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Provoking the Freeport Magic

Art Assemblage in Late Capitalism

Part of Sternberg Press / Experiments in Art and Capitalism

Author Jessica Inez Backsell
Paperback
$19.95 US
The MIT Press | Sternberg Press
On sale Aug 05, 2025 | 112 Pages | 9783956796227
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How practices that enact the art of constructing open secrets in markets can be mobilized to unfold magic making.

What is magic? And what can it do? In this book, Jessica Backsell interrogates the magic of the art world and culture’s stubborn habit of foregrounding art as representative of an alternative value system. Through the empirical example of the freeport—luxury warehouses where valuable art is stored for preservation and taxation purposes—Backsell explores the implications of understanding the art world through contingent entanglements and practices. Examining the contested site of the freeport, Backsell addresses the dichotomous “culture v. capitalism” debate by showing how magic is not an innate and mysterious quality. Rather, it is a practice, a central yet unexplored element of curatorial toolboxes, that unfolds through what Backsell denotes as the enactment of “conspicuous withdrawal.” This insight, she argues, sheds new light and understanding on broader political issues in contemporary market society.

Copublished by Stockholm School of Economics
Prologue
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Empirical Case
  • A brief history of the contemporary Luxury Freeport
  • The logistical hub to rule them all
  • A new financial center?
  • Obfuscating practices & open secrets
Chapter 3: Theoretical framework
  • Translations—excavating, representing, and concealing
  • Agnogenesis—or practices of constructing non-knowledge
  • An ontology of public and open secrets
  • The art of redaction
  • Summary of conceptual framework
Chapter 4: Methodology
  • Ontology
  • Epistemology
  • How to study things that lack visuality
  • The practice of zooming in and out
  • Material collected and approaches
  • Interviews
  • Document analysis
  • Video analysis
  • Spatial observation
  • Notetaking
  • The provoked freeport
  • Provocation as method
  • Reflections on data collection
  • Write up
Chapter 5: Introduction to the articles
  • Article 1: "Nomos of the Freeport"
  • Article 2: “Probing the Free Matrix”
  • Article 3: “Hiding in Plain Sight”
  • Article 4: “The Act of Redaction”
Chapter 6: Open secrets in markets
  • Question 1: How to conceptualize the role of obfuscating practice
  • Question 2: The tensions between visibility and invisibility
  • Tensions between revelation and concealment
  • Tensions between the public and the private
  • Tensions between knowledge and non-knowledge
  • Question 3: The effect of open secrets in markets
  • Open secrets and the effect on practice of exchange
  • The Act of Redaction and effects on normalizing and representation practices
  • The presence of open secrets in markets
Chapter 7: Conceptual contributions
  • Constructivist market studies: open secrets, redaction and nonqualculation
  • Organization & Space: the role of nonclosure and a materiality of agnogenesis
Epilogue
Bibliography
Jessica Inez Backsell conducts her PhD studies at Stockholm School of Economics where she also teaches matters of spatial and legal construction of markets. She explores the organization of markets from a practice perspective, drawing upon theories from both classical anthropology and postmodern philosophy. She also takes part in spurring dialogues between artists and intellectuals through her engagement in SSE Art Initiative.
Jessica Inez Backsell View titles by Jessica Inez Backsell

About

How practices that enact the art of constructing open secrets in markets can be mobilized to unfold magic making.

What is magic? And what can it do? In this book, Jessica Backsell interrogates the magic of the art world and culture’s stubborn habit of foregrounding art as representative of an alternative value system. Through the empirical example of the freeport—luxury warehouses where valuable art is stored for preservation and taxation purposes—Backsell explores the implications of understanding the art world through contingent entanglements and practices. Examining the contested site of the freeport, Backsell addresses the dichotomous “culture v. capitalism” debate by showing how magic is not an innate and mysterious quality. Rather, it is a practice, a central yet unexplored element of curatorial toolboxes, that unfolds through what Backsell denotes as the enactment of “conspicuous withdrawal.” This insight, she argues, sheds new light and understanding on broader political issues in contemporary market society.

Copublished by Stockholm School of Economics

Table of Contents

Prologue
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Empirical Case
  • A brief history of the contemporary Luxury Freeport
  • The logistical hub to rule them all
  • A new financial center?
  • Obfuscating practices & open secrets
Chapter 3: Theoretical framework
  • Translations—excavating, representing, and concealing
  • Agnogenesis—or practices of constructing non-knowledge
  • An ontology of public and open secrets
  • The art of redaction
  • Summary of conceptual framework
Chapter 4: Methodology
  • Ontology
  • Epistemology
  • How to study things that lack visuality
  • The practice of zooming in and out
  • Material collected and approaches
  • Interviews
  • Document analysis
  • Video analysis
  • Spatial observation
  • Notetaking
  • The provoked freeport
  • Provocation as method
  • Reflections on data collection
  • Write up
Chapter 5: Introduction to the articles
  • Article 1: "Nomos of the Freeport"
  • Article 2: “Probing the Free Matrix”
  • Article 3: “Hiding in Plain Sight”
  • Article 4: “The Act of Redaction”
Chapter 6: Open secrets in markets
  • Question 1: How to conceptualize the role of obfuscating practice
  • Question 2: The tensions between visibility and invisibility
  • Tensions between revelation and concealment
  • Tensions between the public and the private
  • Tensions between knowledge and non-knowledge
  • Question 3: The effect of open secrets in markets
  • Open secrets and the effect on practice of exchange
  • The Act of Redaction and effects on normalizing and representation practices
  • The presence of open secrets in markets
Chapter 7: Conceptual contributions
  • Constructivist market studies: open secrets, redaction and nonqualculation
  • Organization & Space: the role of nonclosure and a materiality of agnogenesis
Epilogue
Bibliography

Author

Jessica Inez Backsell conducts her PhD studies at Stockholm School of Economics where she also teaches matters of spatial and legal construction of markets. She explores the organization of markets from a practice perspective, drawing upon theories from both classical anthropology and postmodern philosophy. She also takes part in spurring dialogues between artists and intellectuals through her engagement in SSE Art Initiative.
Jessica Inez Backsell View titles by Jessica Inez Backsell

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