The Work of Art

The IRS tells people wishing to file their taxes as self-employed individuals that an “activity qualifies as a business if your primary purpose for engaging in the activity is for income or profit.” While that may be a straightforward rule for a self-employed lawyer or plumber, it is not so clear that artists can take advantage of the tax deductions available to the self-employed. Those who pursue arts for self-actualization or as a hobby may not qualify. Thus Alison Gerber closes her insightful monograph The Work of Art with a discussion of the tribulations of Venus DeMars, a multidisciplinary artist who battles for two years with the Minnesota Department of Revenue over the question of whether she can legitimately claim artistic expenses as business expenses. DeMars’ case encapsulates the core questions tackled in Gerber’s book. Namely, how do people, and artists in particular, value artistic production? Working in the tradition of Viviana Zelizer’s classic Pricing the Priceless Child, Gerber extends our understandings of how, in a society largely overrun by neoliberal concerns about putting monetary prices on goods and activities, people put a value on something that may not always or ever provide monetary compensation to the producer. In other words, why do people do things or produce works of art that are not recompensed via the almighty dollar?

Economics · Hobby · Liberian dollar · Neoclassical economics · Political science · Profit (economics) · Revenue · Sociology · Surplus value · The arts · Value (mathematics) · Art History and Market Analysis · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Finance · Law