eration of the formal and fetishistic abstraction of merchandise.
             The "absolute merchandise" (Baudrillard, 1988, pp.18) is also an "absolute object" (Baudrillard, 1988, pp.18), which is, by being "absolute", deemed pure and free from constitutional constraint. By becoming absolute, the modern art object becomes remote from use value, transcending exchange value through the act of amplifying it in itself. This non-dialectic notion of Baudrillard's suggests that by freeing the object from the laws of value, we "leave behind the realm of value to enter the realm of a phantasm of absolute value" (Baudrillard, 1988, pp.18), thus suggesting that we are in a state of "value ecstasy" (Baudrillard, 1988, pp.18). The concept of value ironically being accentuated by its own omission in modern art.
             This insinuates that because value is ambiguous for all modern objects, or merchandise, all objects can, by "special dispensation...go onto the hit parade" (Baudrillard, 1988, pp.19) hence making it "impossible to compare them or to revive any form of value judgment whatsoever" (Baudrillard, 1988, pp.19). Modern art, has, therefore, through its absolute nature transcended value and/or meaning. The irony, however, being that, in the process, it injects meaning into itself, creating the ongoing cycle of meaning within modern art, resulting in its volatile nature and corresponding to the concept of the fetish.
             Baudrillard denotes that the modern world is "a jungle, where objects turn into fetishes" (Baudrillard, 1988, pp.19). In Absolute Merchandise, Baudrillard only vaguely explains the notion of the fetish. However, in a supplementary writing of his, Andy Warhol: Snobbish Machine (Baudrillard, translated 2001), he describes the fetish, or fetish object, as having "no value; or rather, it has an absolute value independent of a judgment of value" (Baudrillard, translated 2001). The fetish object is therefore liberated from its value, which is i...