High-Cost Art

Certain artworks are––whatever else they are––statements about the value of art. A particularly striking form of such a statement is made by a class of artworks we can call “high-cost art.” High-cost artworks are those with greater costs relative to benefits for their artists or displayers. I will argue here that those art forms that are most likely to include high-cost works are particularly effective at communicating artistic value-claims, and suggest that by so championing the value of art, these artworks themselves increase in artistic value.