Commissioning the Artwork: From Singular Authorship to Collective Creatorship

A specific type of collaboration has become prevalent in contemporary art: in this type of collaboration—henceforth, commissioning—an artist assigns the production of the work of art to skilled craftsmen or unskilled workers, directing their labor through instructions or blueprints. Commissioning has been accepted by the art world as a legitimate mode of artistic production—legitimate in the sense that it does not undermine the authenticity of the work as a creation of the artist, even if she has not laid a hand for its production. Moreover, commissioning seems to be regarded as irrelevant to the nature of the work of art—specifically, to its artistic properties—and, thus, to its proper appreciation, as is..