Art Market Critique
Discussions center on the perceived artificiality and sham nature of the high-end art market, where prices are driven by branding, provenance, galleries, money laundering, and speculation rather than intrinsic artistic value or skill.
Activity Over Time
Top Contributors
Keywords
Sample Comments
Maybe art is worth its market rate.
The art world is definitely a sham(1). That doesn't mean there isn't money making opportunity, nor does it mean there isn't intrinsic value in artwork; if anything it tends to mean there are outsized winners and losers that are divorced from any intrinsic value of the art.(1)Consider all the artists "unrecognized" during their lifetime; did their genius just get discovered after their deaths? No, it was just at that point their works were a limited commodity, and not
Because people don't value who makes art, they value who sells art.
High end art by dead artists mainly. Newly created art benefits the gallery and artist (in that order)
My wife is a designer-turned-artist so I'm familiar with some of the comments above re: solo shows / the value of galleries. If you've read "The Case for the 12 Million Dollar Shark" then you must know that most people who buy art at high prices are wealthy, upper class folks who see art as much as a way to show off how cool / sophisticated they are and as an investment vehicle.I've personally found the entire industry off putting at how much it's about
it will stick, I suppose. Perfect thing to supersede high art sales for money loundering/tax optimisation etc
Are you telling me the art market is artificial!?
That's kind of how high priced artwork works too.
The whole "high-art = big money" mindset is what ruins everything. Just let it be. It's an image that people enjoy looking at, and it's right there for everyone to see - touchable, fragile, transient.I agree but I'd like to point out that Banksy is as much a part of the "high-art = big money" as the galleries and the press.
I don't think it's quite accurate to call the participants charlatans / fools. The pieces are presented as clearly ripped off of Instagram, the last bit of the comment thread preserved along with one of the artist's. The people buying the prints know exactly what they are, it's difficult to maintain the position that they're getting ripped off.Art's a weird world. White canvases have sold for many millions:<a href="http://www.bloombergview.com&#