Jul 2, 2018 02:25 AM
https://usa.spectator.co.uk/2018/06/the-...art-world/
EXCERPT: You’ve probably heard that we’re in a boom time for the art business, breaking sales records as fast as we can make them. [...] This ostensibly deep, meditative stuff, most often forged on dirty floors by spiritually hungry oddballs, is being gobbled up by real-estate tycoons, hedge funders and tech giants from every part of the globe, especially, lately, China and the Middle East. There is some debate about how to measure the overall size of the market, but everyone agrees that we’re somewhere in the mid 11 figures, annually ($40bn-70bn).
It pays to be rich, in the art world as everywhere else. [...] These small corporations each operate several outposts around the wealthy world, and have annual revenues that flirt with a billion dollars. Why this increasing concentration of wealth?
Art is a global business in an increasingly globalised world, and blue chip art, sold by blue chip dealers and auction houses, has become a prime currency in the one common culture that extends from Brooklyn to Basel to Beijing: money, and the social prestige that follows upon it. [...] The things that generate high bids generate lust and envy, and the counter-bids soar higher. It was ever thus, but not to the degree we’re seeing now. Sales based on taste, or some desire for spiritual edification, are losing out to sales based on financial speculation or raw status competition.
That’s why much of the art world’s growth comes from obscene, record-shattering sales like the $179 million Picasso sold in 2015, or the $500 million Da Vinci sold in 2017. The top ten biggest sales in history, all in excess of $100 million, have taken place in the past seven years. It’s great to show your friends that you have a Warhol or Basquiat, even better if you got it by outbidding all those other obscenely rich sons of bitches peacocking at Sotheby’s, or waiting in line to wine and dine with Larry Gagosian.
Life is awash with inducements to stupidity and greed. The bizarre, defiantly anti-utilitarian practice of making and enjoying art can function as a respite, a space for genuine reflection and reevaluation [...] In our time that space is being increasingly colonised by the same venal lusts that already run so much of the wider world....
MORE: https://usa.spectator.co.uk/2018/06/the-...art-world/
EXCERPT: You’ve probably heard that we’re in a boom time for the art business, breaking sales records as fast as we can make them. [...] This ostensibly deep, meditative stuff, most often forged on dirty floors by spiritually hungry oddballs, is being gobbled up by real-estate tycoons, hedge funders and tech giants from every part of the globe, especially, lately, China and the Middle East. There is some debate about how to measure the overall size of the market, but everyone agrees that we’re somewhere in the mid 11 figures, annually ($40bn-70bn).
It pays to be rich, in the art world as everywhere else. [...] These small corporations each operate several outposts around the wealthy world, and have annual revenues that flirt with a billion dollars. Why this increasing concentration of wealth?
Art is a global business in an increasingly globalised world, and blue chip art, sold by blue chip dealers and auction houses, has become a prime currency in the one common culture that extends from Brooklyn to Basel to Beijing: money, and the social prestige that follows upon it. [...] The things that generate high bids generate lust and envy, and the counter-bids soar higher. It was ever thus, but not to the degree we’re seeing now. Sales based on taste, or some desire for spiritual edification, are losing out to sales based on financial speculation or raw status competition.
That’s why much of the art world’s growth comes from obscene, record-shattering sales like the $179 million Picasso sold in 2015, or the $500 million Da Vinci sold in 2017. The top ten biggest sales in history, all in excess of $100 million, have taken place in the past seven years. It’s great to show your friends that you have a Warhol or Basquiat, even better if you got it by outbidding all those other obscenely rich sons of bitches peacocking at Sotheby’s, or waiting in line to wine and dine with Larry Gagosian.
Life is awash with inducements to stupidity and greed. The bizarre, defiantly anti-utilitarian practice of making and enjoying art can function as a respite, a space for genuine reflection and reevaluation [...] In our time that space is being increasingly colonised by the same venal lusts that already run so much of the wider world....
MORE: https://usa.spectator.co.uk/2018/06/the-...art-world/