Comments on: The commodification of the contemporary art market

By: ArtLover

ArtLover — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:10:04 +0000

What was worrying, was the oversimplification of how the art market works. I have many people in my life who have held work long enough to liquidate it into a house, or several other useful things other than art. But if, as you state, you just go and buy art because it’s makes you happy.. you are ignoring a long tradition of supporting qualified artists and investing in your culture base. Sunday painters, your Dad’s work in his retirement, your kids drawing, are not supporting the Canadian Art Culture. Canada could use comments that encourage investment in our artists, rather than criticize it. The country would benefit, as would our artists who just happen to be our poorest demographic. In part because of this continued ignorance about what is and isn’t good art. In fact, The Scream, is priceless.

By: Finster

Finster — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:07:08 +0000

Excuse me for follow up posting.

This art market was already envisioned by William Gibson (notorious typewriter using inventor of the internet in fiction) in his novel “Count Zero,” in which artists are graded in basis points and quoted against eachother on stock exchanges.

By: Finster

Finster — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:04:01 +0000

Might it be a side effect of wealth inequality?

There are people who make money and there are people who have balance sheets and are no longer concerned by the expenses of mere mortals?

By: AngryInCali

AngryInCali — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 13:15:11 +0000

The fairs are open, and you have time to argue with art critics??? The interplay between social status, available pricing, media coverage, and museum presence is an interesting one, but pretty much everyone qualified to write about it has skin in the game.

By: AngryInCali

AngryInCali — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 13:15:06 +0000

By: breezinthru

breezinthru — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 05:39:09 +0000

Maneker seems to be employing literary license… which is better suited to prose than logic.

By: dWj

dWj — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 03:23:01 +0000

If I understand correctly, he’s combining a confusion of a stock with a flow with an aggressive carelessness of language. What’s his first language? Perhaps he doesn’t have a nuanced grasp of English.

By: JuvenalRedd

JuvenalRedd — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:29:44 +0000

Yes, but what if you use the Richter to buy 1 million sandwiches?

(Not actually disagreeing with you. His points are silly or tedious. At best, high end art could serve as a Rai stone.)