Florian Cramer on Sun, 25 Nov 2012 21:13:52 +0100 (CET) |
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Re: <nettime> Collectors, artists and lawyers. Fear of litigation is hobbling the art market |
On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 6:10 PM, Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com> wrote: > Typically there is a large boom in the art market after stocks > or other financial assets go bust. This one has been historic > and game-changing, due to the entry on the art market of the new > millionaires and billionaires created by neoliberal globalization > and the credit bubble. Most people think it's funny and why not > let their money slosh around for a while, but from another angle, > as public institutions go under, what we're seeing is the rank > corruption of aesthetic activity which under better circumstances > might have transformed perception and opened up new solidarities. I recommend watching the 2009 BBC documentary "Art Safari - The Great Contemporary Art Bubble" by Ben Lewis (http://artsafari.tv/?p=24). It's a brilliant and thorough piece of investigative journalism that focuses on Damien Hirst, the Gagosian gallery, Sotheby's and the new millionaires and billionaires you mention. Lewis shows in meticulous detail how the market is rigged, among others by gallery owners anonymously bidding on their own artists during auctions, and by fluff sales among small insider groups of art collectors that artificially keep up inflated market prices in order to lure in newcomer buyers who actually pay those prices. Finally, Lewis points out how this is not just a game of "billionaires scamming other billionaires" (to quote the film), but inflicts great collateral damage on public art collections, and how all of these practices are illegal in other parts of the economy. -F # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org