Contemporary Art by Stallabrass Julian;

Author:Stallabrass, Julian;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, UK
Published: 2004-03-18T05:00:00+00:00

18. Francis Alÿs, Zócalo

If the effects of the recession on the art market have been so far muted, and have not reached the levels of the 1989 crash, it is because very low interest rates make art a more attractive investment. As we have seen, the last recession caused a wave of extinction as the climate changed, with the death of many a US and German neo-expressionist beast. The new one, shallower but longer, may eventually do the same. If long-term recession is in prospect, due in part to the vast scale and systematic character of US borrowing (increased by the Bush regime’s tax cuts and huge military spending), then the entire character of the art market and its products will be once more thrown open to change.

The art market may be peculiar for buyers, but it is equally odd for producers. According to Hans Abbing, its idiosyncrasies condemn the great majority of artists to penury. While the status of the profession is very high (in part because it pretends to stand apart from the regular run of commerce) and the incomes of a few successful artists are astronomic, the overall nature of the arts economy is generally disavowed by its participants, particularly artists, who overlook or deny their orientation towards financial reward. Artists are singularly ill-informed about their prospects for success, are prone to taking risks, are poor but come from wealthy backgrounds (an anomaly since most poor people have poor backgrounds, but one does not have to search far for the reason for it), and tend to subsidize their art-making out of other earnings. These factors, claim Abbing, cause the art world to be permanently overcrowded, making the poverty of artists a structural feature. (In the UK, the number of fine art students going to college each year has nearly tripled since 1981, far outstripping the general rise in student numbers.) The poverty of artists contributes to the status of the arts, for the few successes should be seen to be picked from a vast pool, and all artists should be seen to risk poverty in their pursuit of free expression.

Abbing says that features of this economy resemble the precapitalist era – in the importance of gifts and patronage, and the role that personalities play in their granting. Other features, however, are more reminiscent of early capitalism, particularly the tiny proportion of successes to failures. As a whole, the art market is an archaic, protected enclave, so far immune from the gales of neoliberal modernization that have swept aside so many other less commercial practices. Its status grants it social distinction and a degree of autonomy, even sometimes from the odd market that is its basis.

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