Art and Entrepreneurship: Jacek Markiewicz’s a.r.t. Gallery as a Field of Speculation

The article examines the operation of Jacek Markiewicz’s a.r.t. gallery within the framework of the socio-economic transformation of the 1990s, highlighting the key tensions between art, labor, and the capitalist logic of speculation. The gallery, run as an independent artistic initiative and financed through the artist’s business activities, served as a nexus of individual entrepreneurship and the attempt to preserve artistic autonomy. Drawing on Marina Vishmidt’s theory of speculation, the article explores how the gallery engaged with neoliberal processes of redefining the artist’s role and the field of art. It addresses issues related to artistic infrastructure and the conflict between local and global contexts of artistic practice. Central to the analysis is the figure of the ”entrepreneurial subject,” oscillating between critique and integration into the capitalist system. The article reveals how artistic autonomy in 1990s Poland was intrinsically tied to market logic, which redefined the concepts of labor and art, while also exposing the limitations of art’s emancipatory potential under the conditions of systemic transformation.