eBook

Talking prices

Velthuis, Olav

2005,2013,2007

Overview

How do dealers price contemporary art in a world where objective criteria seem absent?Talking Pricesis the first book to examine this question from a sociological perspective. On the basis of a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data, including interviews with art dealers in New York and Amsterdam, Olav Velthuis shows how contemporary art galleries juggle the contradictory logics of art and economics. In doing so, they rely on a highly ritualized business repertoire. For instance, a sharp distinction between a gallery's museumlike front space and its businesslike back space safeguards the separation of art from commerce. Velthuis shows that prices, far from being abstract numbers, convey rich meanings to trading partners that extend well beyond the works of art. A high price may indicate not only the quality of a work but also the identity of collectors who bought it before the artist's reputation was established. Such meanings are far from unequivocal. For some, a high price may be a symbol of status; for others, it is a symbol of fraud. Whereas sociological thought has long viewed prices as reducing qualities to quantities, this pathbreaking and engagingly written book reveals the rich world behind these numerical values. Art dealers distinguish different types of prices and attach moral significance to them. Thus the price mechanism constitutes a symbolic system akin to language.

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Subject: 20th century / Ambroise Vollard / Amsterdam / Arbitrage / Art & Art History / ART / History / Contemporary (1945-) / Art critic / Art dealer / Art dealers / Art dealers -- Psychology / Art in America / Art museum / Art, American / Art, Dutch / Art, Modern / Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Prices -- Netherlands -- Amsterdam / Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Prices -- New York (State) -- New York / Auction / Auction Market / Bribery / Business ethics / Buyer's premium / Capital asset / Career / Cash Basis / Commodity / Commodity fetishism / Conspicuous consumption / Contemporary (1945-) / Contemporary art / Customer / Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler / Deadweight loss / Economic power / Economics / Efficiency wage / Expense / Financial distress / Fraud / Haircut (finance) / History / Ideal type / Information asymmetry / Institutional Critique / Jeff Koons / Kitsch / Kunst / Kunsthandel / Labor theory of value / Larry Gagosian / Mark Rothko / Mary Boone / Medium of exchange / Monopolistic competition / Neoclassical economics / Netherlands / New York / New York (State) / Opportunity cost / Painting (Blue Star) / Peggy Guggenheim / Preis / Preismanagement / Price / Price Change / Price fixing / Price level / Price mechanism / Prices / Pricing / Pricing -- Social aspects -- Netherlands -- Amsterdam / Pricing -- Social aspects -- New York (State) -- New York / Psychological aspects / Psychology / Quid Pro Quo / Real estate appraisal / Retail / Robert Rauschenberg / Samuel M. Kootz / Scarcity value / Sidney Janis / Social aspects / SOCIAL SCIENCE / SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General / Sociology / Sotheby's / Speculation / Spontaneous order / Subsidy / Supply and demand / Tax / The New York Times / The Theory of the Leisure Class / Tortious interference / Trade fair / Vanity gallery / Window Dressing / Winner's curse / Work of art
• ISBN: 9780691121666, 0691134030, 0691121664, 9780691134031, 1400849403, 9781400849406