Anomaly and Autonomy: On the Currency of the Exception in the Value Relations of Contemporary

The question of the anomaly as a way of framing the economy of art in capitalism is an interesting and a demanding one. This is because, unlike in most logical cases and empirical situations, where it is the rule that makes the exception visible, in the case of art – and, as I will suggest, not only art – it is the exception that allows us to understand the rule. What does that mean? By focusing on a social form that appears to be anomalous to the rules of markets and the law of value alike, we come to see the tools of accounting as markers of unaccountability. The rule in its suspension; suspended before us, visible from every angle.