ABSTRACT
THIS CHAPTER RETURNS to what might be regarded as an old direction in consumer research – namely, experientialism, which we believe is uniquely positioned to provide valuable insights into the nature of aesthetic consumption. We argue that arts marketing literature tends to focus on macro issues related to the political economy of art in general and to the oft-noted clashes between art and commerce in particular. By returning to concerns with experiential and hedonic consumption, we redirect attention towards a neglected but fundamental aspect of marketing the arts – namely, the role of aesthetic experience. Indeed, we shall argue that the absence of an engagement with aesthetic experience impoverishes not only marketing theory but also wider discussions of art. In this connection, as a case study, we shall examine one of the most iconic works of our age – For the Love of God – a Georgian skull encrusted with a fortune’s worth of diamonds and created by the artmarket innovator extraordinaire Damien Hirst. We shall note how evaluations of this work have honoured the perspective of political economy and have stressed the significance of its commercialism. By contrast, we shall demonstrate how such evaluations are turned on their head by those critics who ground their reviews in actual encounters with the physical object itself. While discussions of work by artists such as Hirst within the context of political economy help to highlight the centrality of art as a commentary on and/or a reflection of society, this chapter emphasizes neglected aspects of experientialism in the consumption of visual art.
