The Art Market Has Changed Dramatically -- but Is It a Mature Industry?
an ‘Artsy’ editorial by Anna Louie Sussman Jul 8th
The above article contained the following: Yet this sense of exclusivity, even snobbery, is not just a fact of the art market, but the thing that makes it glimmer and shine, said Olav Velthuis, sociology professor at University of Amsterdam. “It is that part of the market that makes it attractive to people, the whole spiel about the waiting lists, and about getting access and not getting access.” Art acquisition serves as “a status mechanism,” he said, a way for the newly wealthy to understand “where they are in this global cultural elite.”
So true dat. I certainly don’t have the credentials to question it, haven’t kept up in any case, and frankly find the politics implied sordid and despicable, but it doesn’t matter. The Venice Biennale, a running with the mega rich, is far, far, far away. The rich, I’ll remind you, are not like you or I, and the art they like varies from year to year along with handbags and super-cars, and all the other super neat stuff they use and discard. So far down in the world’s ‘cultural elite’ I don’t care much for any of it, and that isn’t what I mean when I say art.
A hundred years back machine tools, cranks and levers, basic parts would have floral motifs graved into the faces of the metal. Didn’t make them work any better, just a reminder of humanity amid the heat and grease, one grimy, smoky reality saying hello to another. Some would call that part ‘non-functional,‘ but a part of the whole, testimony to the craftsmanship of the part itself, would be more correct. Art, it’s true, doesn’t perform a task, but it speaks -- about the artist, about the person who chooses it, and sometimes about everyone and our time on earth.
So who are you, just a spectator here to experience what’s it’s like to be rich third-hand, to become emotionally wrought for moments at a time about deprivations and injustices far away, for which we accept not a twinge of responsibility? Apply yourself to art, where you’ve been, what you’ve seen, and what you know about art so far, and it will begin to answer back. It’s like finding a room in your head you didn’t know was there. For quickest results look at everything, good and bad, expensive and cheap, and let your brain sort it out so natural. Wouldn’t it be nice if it was as easy for the massively wealthy, but it isn’t.
an ‘Artsy’ editorial by Anna Louie Sussman Jul 8th
The above article contained the following: Yet this sense of exclusivity, even snobbery, is not just a fact of the art market, but the thing that makes it glimmer and shine, said Olav Velthuis, sociology professor at University of Amsterdam. “It is that part of the market that makes it attractive to people, the whole spiel about the waiting lists, and about getting access and not getting access.” Art acquisition serves as “a status mechanism,” he said, a way for the newly wealthy to understand “where they are in this global cultural elite.”
So true dat. I certainly don’t have the credentials to question it, haven’t kept up in any case, and frankly find the politics implied sordid and despicable, but it doesn’t matter. The Venice Biennale, a running with the mega rich, is far, far, far away. The rich, I’ll remind you, are not like you or I, and the art they like varies from year to year along with handbags and super-cars, and all the other super neat stuff they use and discard. So far down in the world’s ‘cultural elite’ I don’t care much for any of it, and that isn’t what I mean when I say art.
A hundred years back machine tools, cranks and levers, basic parts would have floral motifs graved into the faces of the metal. Didn’t make them work any better, just a reminder of humanity amid the heat and grease, one grimy, smoky reality saying hello to another. Some would call that part ‘non-functional,‘ but a part of the whole, testimony to the craftsmanship of the part itself, would be more correct. Art, it’s true, doesn’t perform a task, but it speaks -- about the artist, about the person who chooses it, and sometimes about everyone and our time on earth.
So who are you, just a spectator here to experience what’s it’s like to be rich third-hand, to become emotionally wrought for moments at a time about deprivations and injustices far away, for which we accept not a twinge of responsibility? Apply yourself to art, where you’ve been, what you’ve seen, and what you know about art so far, and it will begin to answer back. It’s like finding a room in your head you didn’t know was there. For quickest results look at everything, good and bad, expensive and cheap, and let your brain sort it out so natural. Wouldn’t it be nice if it was as easy for the massively wealthy, but it isn’t.
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