The Financialisation of the Art Market

London and New York are primary centres for both finance and the art market, indicating the continuing power of place. Both cities have become havens for wealth, wealth that has poured into the art market, and sometimes into the newer practices of art investment. Under what can be termed the financialisation of art, we can see the rise of a new industry sector that further knits together the art market and financial services, explaining the growth of art investment and its supporting industries, and highlight the enabling role of geographic location. Original article available at publisher's website: http://www.e-ir.info/2016/03/01/the-financialisation-of-the-art-market

BOOK REVIEW: Beyond price: Value in culture, economics, and the arts

How is it that we can understand value in markets and society? As opposed to letting economists answer this question, there is now a growing interest in the social sciences on questions of value and valuation outside of economics, breaking down what David Stark has called ‘Parsons’ Pact,’ that economists study value, and sociologists—as an example here—study values. Michael Hutter and David Throsby’s Beyond Price: Value in Culture, Economics and the Arts provides an excellent challenge to this narrowing divide, contributing to an area of work that we might call valuation studies or the sociology of valuation

Hostile Worlds and Questionable Speculation: Recognizing the Plurality of Views About Art and the Market

The “hostile worlds” view argues that money corrupts the meaning of art, but some suggest this is a dated concept in describing the art market. Instead of dismissing this view, this paper argues that we need a typology of beliefs about art, money and commensuration; what could be understood as a pluralist understanding. Based on ethnographic research on the high-end contemporary art market in New York and London, I find that collectors, investors and art world experts often have different views about the relationship between art and money. This recognition is significant because art is a symbolic good with assigned, rather than intrinsic value, meaning that the value of art can be damaged for people holding hostile worlds views when the mechanisms that maintain the appropriate balance between art and money break down or are disregarded. In this sense, hostile worlds views create a performativity effect

Physical and Epistemic Objects in Museum Conservation Risk Management

This chapter highlights the paradoxical effects of increased price data in markets with difficult-to-value products where non-price factors are highly relevant. In the fine art market, the growth of market information providers facilitated access to auction price data, beneficial in a market noted for its clandestine dealings. Drawing from inductive ethnographic research, the paper notes complex outcomes from increased data availability, as auction prices can be seen as an indicator of an artwork’s value. The findings deconstruct factors of supply, demand and multiple prices in the art market, highlighting important non-price factors in valuation, which complicate provider claims of art market transparency. Unpacking the process through which expert “thick” valuation transforms raw price data into comparables and then valuations helps to explain continuing differences in valuation, with buyers prone to understand past prices as market or reference prices, rather than raw materials for valuation that are adjusted for complexity. This contributes to an understanding of both advantages and predictable problems from increased price data in markets that contain substantial qualitative and non-numerical data, as evaluative frictions can occur even in the absence of clearly defined alternative valuation methods. This develops productive linkages between critical transparency and the valuation and evaluation research

Art Investment Collections: Considerations for Museums

This chapter examines conflicting views about whether to consider artwork as a financial asset, considering potential tradeoffs in terms of stakeholder trust, and suggests a museum investment collection as one option. This would not engender stakeholder concerns about selling art in the permanent collection. It also affirms museum association guidance that proceeds from sales of permanent collection items can only be used for new acquisitions or direct care

Earning While Giving: Rhetorical Strategies for Navigating Multiple Institutional Logics in Reproductive Commodification

This paper examines the rhetorical strategies for navigating multiple institutional logics in human egg commodification. We focus on the intermediaries (agencies) who match donors and recipients, examining their attempt to recruit potential donors through strategic communications. Using a rhetorical and semiotic approach, we analyzed 412 online advertisements on craigslist.org,recruiting women for commercial egg donation from across 30 US states (82 cities/regions). In this situation of institutional complexity, we find contradictory logics about gift giving and commodified market exchanges. In addition to reframing strategies that downplay opposition, we find interesting mixtures of what should be adversarial logics existing simultaneously. We contribute to an understanding of the use of rhetorical languages tructure and content of communications to navigate oppositional market and altruism logics,in addition to advancing knowledge about strategic communications by third-party intermediaries

Boundary Objects and the Technical Culture Divide: Successful Practices for Voluntary Innovation Teams Crossing Scientific and Professional Fields

This article examines the creation and stabilization of early-stage boundary objects by voluntary teams spanning divergent professional and scientific fields. Cross-disciplinary collaborators can share similar goals, yet nonetheless face frictions from differences in professional expertise, practices, and technical systems. Yet if boundary objects help to span disciplinary divides, the same challenges are likely to hinder initial boundary object development. Comparative ethnography of three projects adapting Grid computing technology to fields of science highlights challenges for boundary object creation, including a “mind-set shift” before the technology could stabilize. Enriching our knowledge of boundary object beginnings, we find successful stabilization requires both appropriate localization and further resources, which enable the simultaneously global–local nature of boundary objects. This essential feature is understudied in management research. Developing the boundary object concept on its own terms enhances empirical and theoretical application, particularly when researchers prefer one main theory of objects, rather than a “pluralist” approach