Chair

Jane Eckett (University of Melbourne)

Panellists

Paul Albert (George Mason University, Fairfax, VA), Bronwyn Coate (RMIT University)and Douglas Hodgson (Université du Québec à Montréal), Jaynie Anderson (University of Melbourne), Matilde Ferrero (Università Magna Graecia di Catanzaro), Elena Abbate (Exo Art Lab, Turin), and Michele Trimarchi (Università Magna Graecia di Catanzaro)

Painters’ career earnings in Seicento Rome: Overall career success most driven by networks

Paul Albert (George Mason University, Fairfax, VA)

The Seicento Rome art market's dynamics offer a unique window into examining factors that might explain artistic career success.  This was a period where one door started opening to an art market where the brand name of a painter became more important than ever before.  At the same time, a different door started closing on an art market where major purchases were mostly the result of a direct commission between a painter and a patron.

While there is much scholarly work that seeks to determine the specific factors that might explain the value of a specific work of art, this paper takes advantage of these unique characteristics of the Seicento Rome art market to ask a relatively novel question. Namely, “Which specific factors can best explain the overall value (i.e., career earnings) of different painters’ careers?”

My findings, using a data set of 818 commissions made to 129 artists in this period, is that it is the breadth of a painter’s patron network that best explains career earnings (even more than the sheer number of commissions awarded to a painter or the number of years a painter works).  This conclusion points to the inherently social nature of the Seicento Rome art market and highlights how patrons might have more to other patrons, rather than merely the artist, in purchasing art.  Even more, as some other recent studies suggest, this finding also resonates with today's global art market.

A comparison of the career profiles of Australian Impressionist artists

Bronwyn Coate (RMIT University) and Douglas Hodgson (Université du Québec à Montréal)

The existence of artistic movements in which small groupings of artists share aesthetic or programmatic similarities and utilise group association to further their collective programme and individual careers and creative trajectories is well established (Hodgson, 2022; Accominotti, 2009; Hellmanzik, 2009). Yet despite widespread acknowledgement about the importance of artistic movements in the context of understanding the canon of art, the contributions of individual artists in first forming artistic movements are less explored. In this paper we use quantitative and qualitative approaches that include archival methods and regression modelling to examine the careers of 18 artists associated with the Australian Impressionist art movement. Further to this we also conduct an experiment to understand factors that influence respondents’ perceptions of, and preferences for Australian Impressionist art. Of key interest we seek understand how artists’ centrality to the formation of the Australian Impressionist movement impacts their career trajectories. To measure artists centrality within the formation of the movement, we draw upon evidence from the catalogue for the 9 x 5 exhibition held in Melbourne in 1889 which despite the sharp criticism it received at the time, is associated with the foundation of Impressionism in Australia. From coding archival data, we construct an index to measure artist centrality which along with other variables related to the artist, work and sale are regressed on auction prices. Our analysis also draws on data about artists representation in the collections of major public galleries across Australia to provide further evidence on artist reputation. Finally, we present evidence from an online experiment that tests how members of the Australian general public formulate preferences for Australian Impression Art. The findings from our different approaches are triangulated to reveal new insight into the role that individual artists play in shaping a new artistic movement and in turn how this moderates their own career trajectories.

Sidney Nolan’s ever-changing relationships with Art markets in Australia and abroad over a long career

Jaynie Anderson (University of Melbourne)

In March 1949 Sidney Nolan exhibited some thirty-three Queensland outback paintings at a department store exhibition at David Jones, Sydney. In June and July of the same year he exhibited some sixty-six paintings on glass about the Eureka Stockade, at the Macquarie Galleries Sydney, destined for a labour party clientele. Nolan may have been the most prolific Australian artist of the twentieth century, and he engaged with multiple art markets both at home and abroad throughout a long career. Based on archival evidence, Nolan’s letters and poetry, this paper will interrogate his changing relationships with the art market both at home and abroad, with societies, galleries, and dealers.

Young Artists emerging outside the market? Exploring the organization and economics of Associazione Bastione in Turin

Matilde Ferrero (Università Magna Graecia di Catanzaro), Elena Abbate (Exo Art Lab, Turin) and Michele Trimarchi (Università Magna Graecia di Catanzaro)

Despite the rapid evolution of contemporary art, characterized by emerging artists exploring new media and formats and engaging with younger and diverse audiences, the contemporary art market persists in adhering to outdated dynamics. Dominated by galleries, fairs, collectors, dealers, and museums, this market largely prioritizes a select few, often neglecting the cultivation of young artists but also failing to adapt to the evolving needs of society. Consequently, a gap has emerged within the market, resulting in a loss of creative ferment and ambiguities in cultural policies. This disparity raises critical questions regarding the sustainability of the contemporary art ecosystem in its current organization.

The paper aims to tackle these challenges through an in-depth case study in the city of Turin. Notably, a city where contemporary art has thrived and artistic clusters have flourished, owing much of their growth to the global acclaim earned by Arte Povera—an artistic movement originated in the late 1960s in the city. The case is Associazione Bastione, a grassroots organization of ten artists operating as a collective in a space, to see how they relate to institutions and the art market, and how they create and sustain the informal and autonomous value crafting their activity.

The analysis is framed within a literature review that bridges the economics of contemporary art and studies of alternative economies, subcultures, and grassroots as knowledge commons. The aim is to adopt an organizational framework to properly analyze the organization of Associazione Bastione and explore the dynamics leading the collective from informal organization to institutionalization.

The paper will be based on insights derived from interviews and ethnographic research centered around the selected case and will provide a frame to understand its organization and economics. Through a thematic analysis of the interviews and the result of ethnographic research, the paper aims to provide context for a better understanding of the origins, development, aims, and social rules driving young artists in a thriving artistic context like Turin. Moreover, it aims to provide guidelines for further policies in the field of contemporary production.