The Importance of Museums to the Art Market and Vice Versa - Essay Example

?Assess the importance of museums to the art market and vice versa. In the age of globalization and capitalism, the art market resembles the conventional commercial environment where art is a product that is traded in a process that involves several stages and players and is influenced by several market forces. For instance, the contemporary art market, in the way it sells its pieces, often intersects with mass culture through the concept of the contemporary art auction and manipulation of the media, particularly, the publicity it generates, in order to perform in the market better. According to Susan Pearce in her book On Collecting, the art market today “is that market-place where ‘authentic masterpieces’ change hands for money. It is the place where pictures, sculptures and antiquities traditionally are bought and sold, and these have been joined over recent decades by ‘primitive’ art, that is non-European work, by ‘vintage’ and ‘veteran’ pieces like motor cars, and by a range of contemporary installations.” 1 In this essay I am going to assess the importance of museums to the art market and vice versa in the context of contemporary art. Background An art piece being sold finds its way in a buyer’s collection through several ways and with the involvement of several individuals and/or organizations. Today, the main players in the art market are the auction houses, primary and secondary art dealers, museums, and primary and secondary collectors. Each of these, in varying degrees of involvement, contributes in regard to how art pieces are acquired, how they are priced and so forth. The following model is a rough demonstration of the way they are related and how they interact with each other in the sale of art commodities. By James Goodwin The relationships between all of these players vary. For instance, a painting maybe sold at an auction and would probably do away with the influences or involvement of primary and secondary dealers if primary collectors are directly involved in the process. On the other hand, all the players could be involved in an elaborate process of acquisition wherein one variable could have a direct or indirect influence on several aspects of the trade. The complexity is demonstrated in the manner by which high-value and popular art pieces are sold wherein dealers utilize as much tactic as possible in order to drive up the price of the items being sold. In this respect, the importance of museums can be demonstrated. Selling Art As mentioned elsewhere in this paper, in the capitalist system, the art market resembles the way any conventional industry sells its goods. By transforming it into a commodity, the artist or his art dealer must exhaust all possible tactics in order for an artwork to be attractive, perhaps gain advantage in case of competition, and then sold at the highest price possible. This is the reason why marketing and promotion become very important for artists and those individuals and institutions involved in the sale of art works. A successful marketing campaign can maneuver people into thinking or perceiving concepts, status or prestige for themselves once they purchase an artwork. For instance, owning a painting by Jeff Koons today is similar to having a Louis Vuitton handbag because the ownership implies a certain social status. The better an art piece/artist is marketed the higher the awareness of that art piece/artist is the higher the demand for it is. And the higher the price paid for a piece the more the demand for a similar piece increases. And it is in the interest of everyone for it to be highly publicized. According to Pearce museums are “the final, eternal resting-places of those collected objects which are deemed to be paradigms of their kind within the framework of value, as this is created through the dynamic of making meanings. The museum as institution is both at the apex of the system and at its crux because museums and their material provide the point of reference against which the rest of the collecting system can operate. This works in all modes of meaning-in practice, for the individual and as in politics-because for all three the notion of enduring value is deeply significant.”2 In his book the $12 Million Stuffed Shark, where success in the art industry is dependent on branding, Don Thompson describes museums as the ‘gatekeepers an artist must pass to achieve the highest level of branding’. 3 This claim of capability summarizes the relationship between museums and the art market in the context of perceptions. The former plays a critical role in selling an art piece because it can provide a mantle of quality or whatever concept or image that a marketer would want to communicate that can do wonders on whether an art piece will be sold and at what price. Reputation and value As a commodity in a capitalist market system, art pieces and those that produce them rely on variables that make them valuable. For example, media and its capability for sensationalism can single-handedly make an art commodity priceless out of nothing. It can make a worthless picture an object of desire by trumpeting, for instance, that it was spattered with Kurt Cobain’s blood upon his suicide. It is in this context that museums are important in the art market. Hill wrote that they have a fundamental role in maintaining the economic value of goods. This is anchored on the Marxist perspective on the transformation of art pieces into commodities under capitalism wherein it is maintained that the process is effected by a definite social relations between men under a system that assumes the fantastic form of a relation between things. Most economists echo this argument. They confirm that economic action is deeply embedded in the structures of social relations. For example, in the context of the art world, Chong identified an instructive framework wherein the role of concrete personal relations and structure (or networks) of such relations in generating trust and discouraging malfeasance is stressed.4 Museum can provide credibility in addition to the fact that it could provide a platform in which reliable networks can be created – an important factor in a complex socio-economic environment typified by cooperative and competitive relationships. Museums add value by providing the kind of mysticism needed in order to create a process called fetishism.5 In other words, those art commodities housed in a museum is perceived as higher in quality and in capitalistic terms are easily fetishised. This is only natural because it operates within the fundamental principle that the status of a work of art as a commodity does not rely on its physicality, or even the art, which it represents, but instead it depends on its exchange value.6 The museum’s relevance in this regard is easily explained if not entirely obvious. It is an undisputed evaluator of art works. Its standards can serve as a barometer of quality. A testament to this argument is how museum curators are held in high esteem. Along with art critics, they are considered authorities and professionals in art criticism and that their judgment form a very important part in the reputation of an art piece and, hence, its value. This role is particularly important in the area of contemporary art. This genre is, unfortunately, characterized by a seemingly endless supply and the greater opportunities for few players to shape taste.7 Besides this contemporary art, like that of rare or unique commodity, is determined by: Supply and demand Provenance Marketing and Promotion Collection I am going to explain the above points briefly and not go into details Provenance is a very important pricing and marketing factor. The more valuable the collection/reputable the collector from which the art piece comes from, the higher its value. Its value also increases if it has never been auctioned before. 8 Here, the role of museums, as explained by this paper, is further underscored. Meanwhile, some pieces of art have no or little value if they are not part of a collection, so it is much better to gather them and promote them together as a collection.9 Ordinary objects can become valuable if they are promoted as unique and collectable and can become interesting enough in the long term, such as Faberge eggs. Marketing and promotions and supply and demand are sufficiently covered previously. These factors collectively make the case of contemporary art and its relationship with museums a little different. Nonetheless, the fundamental principle at work is still valid. The only difference is that museums’ role are given more importance because it can provide a clear voice (and recommendation) in a highly saturated market. Other Benefits Besides the factors that demonstrate the direct role of museums in the art world, there are those that show how they can indirectly affect the market. For instance, some private collectors have exhibited their collections in museums to try and influence public opinion. The public at large has a higher influence these days thanks to the recent democratization of art. Art has become much more accessible to the public through exhibitions in museums and public spaces. An old master’s gallery might want to reflect the image of a little museum, whereas a contemporary art gallery that wants to appeal to young successful people with a lot of money to spend will promote a fashionable young atmosphere. 10 This attempt at branding aims to capitalize on the image of museum in the art world. How it adds value to an art commodity. Also, there has been an increase, recently, in the number of artworks, sometimes very recent works, donated to museums by private collectors. By donating a piece to a museum, the value of a collector’s collection will go up and in some countries like America will even benefit the latter on a tax level as well. It is of course beneficial for the museum and the public to be presented with an exceptional work by a major artist. But when a work by a less important artist who has not yet proved himself is donated, the objectivity of the directors of the museum is questioned.11 Benefits from the Art Market Certainly, the benefits by which the art market gain from museums are invaluable. Artworks, however, offer the same to these institutions. The most fundamental of these benefits is that fact that in order for a museum to simply exist and operate, it must maintain public support and ensure that funding is sufficient. In order to do this, the museum must prove that it is relevant by being able to demonstrate that it can generate public interest. This, then, is achieved by acquiring and keeping artworks. These commodities have to be unique, high quality and important. But art museums today can hardly compete in auctions held by auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s. According to Burcaw, public auctions are often too expensive for museums that they are forced to get less popular art media.12 The art market enables museums to acquire art works that are both affordable and high quality. The mechanisms and processes within allow this because the art market is not exclusively confined to art auctions. Through competition, art works made available in the market are also significantly made cheaper following the principle of supply and demand. The art market also enabled museums to reinvent itself in order to effectively cater to specific niches. By identifying, for instance, the young consumers as its target market, a museum can focus on acquiring contemporary art and become successful as a result. Conclusion Through the years, the role of museums for artists, art dealers, brokers, and other players in the art market has evolved. Today, museums are institutions not unlike those market forces that dictate how commodities perform within the art market. Central to the characteristic that they assumed in this respect were the globalization and capitalism variables. In a world wherein art is a commodity, museum adds value so that an artwork is sold and bought at a high price. The value system under capitalism makes it natural for museums not just to play the role of the arbiter but function as one that can sanction and identify quality and superiority – factors prized in a market saturated with goods that compete for the buyers’ attention. Pearce called the art market as authentic masterpieces exchange or the top-tiered purchase of goods above the shopping for “normal goods” and “decent goods” categories. In the art market, museum is crucial because it is a repository where the ‘good’ objects go in a kind of material heaven.13 References Burcaw, George. Introduction to museum work. Rowman Altamira, 1997. Chong, Derrick. Arts Management. Taylor & Francis, 2009. Hill, Kate. Culture and class in English public museums, 1850-1914. Ashgate Publishing, 2005. Pearce, Susan. On collecting: an investigation into collect. London: Routledge, 1995. Van den Bosch, Annette. The Australian art world: aesthetics in a global market. Allen & Unwin, 2005. Read More