Chair

Terry Smith (University of Pittsburgh)

Panellists

Terry Smith (University of Pittsburgh), Laura Noll (University of Zurich), Clarissa Ricci (University of Bologna), Ashley Lee Wong (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Introduction: Value and Price in the Visual Arts exhibitionary complex

Terry Smith (University of Pittsburgh)

If value is the quality of a being, thing, or relationship that generates a use, a perceived import, or a benefit (a good), what are the values created by operations of the several platforms that constitute the visual arts exhibitionary complex: chief among them museums, not-for-profit art spaces, biennials, art fairs, commercial galleries and auction houses? What are the values in play in the exchanges between them? This paper will offer a chart of these phenomena in contemporary art worlds. It will introduce questions posed to the panellists, among them: If price is a quantity fixed at the point of exchange, how do prices for works of art affect these operations and exchanges? How has the discourse on art and value changed since 2008, when Beyond Price: Value in Culture, Economics and the Arts (Michael Hütter and David Throsby eds., Cambridge University Press) mapped the state of the field? In which ways are these changes manifest in contemporary artistic practice, curating, art criticism, arts administration, and in the appreciation and collecting of art today? What are the implications of these changes for historical reconsideration of past developments?  

From Value to Price at Art Auctions: Understanding the Dynamics of Art Markets

Laura Noll (University of Zurich)

In an ever-expanding world, the dynamics of the art market have evolved to include multiple markets, creating a complex landscape for artists, agents, networks, and exchange. The concept of exchange in these art markets extends beyond financial transactions. It encompasses the exchange of economic, social, and cultural values among a growing community of dealers and collectors. This surge in stakeholders contributes to a continuous evolution and enrichment of the global art landscape. However, amidst the complexities of a globalized art scene with its myriad markets, the intricacies behind the economic exchange mechanisms at art auctions remain veiled and intricate. As dealers and collectors navigate this multifaceted environment, more transparency is required regarding this intriguing and complex facet of the art world. 

To shed more light on the conversion of value into price at art auctions, this paper presents three studies: Firstly, Study 1 undertakes a systematic literature review of 100 high-impact journal articles to summarize the predominantly quantitative insights into auction price determinants. Secondly, Study 2 involves semi-structured expert interviews with professionals from renowned international auction houses in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria to clarify how and why these determinants – and other factors that are unquantifiable or difficult to quantify – impact auction prices. Lastly, Study 3 employs focus groups with professionals from the above-mentioned auction houses to address remaining ambiguities and shed light on the potential role of marketing in art auction prices. 

The result is a conceptual framework of art auction prices that accounts for quantifiable and unquantifiable or difficult-to-quantify art market dynamics. This paper is of high theoretical and practical relevance for the large community of dealers and collectors, as well as for art economists: First, it suggests practical implications for various stakeholders, including art buyers, sellers, and dealers. Second, it provides an empirical basis for valuation and price explanation in international art markets. Third, based on research gaps and contradictory findings, it formulates promising avenues for future cross-disciplinary research. It thereby provides a starting point for larger qualitative and quantitative studies. 

On the administration of value: Biennials, epistemic value and the market

Clarissa Ricci (University of Bologna)

The creation of value in contemporary art is largely determined by the narratives built around exhibitions and sales. Ownership, purchase location, and exhibition history are all important factors in this process. Institutions such as fairs and biennials play a key role in bridging curatorial expertise and business operations, which helps to establish "epistemic authority" (Brown, 2022). The presentation aims to explore the management of this epistemic process in relation to the market by comparing documenta 7 (1982), which was subject to Willi Bongard's theorisation of the 'game of art', and documenta 13 (2022), which experimented with the creation of alternative markets. Specifically, it will focus on the role of biennial-type exhibitions as hubs for this process.

Beyond Scarcity: Intangible Art Markets of Digital and Conceptual Art

Ashley Lee Wong (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

This paper explores art markets beyond its conception as the sale of unique material objects. It focusses on the implications of selling digital and conceptual art forms which have variable materialities that are (for the most part) intangible. To reflect this, ICOM has adjusted the definition of museums to encompass not only tangible but intangible heritages, where culture exists equally as shared memories, knowledge, and experiences. I approach an expanded art market that focusses less on products than processes of circulation. In what Benjamin Lee and Edward LiPuma call the “cultures of circulation,” a cultural form, such as an artwork, is understood as a cultural phenomenon as it circulates in an economy. [1]

The shift from a finite object to a variable and intangible conception of art connects with the development of conceptual art in the 60s and the influences of technology, as suggested by curator Jack Burnham, and art historian Edward Shanken, who looked at the influence of cybernetics and systems theory on artistic practices. A systems approach to art sought to dematerialize art into dynamic processes and relations between participants, machines, and the environment. Such practices attempted to evade marketization. Yet, we can see the market has only become more pervasive in its ability to monetize all forms of culture and life. With emerging forms of digital art, creative economies converge with the art market, where for Peter Osborne, the contemporary condition consists of multiple historical-temporal forms that co-exist, where there is a “coming together of different but equally ‘present’ temporalities in temporarily totalized but disjunctive unities.” [2] For instance, with digital culture of memes, collaborative creativity flourishes in permutation, while the art market continues to place value in uniqueness and originality. Similarly, in his discussion of shanzhai culture Byung-Chul Han states, “Chinese thought distrusts fixed, invariable essences or principals,” favoring instead copying, variability and change. Chinese culture places value in the sharing of knowledge through repetition and learning from the past over an original object.

To consider variation in today’s creative economies, I look at licensing as a legal framework for the use and distribution of media and conceptual art forms, which can also support a rental and reproduction economy. Such legal instruments, along with the certificate of authenticity are abstractions that separates ownership from its object. With NFTs (non-fungible tokens) a similar kind of abstraction, artworks can circulate online as memes, while accruing value as scarce financial assets, where intangibles such as digital, conceptual, and even burned or destroyed artworks [3] can be bought and sold. However, beyond financial speculation and the enforcement of scarcity, I propose an understanding of art as collaborative practices embedded in a culture that supports the sharing of knowledge and values the evolution of ideas and forms. Art, in this sense, is conceived less as ownable objects, but as shared processes of creation and circulation. Artworks evolve and take on different material forms in subsequent iterations, where artistic practices are sustained in time not as scarce finite objects, but as collective memories. 

[1] Benjamin Lee and Edward LiPuma, "Cultures of Circulation: The Imaginations of Modernity," Public Culture 14, no. 1 (2002): 192.

[2] Peter Osborne, The Postconceptual Condition: Critical Essays, (London, UK: Verso, 2018), 18-19. 

[3] There are numerous examples of artworks being destroyed by artists, more recently NFTs by Banksy and Damien Hirst. What remains of the artwork are press articles around the event verifying the work's existence. See https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56335948