Art Market London Trip

It was a busy week this week - Thursday and Friday, with the Museum Studies MA students in London, at various museums (see Libby's blog entry below!)....we did a LOT of museums (as usual!)...and Monday with the BA students on the Art Market module for a walking tour of the 'cultural geography' of the London art markets of the 18th and 19th centuries....

BA students at Christie's Auction Rooms in London

We did a big perambulation around St James's...and along Pall Mall...and up Bond Street...popped into Christie's, Sotheby's and various galleries, including PACE, Fine Art Society..etc....

More BA students at Christie's Auction Rooms, London

Well done to the students for undertaking all that walking....!
Mark

BA students Art Market field trip

Hello All,

the undergraduate students (from all of our 4 UG programmes, not just BA Art History and Museum Studies) went on an Art Market field trip to London last week. There were so many of them I had to divide them into 3 groups! Anyway, I think we had a great time, wandering (purposefully of course), the area around St James's and Bond Street...where many businesses in the art world congregate - for interesting historical reasons (you'll need to do the Art Market course to find out!)......

Here is one of the student groups outside Christie's Auctioneers, King Street rooms....

Students at Christie's Auctioneers

We also took in a number of art dealerships, including Hauser & Wirth, White Cube, Fine Art Society and Marlborough Fine Art (who were very generous with their time...).....
  It'll be same again next year, for a new bunch of Art Market student enthusiasts!
Mark

The London Art Market

Hi All,
me a just a few of the undergrads went on a field trip to London on Wednesday this week, as part of the level 3 module 'The Art Market: moments, methodologies and meanings'. Here they are outside of Sotheby's in Bond Street....we visited quite a few 'spaces and places' associated with the art market...including some major dealerships such as Marlborough Fine Art, Richard Green (who was packing off for the art fair in Maastricht), Mallet (the famous furniture and dec art dealers) and, of course, White Cube. We also took in an auction sale at Bonhams, Bond Street, and whilst there were'nt any spectacular prices at the sale, the students did see the intense social processes at work in these 'Tournaments of Value' (as cultural theorists call such events).
Anyway, more anon on the relationships between art market and the museum....
Mark

Oh what a lovely recession?

Imagine BBC1, Tuesday 10.35pm (past my bedtime, I'll have to catch it on iPlayer)

Blurb:

The Great Depression and the Second World War changed what was expected of the arts; Alan Yentob asks if this recession could see the next transformation.

Artist Chuck Close talks about the New Deal in America in the 30s, when the government paid artists to work, while actor Simon Callow tells how thrilled actors were to feel their work mattered.

And dealer Kenny Schachter explains how, in a perverse way, he feels this recession is the best thing that has happened to the art world in ten years.

Bansky and the Bristol Museum ?(sell out)?

In a belated response to Rebecca's comments on the Banksy Exhibition at Bristol Museum (have you seen it yet Rebecca?...what's it like?) I thought I'd add some further ingredients into the discussion. I noticed a report in The Art Newspaper on the exhibition (appropriately in the 'Art Market' sections), stating; 'all of the 100 works exhibited are for sale, and The Art Newspaper understands that a work showing a policeman on a child's rocking horse sold for £140,000.'.....

Kate Brindley, the museum's director, is reported to say that Bristol Museum would not get a cut of the proceeds, but "it was usual practice" for living artists (excuse the obviousness there) to sell work shown in public galleries. Did I miss something here? When did this become 'usual practice'? (Saatchi, perhaps, but you can't actually 'buy' the things off the wall at the Duke of York's Headquarters (can you?)...and I'm aware of 19th century precedents - I'm a museum historian! (of sorts...). It is clear that public museums play a significant, and synchronic, role in the art market - but surely Bristol Museum is not (should not be?) Gagosian?

Or is it another subtle subversive move by Banksy?
Mark

Ransacked Rat and Rabbit Row

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/world/europe/27auction.html?ref=world

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/02/chinese-artifacts-yves-saint-laurent

Perspectives on the Art Market

Hello everyone!

Following Matthew Kieran's discussion 'The Fragility of Aesthetic Knowledge: Psychology, Experience, and Artistic Appreciation’ as part of the 'Perspectives on the Art Market' series, I thought this might be an interesting link. Some issues around the change in perceptions of contemporary art over recent years begin to be addressed here...

http://www.axisweb.org/atATCL.aspx?AID=755