David Joselit's 'Art's Properties' Examines Property as Central to Modern Art

David Joselit's new book 'Art's Properties' argues that property is a defining aspect of modern art, critiquing 'possessive individualism' rooted in liberal, bourgeois, and white history. He traces this concept from the Louvre's origins, where artworks were dispossessed through colonial plunder or seizure from monarchies, to Conceptual art, which he sees as the peak of art-as-property. Joselit connects older art-and-commodity critiques to contemporary debates on whiteness, postcolonialism, and identity politics, referencing the 2017 Whitney Biennial controversy over Dana Schutz's painting 'Open Casket' (2016). He suggests recasting ourselves as 'witnesses' rather than 'consumers' of art, though this solution is more ethical than political. The book, published by Princeton University Press, is a short polemical experiment priced at £22 in hardcover. Joselit views selfie-takers in museums as exemplifying 'possessive modes of looking,' a symptom of art's alienation within systems like museums and the art market. He emphasizes art's 'constituent alterity' and its capacity to generate experience over time, advocating for a politics of 'dis-possession' to foster commonality beyond proprietary regimes.