Peter Levin’s Rethinking Markets

Maligne Lake
Academic Identity

I am assistant professor of Sociology at Barnard College. My book (and my dissertation research) is a comparative study of technology and futures trading, an ethnography of open outcry and electronic traders. My current research is on how art specialists price cultural commodities, particularly how categories and commensuration work in the secondary/resale fine arts market. I teach courses in economic sociology, organizations, and gender.

Professional Identity

I occasionally consult, focusing on organizational change, the future of technology and financial markets, and environmental markets. I do strategic assessments of markets, technology and organizational design, with qualitative and quantitative components. If you are interested, please email me.

Personal Identity

I grew up outside Chicago, and went to school(s) at Wesleyan University, USC, and Northwestern University. I currently live in New York, with a partner who is a marketing manager for an educational nonprofit. I love movies, like to cook, and I can do a mean lindy swing out. I am INTP.

August 20, 2008

Will you remember me?

Filed under: Art — Peter @ 10:36 am

In an otherwise interesting article on the Chinese Art market explosion (in the upcoming issue of ARTnews), Barbara Pollack sneaks in this line:

With the sheer abundance of galleries, auction houses, and art fairs in Chine, the larger art world is recognizing the power of the Asian market. Standing in an auction house in New York or London watching paintings by Chinese artists sell for millions, one can grouse about this boom and hint that it will turn out to be a bubble. But strolling in a bustling gallery district in Beijing, with students and turists crowding the cafés and boutiques and filling the huge art showrooms, few would predict a downturn in the near future.

No, I’m sure sky-high prices for Chinese art in a time of global slowdown, acute financial uncertainty, and a search for uncorrelated non-real estate risk could not possibly signal a bubble. Unfathomable! I mean, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

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