CultureGrrl in WSJ’s “The Informed Reader” (Somewhat Misinformed)

“The Informed Reader: Insights and Items of Interest from Other Sources” today disseminates my thoughts to Wall Street Journal readers on the how “Big Money in the Art Market Costs Museums Their Edge,” as their headline reads. You saw it first here as “Art-Market Fever: The Marginalization of Museums.” Today’s synopsis is in the WSJ online here and in today’s paper on Page B9.
What’s puzzling is that the three-paragraph paraphrase of my analysis twice alludes to “the money flowing into the art market from hedge funds.” I never once mentioned hedge funds in my CultureGrrl post.
I DID comment yesterday on WNYC’s Morning Edition about art purchases by “hedge fund managers and people in the financial industry.” But I was talking about individuals who made their money in that field, such as Steve Cohen and Kenneth Griffin, who have famously made big-money art purchases for their own private collections.
It’s early days for hedge funds devoted to purchasing art, but for a preview of what may lie ahead, go here to Kate Taylor‘s report in Monday’s NY Sun. For a reminder of disasters past, go here.
While we’re on the topic, I’d like to add one more thought that got edited from the WNYC interview tape:
Auction-house officials are forever saying that this art-market boom is different from all others because it is global: They argue that there is strong buying interest not only from the U.S. and Europe, but also from China, Russia and the Middle East, so that even if some nationalities suffer economic setbacks, others will still raise their salesroom paddles and support the market.
But what we’ve seen in the latest credit crisis is that an old adage still applies: If the U.S. sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. For better or worse, economies, not just the art market, are global.