of creating aesthetic objects, but the act of a living human being attempting to understand themselves. While humans have evolved by using tools, it is in writing poetry and painting images that they crossed from utility into the realm of the mind. Art was born at this very threshold, and it has defined civilization ever since.