Art and fine wine: a case study in the aestheticization of consumption

Abstract

This paper examines the reasons for the increasing association between art and fine wine in recent times. It argues that this convergence is part of a wider phenomenon where art has increasingly been employed to market ‘lifestyle’ commodities such as fashion and haute cuisine, and explains this with reference to the increased importance placed on aesthetics in the process of consumption in postmodern culture. In this context, art serves as an apt vehicle for promoting the idea of consumption as style insofar as it symbolizes a mode of life which transcends crass materialism. At the same time as it is used for commercial purposes, art is only able to perform this function by disavowing its own commodity status.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. See, for example, the ads for Toohey's beer which feature thirsty cricketers and the ads for Boags beer where factory workers engaged in heavy labour slake their thirst.

^2. See http://www.improbable.com/2013/01/04/an-fmri-study-of-surrealistic-advertising/ for more detail.

^3. See http://www.tokara.co.za/art/wine-made-art/ for more detail.

^4.http://www.moorilla.com.au for more detail.

^5. See http://www.tarrawarra.com.au for more detail.

^6. See http://www.mclarenvale.info for more detail.

^7.http://www.peterlehmannwines.com for more detail.

^8. See http://www.leeuwinestate.com.au/images/art_gallery.pdf for more detail.

^9. The term ‘aura’ used here is derived from Walter Benjamin. It refers to the special quality that original works of art are seen to possess due to the fact that they are one of a kind ([1936] 1979, 224).

^10.Selector, Issue 10, Winter 2009, 15 (emphasis added).

^11. See Apollo, December 2010: 48–52; Art and Australia 48 (2), December 2010: 58–59 and 236–241; Flash Art, November–December 2010: 50-51 and Kunstforum International, October–November 2011: 100–115.

^12. Nancy Troy (2003, 229) makes a similar point in regards to department stores in the late nineteenth century which set up displays which mimicked those in art museums, thus blurring the distinction between the marketing of merchandise and the appreciation of art.

Additional information

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Llewellyn Negrin

Llewellyn Negrin is currently Head of and Senior Lecturer in Art and Design Theory at the Tasmanian College of the Arts, University of Tasmania, Australia. She is interested in the role of art in contemporary culture and the function of aesthetics in everyday life, particularly as it relates to the fashioning of appearance. Her publications include her book Appearance and Identity: Fashioning the Body in Postmodernity, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008 as well as articles in journals such as Theory, Culture & Society; Body & Society; Philosophy & Social Criticism; European Journal of Cultural Studies and Feminist Theory. She has also published articles in a number of anthologies on fashion.