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The objective of any industry is to collect power and influence for itself. Collusion is the natural state of affairs once people with power and money start ent

The objective of any industry is to collect power and influence for itself. Collusion is the natural state of affairs once people with power and money start entering the arena. Once you've exhausted the income opportunity that a single firm can offer you, your priorities change. Mere cash grabbing won't move the needle anymore. What you want to be doing at that point in time is move up the value chain so you can capture a healthy percentage of the entire market. Artists that make a killing open galleries and provide for emerging artists to make their mark, of course while you take your cut. You see it in every creative arena. Musicians open record labels, actors open acting schools and talent agencies. Career trajectories differ, but the principle remains the same. You move up the value chain. Once you've mastered selling shovels to the prospectors, then you have to learn how to control value itself. There is no intrinsic value to products of human creation, so that value has to get created somehow. The making of the value sausage is often really, really dirty. But as long as humans want it, then there needs to be a price attached. And that price has to be arrived at somehow.

theoh 9y ago
"Artists that make a killing open galleries and provide for emerging artists to make their mark" This is not generally the case in art. While there exist informal "artist run spaces" set up by struggling young artists, it is unknown for an artist to become a prestigious commercial gallerist. It doesn't happen. Setting up a gallery primarily requires capital, and only secondarily involves artistic judgement. Damien Hirst is the only partial exception I can think of, and he was also involved in coordinating group shows in temporary industrial spaces early in his career, so he has always had an interest in staging exhibitions. His London gallery is definitely not about making sales or supporting emerging artists, though. It's a status symbol. There are a few ways of looking at the art world that explain why artists don't become gallerists. One thing is that gallerists/curators are "cultural intermediaries" rather than creators. It's a different talent. Artists are sometimes asked to curate but they don't get involved in setting up galleries or publishers. It would be like an actor setting up a chain of cinemas. I guess the phenomenon you perhaps have in mind of movie stars becoming producers differs because producing is still a creative activity. There's a book called "Art World Prestige" that does a sociological analysis of what goes on -- all the things that are specific to the art world.

theoh 9y ago

"Artists that make a killing open galleries and provide for emerging artists to make their mark" This is not generally the case in art. While there exist informal "artist run spaces" set up by struggling young artists, it is unknown for an artist to become a prestigious commercial gallerist. It doesn't happen. Setting up a gallery primarily requires capital, and only secondarily involves artistic judgement. Damien Hirst is the only partial exception I can think of, and he was also involved in coordinating group shows in temporary industrial spaces early in his career, so he has always had an interest in staging exhibitions. His London gallery is definitely not about making sales or supporting emerging artists, though. It's a status symbol. There are a few ways of looking at the art world that explain why artists don't become gallerists. One thing is that gallerists/curators are "cultural intermediaries" rather than creators. It's a different talent. Artists are sometimes asked to curate but they don't get involved in setting up galleries or publishers. It would be like an actor setting up a chain of cinemas. I guess the phenomenon you perhaps have in mind of movie stars becoming producers differs because producing is still a creative activity. There's a book called "Art World Prestige" that does a sociological analysis of what goes on -- all the things that are specific to the art world.