the art collectors

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

Are Collectors Killing Art?

In the wake of London’s Frieze Art Fair, Sarah Thornton has written an interesting article for The Guardian on the hightened commercialization of art, its recent impacts on the market, and influence over artists’ creativity and art itself. With the global economic downturn and tapering off of rampant art speculation, this one’s well worth a read. Thornton has also published a new book, Seven Days in the Art World, an ethnographic look into the contemporary art world, viewed through the eyes of a cultural sociologist.

“If the work is free, is it art?’ – Sarah Thornton for The Guardian

Last Sunday night at the Old Vic theatre in London, the heavy hitters of the art world went to watch Drama Queens, a play by the artists Elmgreen and Dragset, in which five sculptures come to life and have an art-historical battle of egos. Tate director Nicholas Serota was there, as were Tracey Emin, Peter Doig and New York power critics Jerry Saltz and Roberta Smith. On stage, Barbara Hepworth’s Elegy III flirted with Sol Lewitt’s Four Cubes, while Giacometti’s Walking Man glided about making existential comments.

But the self-appointed star of the show was Jeff Koons’ Rabbit, whose voice was delivered live from the balcony by Kevin Spacey. As the bunny zoomed out from the wings, he squealed, “Hey, hey! Look, look, a rabbit!” After several manic laps of the stage, he began to tire. “So much stress,” he complained. “I need to see my banker, my gallerist, my investment manager and my art editor. I need to see my AA sponsor. And I need to see my agent. There’s some sponsorship thing we’re trying to figure out. They want to fill me with helium and float me over Beijing.”

After nearly a decade of art-market expansion, this image of a shiny happy bunny full of hot air, soaring over a newly capitalist city centre, could hardly be more apt. When I started researching a book about the art world five years ago, it was a quieter, less crowded place. You could walk into swishy evening auctions without tickets. You could find a Venetian hotel room at the last minute for the opening days of the Biennale. You could buy art by a young artist from an east London dealer for less than £2,000. But over the past five years, people and money from around the globe have poured into the art world, making it spin faster and more lavishly. By 2006, dealers and auction specialists were talking with wide-eyed disbelief about the art world’s remarkable “liquidity”. Where all this money came from, nobody really knew. Given the current economic crisis, is it about to dry up? As Frieze art fair opens for business in London’s Regent’s Park, and with major auctions scheduled for tomorrow and Sunday, we shall soon see.

What doesn’t get much talked about is the effect all this money has on artists, and on art itself. Has contemporary art become decadent and status-fixated? Click through and read the rest here