Reflective Log: Book ; Understanding Art Markets: Inside the World of Art and Business by Iain Robertson

Key points & Reflections:

• "The art market specialises in selling desires to those whose senses need pricking. At the core of any meaningful analysis of this industry , aside from the interpretation of collector and dealer opinion and the application of data into an intelligible overview, is an understanding of taste." (Robertson, 2015, 1).

• 'Selling desires', and 'an understanding of taste'. Maybe researching taste of the art buyers/ current trends within the art world would be a good starting point for the basis of my art to include in the gallery. The text goes on to state how when people get richer they want to 'adorn their houses with pineapples in frames' and that tastes can change dramatically according to shifts in 'global wealth... geo-political and economical transitions'.

• Consumerism is currently one of the strongest forces at work within society, "It's perhaps too simple to say that there are three cultural forces at work in todays world - consumerism, cultural nationalism and historicism", (Robertson, 2015, 2).

• "Western culture flourishes on materialism, intellectualism and individualism, and that this breeds healthy competition but also obsessive material concerns and great economic inequality"  (Robertson, 2015, 2).

• "Gallery and museum visitors now consume art, one could say, in the same antiseptic fashion they digest food and information."  (Robertson, 2015, 2) Although this quote does embody what I want to say through my work, the word antiseptic here doesn't fit and I feel this book leaning towards a negative view of the gallery or the art market.  My stance is slightly more neutral or positive about the gallery. My work is more a comment on consumerism and how galleries can be good for art, or an ironic lighthearted view of the relationship between the consumed and consumer.

• "The art market, with art as its totem, has become an absolute reflection of society at large."  (Robertson, 2015, 5). I think this quote is what draws me most to the art market.

• "Today's market for the global commodity of contemporary art performs so well because of this transition in consumer taste brought about as much by plutonomy as the careful packaging of desires that typifies the abilities of the finest traders. It is extraordinary the degree of sophistication in this market, capable of gift-wrapping the most varied and unsympathetic materials and ideology."  (Robertson, 2015, 5). 

• "What makes someone decide to become an art dealer or broker? Trimarchi suggests that the motivation lies somewhere between altruistic mission and greed (Trimarchi 2003)",  (Robertson, 2015, 28)

• Forbes estimates David Zwirner's business makes $225 million a year (Robertson, 2015, 29)

• Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and "in a different respect, Takashi Murakami, has profited handsomely by subverting taste" (Robertson, 2015, 30)

If you fail at the top - you ruin your reputation and work will be hard to sell.

• "Alpha dealers have a disproportionate influence on the value and future importance of International Contemporary Art"  (Robertson, 2015, 24) 

• Dealers influence value of art? 

• However, "exceptional events like the three auctions held by Damien Hirst (b.1965) and the artist-driven art fair, Geisai, organised by Takashi Murakami (b.1962) appear to subvert this system" (Robertson, 2015, 24).