The volume considers the relationship between contemporary art and the economy from art
theoretical and philosophical perspectives. The eponymous term »equivalence« draws on three
main sources: firstly it refers to the 18th-century notion of the aesthetic and the arts as a
social field in which the equality of people is not simply a postulate but can be directly felt
and perceived secondly it builds on the Marxian definition of the »equivalent form« as
universal exchangeability of commodities according to a purely quantitative principle the
third aspect of »equivalence« significant for the book concerns media and infrastructures
enabling the digital and physical replication and circulation of images and objects. With
regard to particular artworks the volume's focus is not on content-driven approaches dealing
with the flux of goods information individuals and capital in a documentary way. Rather the
publication focuses on works whose materiality form and structure highlight the changed
technological economic and social conditions of art production and reception in an economic
field.
