Based on this article's description, I wouldn't say he's disintermediating it so much as differently intermediating it. It sounds like he's building up an inter

Based on this article's description, I wouldn't say he's disintermediating it so much as differently intermediating it. It sounds like he's building up an interesting web of social and business conventions to position people as art-stars, cultivate investors in said art-stars' careers and works, cultivate "appreciators" who key on status signals he's inflecting certain artists with, etc. It's still ultimately a lot of a status and positioning game, trying to build someone up as a "major artist" in a way that a critical mass of critics and investors buy, while setting yourself up as the intermediary who controls access to this corner of the art world.