Cover of The Value Of Things

The Value Of Things

by Neil Cummings, Marysia Lewandowska · 2000

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"The Value of Things" argues that society's priorities, its notions of value, are still informed by our relationship with physical objects, even though we have entered an age characterized by technological abstraction. The book examines how modern life is saturated with and defined by things, as the need to acquire, exchange and display objects is intensified by consumerism. Authors Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska use a provocative mix of text and photography to describe the way in which two institutions, the department store and the museum, are central to the story of society's access to material things.

Subject
historyhistoryMore like thisLess of thisphilosophyphilosophyMore like thisLess of thissociologysociologyMore like thisLess of this
Themes
artartMore like thisLess of this
Audience
adult
Length
medium · 222 pages

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  1. Design objects and the museum Liz Farrelly, Joanna Weddell · 2016 Shares museums, collectors and collecting, design
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  3. Carried Away Rachel Bowlby · 2000 Shares department stores, consumption, sociology
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“If it was the collectors and collecting that hooked you, try one of these.”

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“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

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