Does it make sense to speak of free markets at all, when so many public and private institutions have a role in shaping what art, careers, and exhibitions? Does it matter that artists mostly never share the benefits?
Robyn Love: The House Museum
"There is no mystery about the causes of the new boom. The rich have done very well over the last decade." Back in 2006, The New York Times was reporting on art prices, not real estate or an economy about to tank. But if the market rules, and its rule has grown increasingly harsh, can an economist still offer a few tips?
David W. Galenson believes he can. As that article in The Times reported, he has a book, Old Masters and Young Geniuses--and his own theory about how to stake one's money on art. Two years later, the economics professor is back in the news, with more hard data on a squishy subject. Then he told buyers to look for genius. In 2008 he tells them how, and the evidence comes straight out of a textbook. It is also not to be trusted. In the meantime, artists may try to escape the market entirely, through nonprofits, artist collectives, and the Web. Robyn Love, for one, makes her art free. Love has opened her home in Newfoundland as The House Museum. She describes her art as a gift. One might even call it the gift that keeps on giving.
Each visitor receives not only "the gift of admission," but also something tangible from the museum gift shop, "which is actually a drawer in a bureau in the living room. Has she created an escape from market models and a model for art's future--or an artist's imaginings of communities long past? Galenson's paean to markets as the decider of artistic genius hides other gifts and other connections, starting with his own appearance in The New York Times. It is not so easy to stop money from talking. Maybe the best that art can do is to critique its value.
Old economics and young markets
For now, art prices still climb, and so do reputations for a handful of celebrity artists. When Damien Hirst sets a death's head in diamonds, do not ask whether he is celebrating, criticizing, trembling, or cashing in. Perhaps he is serious enough about his art not to know. Cai Guo-Qiang and Takashi Murakami, too, have taken the glories of capitalism as their theme, and museums have responded this very summer with simultaneous blockbusters.
For now, too, The Times still has it right, even in a recession. ...
Read the rest here.
Click on this link to read “The Art of Pricing Great Art,” by David leonhardt from the New York Times, Nov. 15, 2006.
http://www.davidgalenson.com/nov06-nyt-1.html
David Galenson has interesting concepts as to the hows and whys of the Age of Conceptualism with its inherrent shallowness/superficiality that up until now, has stumped just about anyone with even half a brain who considers art/the making of it, seriously....I had a conversation with him just the other day......he is coming to the Sharkpit -perhaps we can reprint more excerpts from his writing here-
It would be GREAT to have his writing directly posted and not just a review, as this is.
http://www.davidgalenson.com/
old masters and young geniuses was a fantastic book, and these new words really flesh out some of his ideas from that book - that would really be great if he makes an appearance here - i look forward to it!