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I think the original article title, "How Contemporary Art Became a Fiat Currency for the World’s Richest" is actually quite informative

by jpm_sd 7y ago

biztos 7y ago
Agreed. There is a lot more to "the selling of contemporary art" than this article touches on, and that's not even what it's really about. Even with a single Koons piece getting $91M in the secondary market[0][1], the vast majority of actual sales of contemporary art have nothing to do with hedge funds or the Singapore free port. In the art world it's a mistake to only follow the money. I'm in Berlin right now and some of the most interesting works are not in the super high end galleries but in the smaller ones that sell work in a wide range of prices and actually have to make a lot of sales to stay afloat. For instance my personal favorite Berlin gallery[2] often has works available for under 1000 EUR, and sometimes for more than 60000 EUR for people your grandkids will still find in the History of German Art. That's not atypical. That said, this article was pretty interesting if very short. [0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/steel-rabbit-by-koons-sells-for-record-91-million-at-auction https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/steel-rab... [1]: I recently heard Koons described as the "Donald Trump of the Art World," which (fair or not) makes this particular sale a bit ironic. [2]: https://www.galerie-berlin.de https://www.galerie-berlin.de
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  "Contemporary Art" is more or less circularly defined as big-ticket artworks/projects being sold to incredibly rich collectors, corporate decorators, and headline galleries by predatory dealers. There's plenty of other art happening, but it's of no real interest to the big dogs - who are far more concerned with ROI than anything else, and consider artistic merit a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    The kind of self licking ice cream market you describe where it’s a con and everyone’s in on the con are not stable. For an example of the collapse of one see the market for stamps and stamp collections. People used to buy stamps as investments and criminals used to treat them as reasonable currency substitutes, like bearer bonds except for much higher than face value. Now the market is flooded with the collections of the deceased and the price has collapsed so much people buy stamps so they can use interesting stamps to mail their wedding invitations. Markets are robust to having very large portions of their demand being transactional, people who are in it to make a profit. But gallerists, curators and agents are overwhelmingly art lovers themselves. No doubt there are plenty of people who are in art to make money but there are many, many more who love art or who are buying art to gain social status (not mutually exclusive motives) than grifters. At the top of any field you’re going to find remarkably few pure grifters. It’s a lot easier to work 60 or 80 hours a week if you like or love your work. Lots of people love art and some of them even make a living at it.
dang 7y ago
Ok, we'll change it back. (It was "The Selling of Contemporary Art" for a while.)

I think the original article title, "How Contemporary Art Became a Fiat Currency for the World’s Richest" is actually quite informative

by jpm_sd 7y ago

I think the original article title, "How Contemporary Art Became a Fiat Currency for the World’s Richest" is actually quite informative

biztos 7y ago

Agreed. There is a lot more to "the selling of contemporary art" than this article touches on, and that's not even what it's really about. Even with a single Koons piece getting $91M in the secondary market[0][1], the vast majority of actual sales of contemporary art have nothing to do with hedge funds or the Singapore free port. In the art world it's a mistake to only follow the money. I'm in Berlin right now and some of the most interesting works are not in the super high end galleries but in the smaller ones that sell work in a wide range of prices and actually have to make a lot of sales to stay afloat. For instance my personal favorite Berlin gallery[2] often has works available for under 1000 EUR, and sometimes for more than 60000 EUR for people your grandkids will still find in the History of German Art. That's not atypical. That said, this article was pretty interesting if very short. [0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/steel-rabbit-by-koons-sells-for-record-91-million-at-auction https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/steel-rab... [1]: I recently heard Koons described as the "Donald Trump of the Art World," which (fair or not) makes this particular sale a bit ironic. [2]: https://www.galerie-berlin.de https://www.galerie-berlin.de

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
"Contemporary Art" is more or less circularly defined as big-ticket artworks/projects being sold to incredibly rich collectors, corporate decorators, and headline galleries by predatory dealers. There's plenty of other art happening, but it's of no real interest to the big dogs - who are far more concerned with ROI than anything else, and consider artistic merit a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  The kind of self licking ice cream market you describe where it’s a con and everyone’s in on the con are not stable. For an example of the collapse of one see the market for stamps and stamp collections. People used to buy stamps as investments and criminals used to treat them as reasonable currency substitutes, like bearer bonds except for much higher than face value. Now the market is flooded with the collections of the deceased and the price has collapsed so much people buy stamps so they can use interesting stamps to mail their wedding invitations. Markets are robust to having very large portions of their demand being transactional, people who are in it to make a profit. But gallerists, curators and agents are overwhelmingly art lovers themselves. No doubt there are plenty of people who are in art to make money but there are many, many more who love art or who are buying art to gain social status (not mutually exclusive motives) than grifters. At the top of any field you’re going to find remarkably few pure grifters. It’s a lot easier to work 60 or 80 hours a week if you like or love your work. Lots of people love art and some of them even make a living at it.

dang 7y ago

Ok, we'll change it back. (It was "The Selling of Contemporary Art" for a while.)