Art is the struggle to understand

This research incorporates issues on cultural value and how this can be measured with cultural goods and demand for cultural goods. In addition, it looks at the effects of information on this demand and consequently on cultural value. The cultural good considered is art inside an art exhibition. To investigate these issues, a specific case study is used: the Kunsthal Rotterdam. A survey was performed inside the Kunsthal Rotterdam, among visitors to a specific exhibition. It was the first time the Kunsthal offered an audiotour with its exhibition, which created an opportunity to use this specific case for the research. The main research question of this research is, whether the provision of additional information – by using an audiotour – increases the value that people attribute to an exhibition, the art in the exhibition and the museum. To answer this question, a close-ended questionnaire was constructed with questions concerning a contingent valuation study (CV), measuring the willingness to pay (WTP) of visitors for the entrance fee of the museum and the audiotour itself. WTP was measured in six different ways. Apart from WTP measures, appreciation measures, including loyalty, were applied in order to compare results and to assess the appropriateness of WTP as a measure for cultural value. The survey generated over 300 responses, over a time period of six weeks. It was found that WTP of visitors does not increase with the use of the audiotour. The question remains whether WTP is an accurate enough measure to fully capture cultural value or whether information only plays a minor role cultural valuation. Loyalty for the exhibition does increase and also other appreciation measures increase with the use of the audiotour. WTP and the other appreciation measures are positively related, which possibly means that WTP is a compatible measure of cultural value. In addition, men and foreign visitors have a higher WTP than women and Dutch visitors respectively. No evidence is found for the relationship between education and age with WTP.