The art market and the rise of speculative investment provide the particular concerns for the set of 6 grey paintings that display their actual price. In each case the value is incrementally different by relatively modest margins, although the works are otherwise formally identical. The title refers to tautology, a term derived from ancient Greek rhetoric, and which signifies a persuasive argument that repeats an assertion using different phrasing whose proposition is logically irrefutable.

Brüggemann states that what interests him is ‘the notion that people buy prices rather than works. I priced the work in US dollars, speculating that it won’t be the dominant currency of the future. Similar to some buyers of art, I’m speculating on their value by connecting them to a certain currency value.’

The broader comment concerns the move away from art collecting as an integral activity, to art as a new kind of asset class. In this case, the aesthetic or cultural merits of works are superseded by the monetary worth. In other words, artworks themselves become units of abstract value against which further capital may be raised.