Cathy's Art Diary

Intriguing online talk from The Art Newspaper looking at whether the art market can be manipulated by gaming type behaviour. Anna Brady, Anny Shaw and Georgina Adam from the journal discussed whether manipulation of the art market could occur in the same way that buyers influenced the stock price of Gamestop recently. Adam carefully laid out how the art market was different and this probably wouldn’t happen but they went on to discuss ways people do try to manipulate the market. They discussed some interesting recent cases such as the Zombie Formalists which gave me lots to look up and learn more about. They then talked about Non Fundable Tokens (NFTs) in light of the recent sale of a digital only art work by Christie’s Beeple’s “Everydays: The first 5,000 days”, the first work of this type to be sold by an auction house. The discussed the possible benefits to the market of applying NFTs to physical works as well as digital only ones. They ended by looking at how art fairs had c...

Interesting online discussion from the Art Newspaper looking at how the art market reacted to the Covid crisis and the increased collaboration in the industry. This was the first session in a series on the art market "New Models for New Times: Rethinking the Art Market in a Changing World" well chaired by Anna Brady from the Art newspaper and included Pilar Corrias, Pilar Corria Gallery; Caroline Douglas, Contemporary Art Society; Sunny Rahbar, Third Line and Neil Weman, Hauser and Wirth. They highlighted some interesting initiatives from an initial Whats App Group for commercial galleries in London, though online art fairs and changes to the Contemporary Art Society’s purchase award at Frieze to benefit more artists rather than one large purchase. They all highlighted some changes which they think will be permanent as they have brought sustainability benefits and increased engagement. They did however also acknowledge than not all art is online friendly so we might see ...