value of art

statas

cantankerous bobblehead
can anyone explain how contemporary art is valued in the marketplace? it seems so arbitrary from the perspective of an artist or new collector for that matter.
 

rewch

Well-known member
hmm... that is a very tricky question, but i guess it would have to be broken down into various different issues: so there is to start an auction value if any, there is the value that the artist puts on it, there is the gallery value & finally there is the value for the buyer...

all of these factors vary slightly (obviously), but for example a painting has an innate value as a concoction of canvas, acrylic and time... as in anything else an artist is unlikely to sell said painting for a loss...

there is also the time element... if you build a database, the time it takes is going to be a factor in how you price it &c. the difficulty with contemporary art comes from the fact that artists use new mediums or the fact that the art cannot actually be sold (because it is a pile of bananas / a tree wrapped in polythene &c.&c.) in which example, the documentation of the artwork becomes the only record of the art, so photographs, sketches, posters, announcements &c. the more limited the better, i.e. the tendency to uniqueness increases any value, which is why a hirst spin painting/print of said painting has some, small innate value, whereas a huge metal sculpture like hymn (medium + size + perceived artistic integrity = big $$$$)...

hirst is perhaps a good example because it introduces another factor which is the perceived desirability of an artist & his/her creations versus the actual output of said artist... hirst's market value has been enormously distorted by the saachi association... he may have become a big hitter in his own right, but the saachiness has definitely added to his kudos in a certain sector of the art buying world...

this is why - to use another example - yves klein is a big hitter... much of his art is performance based & therefore well recorded but not well materialised (i.e. not readily available in concrete terms), there isn't actually that much of his work in the first place, so scarce value... & he died young & therefore has added romantic value... the fact that the klein foundation continues to cash in on his name & issue work he only conceptualised before his death has continued to feed the klein habit... and he tried to patent his own colour... eccentricity value

holy cow... apologies for the outpouring... hope that slightly clears things up to a certain extent - ish - but the thing to really remember is that the art market is essentially the same as the stock market... some artists go up & some go down, but the really good ones are the ones who hold their value & there aren't actually that many of them... so we have rouault & sonia delaunay achieving similar prices at auction in the 80s... rouault not doing that well now, delaunay gone stratospheric... artistic considerations aside why is that?
 

statas

cantankerous bobblehead
that helps.

having asked around, i think the bottom line is that the value of art to collectors, especially emerging art, is primarily based on the politics of the market. those in the position to be influencial, the network of insiders who tell people what to like, such as galleryists, art publications and people already doing business with contemporary art, have the most effect on the value of art. collecting is essentially fashion.

conceptual art that cannot be directly sold is an interesting situation.
 
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