Art as an Asset Class - the commodity party
Conversations in the media have centered on market, museums and galleries focusing on proven contemporary artists, marketing, exhibiting and curating them in a way that is creating a circularity of closure, an art bubble.
Proliferating art fairs, expansion of galleries globally, artists with large production-style studios cranking out work, the gigantism factor: all of it worrisome because it results in some vapid, mediocre exhibition (Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times, 6-22-12) and Georgina Adams, editor of The Art Newspaper, (Financial Times, 1-2-13) writes about the possibility of art market and values imploding when over-production dilutes the “brand” of a Kiefer, Wool, Richter.
Shane Ferro on Blouin ArtInfo points out that up-and-comer status seekers count coup not only with purchases of the top echelon of artists, but by dealing with a top gallery, who directs their purchases to a few artists, re-inforcing a circle of lucrative results for artist and dealer both.
The critical media have far less clout than they’re given credit for, since most serious aestheticians and writers deplore the particularity of the market, and the narrow, serial nature of most contemporary artists’ oeuvre. But journalists do marvel in their coverage at the high sums being collected by the “gang”, thus supporting the bubble. It’s lots easier to mutter about $75 million for that? than it is to take time to read a thoughtful critical piece which might or might not help direct attention to worthy artists.
It’s not cheap to make art today, and it’s terribly risky too. The artist in the garret is a dream: the gallery system is an avatar of the techno-marketing reality of today, and prices must reflect that.
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