Bailout Akin to Sale of Painting at Sotheby’s?

by Art Fag City on September 30, 2008 · 8 comments Newswire

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“You know things are really askew when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke compares a $700 billion bailout to selling a painting at Sotheby’s” writes Kelly Devine Thomas at Men’s Vogue, going on to cite dealer Larry Salendar’s massive problems with debt.   “The increasingly complex art market is less regulated than Wall Street”, she concludes noting the recent success of Damien Hirst’s auction.   This may be true, but seeing as how derivatives haven’t been introduced by trail blazers the likes of Jeffery Deitch, (a dealer and former Citibank advisor well known for having pioneered the practice of using art as loan collatoral,) we at least have one advantage.

Meanwhile, after congress failed to pass the 700 billion dollar bailout yesterday, Bush now urges lawmakers to approve a new economic plan.

{ 8 comments }

Rob Myers September 30, 2008 at 5:19 pm

I was re-reading “Count Zero” by William Gibson recently. It features galleries that buy and sell shares in the most expensive paintings in the market.

Pension schemes funded by artworks look like derivatives, and loans against artworks are interesting. The economy has figures and indexicality, it should be possible to make artworks from financial instruments.

The art market may be unregulated but art is also a mixed economy, with (part-)government funded institutions and artists feeding that unregulated market. The neoliberal dream won’t pay for itself…

Rob Myers September 30, 2008 at 12:19 pm

I was re-reading “Count Zero” by William Gibson recently. It features galleries that buy and sell shares in the most expensive paintings in the market.

Pension schemes funded by artworks look like derivatives, and loans against artworks are interesting. The economy has figures and indexicality, it should be possible to make artworks from financial instruments.

The art market may be unregulated but art is also a mixed economy, with (part-)government funded institutions and artists feeding that unregulated market. The neoliberal dream won’t pay for itself…

Donald Frazell September 30, 2008 at 6:35 pm

The same mindset runs both the art world and international markets. Speculation on a grand scale. And irrelevance to actual worth, and actual product. We are all to blame, you get the governemnt you deserve in a democracy. Time to put down the Dow Jones, and pick up books by economists, from Adam Smith to Keynes. And art magazines for books by actual artists, ignoring the absurd critical text of course. Only way you can actually see what is before you, and not be brainwashed by art school garbage. Just like the Republican crap the Dems were too weak to attack. We are all to blame, for the state of the economy, and art.
William F Buckley is turning in the grave from what he created. Both worlds took his effusively ephemeral egotistical erudite manner, and turned it into mental games and gibberish. All false fronts. No substance.

Art collegia delenda est

Donald Frazell September 30, 2008 at 1:35 pm

The same mindset runs both the art world and international markets. Speculation on a grand scale. And irrelevance to actual worth, and actual product. We are all to blame, you get the governemnt you deserve in a democracy. Time to put down the Dow Jones, and pick up books by economists, from Adam Smith to Keynes. And art magazines for books by actual artists, ignoring the absurd critical text of course. Only way you can actually see what is before you, and not be brainwashed by art school garbage. Just like the Republican crap the Dems were too weak to attack. We are all to blame, for the state of the economy, and art.
William F Buckley is turning in the grave from what he created. Both worlds took his effusively ephemeral egotistical erudite manner, and turned it into mental games and gibberish. All false fronts. No substance.

Art collegia delenda est

Bert Green October 1, 2008 at 5:56 am

If the art market crashes it does not take the whole economy with it. Big difference.

Bert Green October 1, 2008 at 12:56 am

If the art market crashes it does not take the whole economy with it. Big difference.

Donald Frazell October 1, 2008 at 3:35 pm

Uh, yes it does. Like the economy, life goes on. There will always be rich and poor, just a helluva lot more poor, and the middle class greatly reduced, and financially handcuffed. Many galleries will go under, as most are just vanity galleries for the “gallerists”(love that fake word)ego, often on daddies dime.

Galleries for the rich will continue, but not the novelty entertainment of the last decade, Hirst will have troubles on such a massive scale, though the rich did make a statement that they were above the rest of us with that auction. Neros fiddling while Rome burned. But doubt they can pull that off again, as it was a “happening” few wanted to miss, or say they missed. Entertainment for the rich, their favorite court jester in his greatest performance.

Hirsts India auction bombed, and the last one a few days ago in London did too. Those days are over, and the competition arising from fewer galleries, and an eventual return to substance as buyers dont have the cash for entertainment anymore, COULD lead to actual art being produced. But will take sometime. Artists have to challenge themselves, and the inbred art world needs to look outward, to perceive reality once more.

I would say half the galleries will vanish in the next year. Good. Total waste of time, plus can delete all the crap as I get it from ArtScene and ArtSlant, and POSSIBLY, someday come across something worth a damn.

Art collegia, galleria, museo delenda est

Donald Frazell October 1, 2008 at 10:35 am

Uh, yes it does. Like the economy, life goes on. There will always be rich and poor, just a helluva lot more poor, and the middle class greatly reduced, and financially handcuffed. Many galleries will go under, as most are just vanity galleries for the “gallerists”(love that fake word)ego, often on daddies dime.

Galleries for the rich will continue, but not the novelty entertainment of the last decade, Hirst will have troubles on such a massive scale, though the rich did make a statement that they were above the rest of us with that auction. Neros fiddling while Rome burned. But doubt they can pull that off again, as it was a “happening” few wanted to miss, or say they missed. Entertainment for the rich, their favorite court jester in his greatest performance.

Hirsts India auction bombed, and the last one a few days ago in London did too. Those days are over, and the competition arising from fewer galleries, and an eventual return to substance as buyers dont have the cash for entertainment anymore, COULD lead to actual art being produced. But will take sometime. Artists have to challenge themselves, and the inbred art world needs to look outward, to perceive reality once more.

I would say half the galleries will vanish in the next year. Good. Total waste of time, plus can delete all the crap as I get it from ArtScene and ArtSlant, and POSSIBLY, someday come across something worth a damn.

Art collegia, galleria, museo delenda est

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