This is the first installment of my weekly column on the contemporary art market. I’ll begin with a short explanation of my working methodology. This methodology is based on my two and a half years of graduate school at Christie’s Education in both London and New York, where I was initiated into a history of modern and contemporary art which often remains forgotten – the history of the art market. In my own preparations for the column, I have been spending an inordinate amount of time reading other publication’s columns on the art market. I found that discussion of the art market is composed of an analysis of auction results, bits of news that are ferreted from galleries who contribute information about their sales (the truth and/or accuracy of which must come into question), and current events which seem to have some bearing on the market. Some of these reports are sound analyses of available numbers, while others venture into the area of speculation. But generally, a sort of ambiguity surrounds the whole topic of the market, and in an economic downturn of the type we are currently experiencing, this creates a feeling of fear and insecurity for those involved in this market.
In this column I hope to create a more thoughtful and critical discussion of current events in the art market. The possibility of using typical, economic mathematical modeling becomes next to impossible as a result of the lack of transparency. Auction results (aside from Damien Hirst’s Sotheby’s sale, really more a public spectacle than a benchmark of economic stability), show only the results of the secondary market, and therefore give little indication of the state of the primary market. If anything, they act as influence rather than indicator of the mood of the art world, the members of which look to them (albeit in error) as a marker for the market’s health. This means that current events in the market must be analyzed from a different perspective.
If one looks at the discussion of such current events, aside from auction results whose analysis may employ typical mathematical models, the most salient points have been made by those older art world figures who have been involved in the art market for decades. The reason that they convey grounded and believable commentary is that they have actually lived through the fluctuations, and understand through personal experience what patterns are likely to unfold. One such example is gallerist Jeffrey Deitch. In the X-initiative panel After the Deluge in March, Deitch responded to questions on the state of the market – answers to which can be found on the Art Market Monitor’s website. Deitch, who helped to found Citibank’s art advisory group before he went on to open Deitch Projects, managed not only to weather the last art market crash, but actually emerge from it successfully. His analysis of the current situation is in part based upon his own experience and knowledge of history.
It is the history of the art market which I believe should be used to shed light on our discussion of current events. This approach can be termed historical economics, and was advocated by the Historical School of Economics in Germany in the 19th century. The method was based upon the idea that history is one of our most concrete resources for knowledge of human behavior. It functioned as a sort of alternative to theory and mathematics. I am not an economist, and in no way do I argue that historical analysis is a better method of economic analysis. But in the case of the art market, in which the lack of transparency prevents the use of more popular methods of numerical investigation, history becomes an attractive alternative.
Dr. Véronique Chagnon-Burke, director of the Masters program at Christie’s Education, New York, is a principal proponent of the value of the history of the art market, not only for its use in contemporary economic study, but also because of its influence on the history of the art itself. I have been lucky enough to get Dr. Chagnon-Burke’s help in this endeavor, and will intersperse my own writings with a series of conversations in which we explore current topics through her own historical knowledge. In this column, I will be looking at current events through the lens of this history of the art market, in the hope that it may help to prevent the anxiety that accompanies the unknown, and reveal similarities to the past that can help us to understand the future.
