In his book Talking Prices, Olav Velthuis points out that the collapse of the art market in the early 1990s resulted in a widespread shift away from the ‘superstar’ pricing of the go-go 80s, and towards a ‘prudent’ pricing in the 1990s. Art dealers saw the watershed collapse of fantastic(al) prices as a moment not …
(by Ana T.) This article touches on a lot of the topics we’ve been discussing in class. Protection of artists, embeddedness and Art speculation. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/arts/design/17blacklisting.html?ref=design
April 17, 2010 – 11:07 am
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By Peter
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Posted in Art
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This post is a marker post for the 3910 class to ‘claim’ 2 auctions to add to the database. Pick what you like, but leave what you want in comments please!
February 17, 2010 – 4:11 pm
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By Peter
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Posted in Art
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(by Sebastian B) As far as I got acquainted to Pr. Levin’s research project, I wanted to stress the need for not overstating the singularity of art auctions relative to author forms of commodities and selling. What happens in an art auction is probably not very different from any other marketing process. We usually grant …
February 12, 2010 – 4:31 pm
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By Peter
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Posted in Art
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Can performance art and other ‘hard to monetize’ art be included in our study? Some thoughts on commoditization.
February 9, 2010 – 11:02 pm
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By Peter
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Posted in Art
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Pulling back the curtain here a bit on what sociologists do, rather than what sociology is. Students are participants in the project, not as research assistants (it would be more efficient and more sane for me to actually hire a couple grad students if this was the route I wanted to go), but as participants. …
February 5, 2010 – 3:07 pm
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By Peter
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Posted in Art
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Apologies to those who follow my feed on the spurt of student activity around these parts. As I mentioned earlier, I am running a class research seminar on Art and pricing. So there may be some guest authors for a while. If you like, you can exit – or you can comment. I’d obviously love …
February 3, 2010 – 8:03 pm
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By Peter
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Posted in Art
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I’ve been pretty lax about keeping up with the blog, and I am teaching a research seminar this semester on pricing in art markets. I’m likely to turn the blog over to that purpose for awhile, so if there are dramatic changes that you find unappealing, you could wander away if you like. Or, you …
January 18, 2010 – 1:05 pm
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By Peter
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Posted in Art
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Economic sociologists have long wrestled with the microfoundations of market rationality, and attempted to understand the embeddedness of behavior in the cultural context in which it rests…oh, hell, I just want to post this video of the subway stairs in Stockholm: Have a nice Friday, peoples!
I have written about the experiment going on at Significant Objects before. They buy things at garage sales and thrift stores, make up stories about the objects, and then sell these objects on eBay, with the stories attached as the objects’ descriptions. The premise is that “the object should — according to our hypothesis — …
Part of my talk this coming week is a criticism of the turn from commensuration to quantification. In particular, one of the striking comparisons between (auction) art markets and financial capital markets is the extent to which art specialists decry quantification. As specialists gain more experience, they are more willing to say that their valuations …
One of the more interesting notions in the social studies of finance over the past decade has been the idea of performativity. Discussions about the concept abound, both online and off – (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)….and the list goes on. I’m only pointing at a very few of the pieces. In art, the …
A work of art seems to be a hardier breed; it can be sold in the market and still emerge a work of art. but if it is true that in the essential commerce of art a gift is carried by the work from the artist to his audience, if I am right to say …
May 27, 2009 – 10:14 am
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By Peter
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Posted in Art
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Tagged Short
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There is a wonderful discussion of the subtle differences between modern/contemporary figurative artists over at Illustration Art. Figurative art in this case being nudes (so if you are offended by high art nudes, move on). The crux of the issue is the difference between Adrian Gottlieb and Job Currin. The former artist is, arguably, technically …
At the onset and height of financial crisis, Damien Hirst has done something interesting. There is a series of Times articles (thanks Carol Vogel for doing the heavy lifting) about the anticipation towards, and outcomes from, Hirst’s “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” sale at Sotheby’s London. The sale was significant for a few reasons. First, …
Jennifer Lena and I have a new video up, a continuation of our conversation about the relationship between cultural value and monetary value. We’re talking about devaluation, specifically burned art – in the high art and pop art worlds. And we’re circling around a discussion of spheres/circuits/arenas of value. Burned Art and Murakami from Peter …
Remember the KLF? Sure you do. British? 80s-90s? Hrm. Well, they created a foundation for promotion of avant garde arts, and as part of this they burned a million quid of their own money. Here is the documentary, in 6 parts. The burning is in part 2: part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 …
First, look at this post and tell us what you think. Second, here are some lovely physical representations of graphical social data. As sculpture. Of course, I would not necessarily trust the social science chops of an artist (when I ran the numbers, it looked more like: But even with the faulty peaks and valleys, …
August 21, 2008 – 10:58 am
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By Peter
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Posted in Art
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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 …
August 20, 2008 – 10:36 am
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By Peter
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Posted in Art
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As an experiment in sociology and blogging, Jenn (from whatisthewhat.wordpress.com) and I have put together a brief video on culture and markets, the beginning of what we hope will be a conversation at the intersection of culture, sociology, and economics. We’ll work on the lighting and switch off the big-head/small-head, but we hope you like …