Abstract

Attitudes towards art have never been more commercialized than in the present
day. Collector’s interest in contemporary art has coincided with the globalization,
deregulation and financialization of the world economy, resulting in a recent
valuation of the global art market close to $50 billions.
The main objective of this study is to analyze the enhancement of the commercial
value of contemporary art, seeking to extract which factors and circumstances
determined its commoditization. It will provide conceptual evidence to explain the
effects of the market and the consumer culture in contemporary art.
According to this analysis, the main conclusion is that contemporary art value is
driven by the extension of market principles rather than by art itself.

Key words
Contemporary art, commoditization, art market, commercial value, consumer
culture.
 Introduction
Contemporary art is the art of today, namely painting, sculpture, photography,
installation, performance and video art. Although its date of origin varies, many
historians consider the late 1960s, the end of modern art, to be an adequate
estimate for it.

Contemporary art provides an opportunity to reflect contemporary society,

defined as a setting characterized by technological innovation and increasing
human interconnection and globalization(1).

(1) PRICOPIE, Rox (2018). What The Impressionist and modern art sector is now ceding its prominence to
does contemporary society contemporary art; in the decade from 2000 to 2017, worldwide auction sales of
mean.
contemporary art increased from $48 million to over $1,58 billion, rising from a 3
per cent to a 15,1 per cent of the global fine art trade, as the graph below shows(2).

(2) Price index by artistic peri- Contemporary art has become the driver for the art market growth. The explosion
ods – Base 100 January 1998. of its prices, paired with indicators in art investment and other actual practices in
Artprice (2017). The contempo-
rary art market report 2017.
the art world seem to point at the complete capitalization of art; contemporary art
as a new asset class commodity. Hence, the question that arises is: which factors
allowed the commoditization of contemporary art and how did it occur?
According to Ian Robinson, head of Art Business Studies at Sotheby’s Institute
(3) ROBINSON, Ian (2016). of Art, it is due to the ease with which the modern mind grasps quantifiable
Understanding art markets. measures that art turns into commodities to be traded on the global art market(3).
 This conversion of the communal good into merchandise is the trigger for the
inflationary pricing of recent decades.
The objective of this study is to understand the reasons beneath this conversion of
contemporary art into commodities, and to conceive to which extent the consumer
culture plays a crucial role in it.
The study is structured in four sections. First, it categorizes the value of art in three
components: essential, social and commercial. From this dissection, it analyzes
how did the commercial prominence originate and its far-reaching implications.
Next, it relates consumer culture features to this phenomena and finally it
concludes by providing reflections on how the commercial value of contemporary
art has usurped its essential and social value, changing the meaning of art.

Value of art
Before going through the analysis of which circumstances boosted the
commoditization of contemporary art, let us define the value of art under its
different scopes and returns.

Michael Findlay, internationally renowned art dealer and market expert,

decomposes the value of art in three different components: essential, social
and commercial(4). He supports that all works of art have the potential
for the three of them, but none of those values are constant: they can be
enhanced and diminished by the fluctuating mores and tastes of different
times and cultures.

(4) FINDLAY, Michael (2014). Essential value

The value of art. When talking about the value of art, we should always start with the intrinsic; how
art illuminate our inner lives and enrich our emotional world. Art is often taken as a
primary example of something with intrinsic, rather than just instrumental value.
Théophile Gautier referred to this essential value with the french slogan “l’art pour
l’art”. It expresses that the intrinsic value of art is divorced from any didactic, moral
or utilitarian function, being and end in itself. In that sense, James McNeill Whistler
wrote: “Art should be independent of all claptrap – should stand alone and appeal
to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely
(5) MCNEILL WHISTLER, James foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism and the like”(5).
(1834).
By identifying the most elusive value of art as essential, Findlay suggests a range
of responses that, depending upon our culture, education, and life experience we
might file under emotional, spiritual, psychological or even religious.
To understand the intrinsic value of art one has to think of an artwork as if he could
neither sell it nor profit from it in any way, and moreover, as if he could show it to no
one, and can discuss it with no one. This inherent value of art can’t be measured in
numbers.
 Social value
Art is a provocation for many forms of social behavior, from the primitive to the
(6) England Arts Council (2014). sublime, but moreover, according to a recent report from England’s Art Council(6), it
The value of arts and culture to has an impact to the wider society in five key areas: economy, health and wellbeing,
people and society.
society and education.
In the economic field, its direct contribution is measured by macroeconomic
indicators like gross value added (GVA), employment and household incomes, and
the indirect contributions to the wider economy and other sectors through tourism,
improvements in national productivity and through the role of the arts in developing
skills, nurturing innovation and fostering growth in the commercial creative
industries.
Participation in art is significantly associated with good health and high life
satisfaction. A positive link is identified between participating in art places or
events and wellbeing, and even other factors including age, economic status,
income, area deprivation, education, qualifications, disability or long-standing
illness and smoking. Studies show that arts and cultural activities can have a
positive impact on the symptoms of conditions, for example improved cognition,
physical stability, or self-esteem, and the ability of people to manage them, for
example through changes in behavior and increased social contact.
One of the aims of England’s Art Council review is to better understand the added
value arts give to the wider society, capturing its impact on wider social measures
such as education, social inclusion, citizenship and crime. One of the findings is
that high-school students who engage in the arts at school are twice as likely to
volunteer than those who don’t engage in the arts and are 20 per cent more likely
to vote as young adults and more likely than average to be involved and influential in
their local communities.

There have been strong research studies since 2010 about relationships
between arts engagement and educational attainment and later life
outcomes. Some of the results point at improvements in literacy and in the
ability to understand others’ perspective.

Commercial value
Lastly, the commercial value responds to the actual price an artwork would have
if it were offered for sale. Like currency, the commercial value of art is based on
collective intentionality; there is no objective economic value, it’s human stipulation
(7) FINDLAY, Michael (2014). and declaration that create and sustain the commercial value(7) under art market
The value of art. influences.
Today, in the public mind, there seems to be no difference between the essential,
(8) KUSPIT, Donald (2007). Art social and commercial value of art. Donald Kuspit(8), professor of art history and
values or money values? philosophy, supports that art’s esthetic, cognitive, emotional and moral values have
been subsumed and progressively dependent of the value of money. Next section
tries to trace this escalation of the commercial over the intrinsic and social values,
defining the concept of commoditization and its impact in the art world.
 Commoditization of art
The main body of this study aims to point at which factors enhanced the
commoditization of art, specifically contemporary art.

According to Karl Marx, commoditization occurs when commercial value

is assigned to things (objects, activities, people, even ideas) that are
not generally considered in economic terms. Thus, slavery involves the
commoditization of people and prostitution the commoditization of sex(9). In
the case of art, it is commoditized when it is treated as a material investment
devoided from its intrinsic qualities; when artworks are acquired because of
its commercial value.

(9) FINDLAY, Michael (2014). The point of departure is set in the appearance of the art market. The artwork
The value of art. becomes a commodity when it is traded in the art market(10), allowing for supply
(10) ROBINSON, Ian (2016).
Understanding art markets.
and demand to exchange it for money or other commodities. But how did it
conduce to the actual hyper-investment in contemporary art and the servitude to
money values?

Development of the art market

The market has played a critical role in many of the economic revolutions, but also
in the domains of art. Rudimentary forms of art commerce can be traced to the
ancient Greece and Rome, but there is a concrete moment and place in history in
which the art market is created. It is in the XVII century in the Netherlands, when
Rembrandt decided to do without patronage in favor of the much more profitable
requests of Amsterdam’s bourgeoisie. This shift from patronage led the way to the
open market.
After a harsh war outside of Spain’s domain, Constantin Huygens, a cultivated man
in the service of the Prince of Orange, entertained the idea of discovering painters
for the new court as he had seen in Italy, Paris and London. Rembrandt and Lievens
were destined to become the Rubens of the Calvinist courts, but while Lievens
accepted and went to Italy to complete his training, Rembrandt did not and moved
to Amsterdam, a city crowded with merchants and money.
The consequences of this decision, which would also be taken by many other
artists at that time, would completely change the formats, themes and exchange of
artistic works. The development of the themes was linked to the taste of collectors
and gradually also to the interest of painters. Franz Wilhelm Kaiser, director of the
Bucerius Kunst Forum, explains “The paintings stopped acting as proof objects
of political or religious power and circulate as part of a heritage and form of
(11) WILHELM KAISER, Franz investment”(11). Their owners could get rid of them if necessary, which increased
(2017). the demand over the offer, and as a consequence competitiveness arised between
the clients who wanted the artworks. New landscapes and genres appeared, and
as artists specialized, they were more likely to find their own lucrative market niche
creating, with commercial vision, an author’s mark.
 With the first steps of the art market, the figure of the art dealer appeared, who
soon began to impose conditions to the artists, many of whom become rich and
part of the new bourgeoisie too. Until then, only artists and clients influenced the
realization and sale of the paintings, however, with the emergence of dealers, other
new players entered the marketplace.
Dealers began to require the figures of expert appraisers, catalog editors, lawyers,
etc. and public events for sales started taking place; fairs and public art auctions.
Over the years, artists stop painting only by order and begin to produce almost
massively and for the first time for unknown, anonymous clients. With this, the
market for art completely established, allowing for the forces of demand and supply
to operate.

The art market which operates two distinct systems: one which
authenticates and sells the art and artefacts of the past, and another that
validates and sells the art of the present; the market for contemporary
art. Moreover, the network of interdependent actors and institutions that
produce, circulate and consume the art of the present is divided into three
distinct levels: primary, secondary and tertiary.

Although all types of art market transactions may occur on different levels, this
division helps to understand the mechanics of the resulting art prices.

> Division into categories

The primary market exists only for contemporary art since it refers to the art that
appears on the open market for the first time. The usually young and unknown
artists sell their works at small galleries, local exhibitions or directly to art lovers
and brokers. In this decentralized market, the supply with new artists is huge, the
demand relatively stable and prices tend to be low. The art market participants are
likely to have little information about the artists and their works, and therefore, art
investments in this primary market are financially more risky.
Once an artist achieves a degree of stature, a secondary market in his work
takes place when it is resold by the first owner. The secondary market is ruled by
established galleries, art dealers and domestic auction houses. Once art passes
out of the hands of the first buyer, its commercial value is largely determined by
the principle of supply and demand, and there the dynamics of the market prevail.
Under a secondary market has been established, it is usually unclear what market
value an artist’s work really has.
In the tertiary market, art is sold at important international auction houses,
galleries, art fairs, and from dealers with respective connections. Works of art that
pass through the secondary dealer market filter and make it to the tertiary market
are less risky art investments. Most financial art investors and portfolio managers
from art funds acquire their works from the tertiary market.
The art market has suffered two important shifts of power and money in this
century: the rise of the auction houses and the emergence of a few mega-galleries,
 both acting in the tertiary market. This narrow fraction of the market accounts for
the most important operations, and is achieving an increasing dominance over the
rest of players.

> Market polarization

Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the “big two”, hold a duopolistic market position in the
auction houses’ sector. Their combined figures account for about 80 per cent of the
market at the top end in the contemporary art sector. Being the major players in the
secondary art market gives them a series of advantages, like the setting of a huge
commissions structure, which charges both the seller (vendor’s commission) and
the buyer (buyer’s premium).

In the dealers side, art economist Dr Clare McAndrew reckons there are
roughly 295.000 art dealers in the world but only 10% account for 60% of
the market and just 1 per cent makes sales over $70 million every year(12).

(12) MCANDREY, Clare (2018). There is one episode that the art critic Irving Sandler suggests “kicked off the art
Global art market report. market that we know today”(13), legitimizing the empowering of the tertiary level
(13) FINDLAY, Michael (2014).
players in the contemporary art market and turning it into a commodity market. It
The value of art.
is the 1973 Sotheby’s auction of fifty works owned by Robert Scull, a New York taxi-
fleet owner. The pieces were mostly by artists in the middle in their careers, recently
bought and flipped into auction for $2,2 million total.

This market concentration around a few traders has been a key element in
the transformation of the art market in the twenty-first century. McAndrew
evidences that top-line growth masks an expanding gap between the best
and the rest.

The consequences of the sale “heralded the beginning of a new era in the art world:
a hyper-commercialized art market focused on promoting and selling contemporary
(14) WOODHAM, Doug (2017). art”(14) (Doug Woodham). The market of art become more financially sagacious,
How the Scull sale changed the and prices were set more aggressively.
art market.
Sotheby’s and Christie’s alongside with the mega-galleries progressively appear
to transform into big corporations, the dominant institutions of our time and main
players in the consumer culture, enhancing the encroachment of money on art.

> Loss of uniqueness

Essential to the process of commoditization in art is the lack or loss of uniqueness.
Economists define goods as “commoditized” when they are interchangeable
with other goods in that category offered by another producer. In an essay
(15) CROW, Thomas (2018). on Artforum, Thomas Crow(15), American art historian and art critic, quoted
Artforum April 2018. Forbes’ Investopedia to explain this phenomenon: “when a product becomes
indistinguishable from others like it and consumers buy on price alone, it becomes
 a commodity”.Emily Tremaine was an American contemporary art collector who
enjoyed both the commercial and social success of her collection. However, toward
the end of her life she lamented the degree to which money ruled the art world, and
suggests that it was the early acceptance of Pop Art that destabilized the art world.
Andy Warhol’s Pop Art movement emphasized artists’ attitudes towards the
mass consumption of art in the 1960s. “Business Art is the step that comes after
(16) WARHOL, Andy (1975). The Art”(16), Warhol wrote in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. He advocated the idea
philosophy of Andy Warhol. that nothing is original, and he expressed it by using repetition and reproduction to
address the mass production, making it consumptive and marketable. The art world
morphed from a community to a market, a visual culture industry in a culture-based
economy.

Today, the existence of multiples series of highly comparable works seems

to be an advantage. This means that one example can go into a museum and
another one to famous collectors, thus enhancing the value of the remaining
pieces in the series. And it helps if they are highly recognizable and even the
same size, like large and mechanically produced Damien Hirst spin paintings,
which are sold as branded items rather than as unique works of art.

According to Natasha Degen, Professor and Chair of Art Market Studies, “The
growth of the market undoubtedly has influenced artistic practice - encouraging
the creation of digestible, eye-catching, commercially-attuned work, expanding the
(17) DEGEN, Natasha (2013). possibilities of production, morphing studios into business enterprises”(17). With
The market. this, the art work becomes a bit more detached from its essential and social value
and enhances the commercial aspect it inevitably has.

Installation of a consumer culture

The gradual emergence of a global consumer culture shaping our society is a
particular form of material culture based in the belief that we attain our goals
through consumption, leading to define ourselves in terms of what we have. The
art market is part of this greater, post-war consumer society fostered by a global
homogenization of taste.
Consumer culture originated from a manipulative strategy to countered the threat
of overproduction. “We must shift from a needs, to a desires culture. People must
be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely
consumed. We must shape a new mentality. Man’s desires must overshadow his
(18) MAZUR, Paul (1927). Har- needs” wrote Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers(18).
vard business review.
This conspiracy was shocking effective thanks to a diversity of factors which
affect society as a whole, mainly through the facilitation of monetary circulation
to increase consumption, the construction and maintenance of consumer
identities, the marketing and advertising efforts of big corporations, the speed up
of consumption cycles and the moral obligation to consume. In this section we
will focus on the first three, which allowed art markets to become involved in this
extended consumer culture.
 > Facilitation of monetary circulation
With the disappearance of communism in Russia, the Chinese reform and opening
up and the economic liberalisation in India, new markets and wealthy consumers
were willing to acquire consumer goods and prestige products like contemporary
art. Thus, as well as engaging in the field of contemporary art, the auction houses
expanded in other ways, notably in the financial services sector.

The growth in the contemporary art price index makes it attractive as an

alternative investment to financial markets, making collectors turn into
investors, primarily acquiring because the values are rising so rapidly.

1980s prosperity and Wall Street determined what would happen in the twenty-first
century. It was a decade signified by opulence and characterized by a strong belief
in the American dream. This boom period affected all sectors, including the art
market: enormous speculation, art funds and highly leveraged buying, switching the
(19) Artprice (2017). The focus from Impressionist painters to contemporary art. The chart below shows how
contemporary art market report contemporary art has recovered its dynamism and vitality over the past years, while
2017.
all other artistic periods show stable price evolutions(19).
 Thus, a set of financial services provided by auction houses, banks and consulting
firms to buy art were established: art purchasing financing, art secured lending, art
insurance, art appraisal, provenance verification, market research, art investment
advice, among others.

> Consumer identity and brands

Consumer identity is the consumption pattern through which consumers describe
themselves. For some time now, people no longer consume goods and services
merely for functional satisfaction, but for self-identity construction and definition.
The need for affiliation and distinctiveness, self-verification and self-affirmation has
also enhanced the commoditization of contemporary art.

Art has almost always been a luxury product: unique, expensive, pieces that
enable the owners to proclaim their wealth and taste(20). This overlap of
art with luxury goods enhances its consumption as a mean to construct and
express the self-identity, a requirement in the era of consumer culture.

(20) ADAM, Georgina (2014). For the wealthy, acquiring contemporary art offers the advantages of luxury good
Big bucks. consumption (honorific conspicuous consumption) and in addition communicates
esthetic sophistication.
Therefore, to attain this distinction, the signature of the artist becomes
indispensable. Consumer will value their pieces according to who signs them, and
this enhances the morphing of artists into brands themselves, with the authorship
of artworks becoming the commercial distinctive of the pieces. The main objective
of a brand is to create meaning, and this is why artists create their own brand, to
build some value added to their artworks. When someone acquires a piece of art,
he pays for its content but also for the brand.

Consumers guide their purchases based on their interests and needs,

but what motivates the most their buying decisions is the impact these
acquisitions will have on their status. Is the brand, therefore, what motivates
buying decisions and encourages the spending of huge amounts of money.
And this applies to contemporary art too.

Artists of all times have built brands based in themselves, and this makes their
products sell for fortunes. However, the purchase of these pieces is due not only
because of a true love of art, but because of the rewards of hanging it in a gallery
or at home. The signature is the main commercial indicator to understand the
mechanisms of the actual artistic production.
 > Marketing and advertising efforts
The main reason behind the polarization of the art world and the growth of auction
houses and mega galleries is globalization. And one distinctive advantage these
players had compared to the vast majority of dealers is a network of contacts in
countries such as Russia, China and India and huge marketing departments that
enabled them to penetrate these new markets.
In the late 1980s and 1990s Christie’s and Sotheby’s started to invest heavily and
promotion and marketing. According to Michael Findlay, “At about the same time
the term “lifestyle” entered the lexicon, redolent of second homes, spa resorts, wine
tastings, and original works of art. This ambivalence of luxury, good taste, and ease
that the auction houses projected in the late twentieth century has given way to a
more palpably opportunistic approach in a contemporary art market”.
Few years later, in 1998, François Pinault, a French businessman owner of a
retail luxury goods conglomerate, bought Christie’s acquiring a 29 per cent stake
in the business for $1 billion. His influence and expertise in branded products
was determining for the auction business, taking one step further the merging of
contemporary art into luxury goods.

The combination of globalization with the marketing and advertising efforts

of top auction houses and mega-galleries has been the motor of the market’s
growth, creating and stimulating demand. Sotheby’s and Christie’s have
been the public face of the market with its constant flow of news about
high prices, press profiles of personable auctioneers and fashion-oriented
features in magazines.

Mega-galleries also play a key role in the domain of marketing in contemporary art
world. Their role has changed over history form buying and reselling to representing
contemporary artists, resulting in a clear identification of the artist with the gallery,
becoming today’s branding.
 Conclusions
The objective of this study was to understand which factors led to the
commoditization of contemporary art as evidenced by its exorbitant prices. To do
so, we have reviewed literature on the development of its market and analyzed the
informed opinion of professionals from the sector. Evidence shows that while art
has never been independent of money, it has become dependent of money. Money
informs art since the creation of its market, followed by the polarization of its
players and the subsequent loss of uniqueness of the artworks.
Art that is a commodity is such because it exists within a world that packages
needs and desires into goods. Quoting Iain Robertson: “The international art market
is a reflection of us. An absence of acquired instinctive connoisseurship and general
disengagement with our senses mean that prices for art are informed more by
the market’s instruments than by art itself. The art market is in turn a part of the
(21) ROBINSON, Ian (2016). greater, post-war consumer society”(21). The facilitation of monetary circulation
Understanding art markets. as well as the need for consumers’ identity and the marketing efforts from top
art market players are aspects of the consumer culture that have lead into an
irreversible commoditization of contemporary art.
However, although art has a commercial aspect, we cannot say it is economy.
The motivation to become involved in the art world lies somewhere between
(22) TRIMARCHI, Michele altruistic mission and greed(22). It combines the adrenaline of trading in a unique
(2003). commodity, the intellectual appeal of art and the opportunity to learn. Despite the
prevalent commercial value of art and the inevitable interest of any collector in his
pieces’ market value, it will be never fully rewarding nor enjoyful if the dominant
interest in art does not revert to its essential value.
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