Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Get thee to the Getty

The Los Angeles Times offers a quick view of a current exhibit at the Getty entitled 'The Business of Art: Evidence from the Art Market' (which has a nice on-line component).

The exhibit tracks the transactions of visual art, and explores the complex relationships that have determined the 'market value' of works and artists over the last two centuries. Says the article:

The cast of characters falls into four categories: artists, dealers, collectors and scholars. But their roles often overlap. Artists function as dealers, promoting their work or that of friends and negotiating prices. Dealers collect and collectors deal. Scholars might seem to be above the fray, but they too get involved -- however inadvertently.

Then there's a nice shot across the bow of the academic community, and especially those among us who feel we are separate from the market. The quote comes from Gail Feigenbaum, associate director of the Getty Research Institute:

'Scholars, critics, researchers and historians all shape the value of art,' Feigenbaum says. 'You think you are pure, but you give an expertise and you are participating in the market. Your assessment of quality, authenticity or attribution makes you a player, like it or not. You go to graduate school and think about truth and beauty, but there's this whole other world that affects the truth-and-beauty factor.'

Cool elements of the on-line portion of the exhibit include this letter from Paul Gaugin to Camille Pissaro, with some fabulous framing statements to help Pissaro select appropriate paintings to bring to a potential buyer (in this case, a representative for the Paris stock exchange):

Don't be offended by what I am going to say, but you know as well as I do that the middle classes are difficult to please, so I would like this young man to have two paintings whose subjects are as pretty as possible. He is a young man who knows nothing at all about art, and does not pretend otherwise which is already something; however, some of your works could frighten him despite my influence on his judgment.

Clearly, the dealers play a large part in bridging between the art, the artist, and the world that engages them both. Great stuff.

posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2004 | permalink