This series of comic-book spreads tells a collection of true stories gathered from the New York art scene in the 1990s. The work analyzes the mutability of value of a commodity—art—that moves through a commercial system where the scales of use-value that characterize other commodities do not apply. An artwork’s ambiguous use-value leaves it open to unstructured speculation as it moves from the studio to the gallery to the collection. These ambiguous zones of the market make up the terrain of the Crime Stories.

Documentation: Assistance, Competition, The Critic, The Gallery, Benefits

Crime Stories

Terence Gower, 1996

Eight photomechanical transfers on PMT paper in cloth-bound portfolio

45 x 60 cm each

Printed by Matthew Engers, Brooklyn

Assistance

Terence Gower, 1996

Adhesive vinyl

7 x 6 M overall

Installation at Silverstein Gallery, New York