COMMERCIALIZATION OF ART IN THE CONTEXT OF CONSUMPTION CULTURE

Abstract

The Enlightenment philosophy, inspired by the intellectual movements of the Renaissance and Reformation, emerging from the scholastic darkness of the Middle Ages, led to the emergence of the Industrial Revolution with its strong light; With the great acceleration given by the production, it has become the dominant ideology of science, culture and art by spreading first to Europe and then to the whole world. Modernism, which was shaped by the idea of Enlightenment, transformed into capitalism in a short time and caused the formation of a consumption culture. The enlightenment ideology brought the understanding of "objective reason" and "progressive history" to humanity, which transformed it into a consumer society shaped by capitalism instead of the "promised paradise". This is why the 'Age of Modernity' is called the age of capitalist transformation. The spread of capitalism to the whole world has been achieved through mass communication and production techniques. TVs, which are the broadcasting organs of capitalism, have become the main tool of capital transformation and have ensured the spread of consumption culture with advertising and marketing techniques. Modernism has carried the material, thinking and comprehension stages of art to a materialistic dimension within a structure that is far from emotional, formed by a technocentric and mechanical mentality. Art integrated with technology has become commodified with capitalist regulation and institutionalization; has gained a commercial dimension. Pop Art, which emerged in the 1960s, has become the symbol of commercialized art; It has emerged as an art movement that deals with the consumption society and its values. Andy Warhol, the famous representative of Pop Art, is one of the artists known to play a role in the commodification of works of art. Warhol's art has made serious contributions to the process of transforming today's art into commodity aesthetics. Meta art/aesthetics is a tradeable world of copies. This artificial world has turned into the real world in the consumer society, which can be reproduced in line with the possibilities of art production technologies; They have become objects of consumption whose uniqueness has been lost. Keywords: Art, Consumption Culture, Commercialization, Kitsch, Andy Warhol