Economics of visual art defies many principles of economics while also relying on them. This makes economics of art a creative and political practice unto itself. The big question in the field is whether economics can explain art – encapsulated economic value – or whether it cannot but is still a useful tool for structurally supporting art. Under the Nothing But argument, all value, including artistic value, can be represented by price. Under the Hostile Worlds argument, art can never be fully described by markets and should be kept separate. We find that economics and art are highly related in systems of institutional and commercial value. Our starting point for the book is looking at artists who make things.

In this chapter we revisit both art and economics as defined categories. The art world itself operates as a system of institutional and commercial value and of complicated interplays of altruism, strategy, financial motivation, and artistic import. This system exists within a larger system. That is, the art world is part of the larger world. We explore the definition of art – the narrowness of the definition of "high art" and the breadth of creative and visual activity. We consider the process by which visual culture is legitimated into the category of art, and then ask whether broad access to art is economic – a chance to buy something – or civic – a chance to participate. In fact, economics itself is a creative discipline. George Akerlof, the Nobel laureate, recently wrote about economics’ "sins of omission" as a discipline. These omissions are in overlooking soft skills and lacking the ability to tackle complex interdisciplinary problems. Thus, we leave the book with an idea of economics as a set of tools to create sustainability in the arts and economics as a creative discipline to build the world as an art project.