overview

• The idea that art should provide timely observations about the world's rapidly shifting socioeconomic trends looks to be outdated
• Business executives are more adaptive and radical than artists
• Money is, without a doubt, engaging the most creative minds of our day
• Artists play the ever-malleable court jesters simultaneously, abdicating their responsibility to help people in times of political and cultural turmoil
• Neoliberal capitalism


  Characterized by high inequality, increased economic elite power, financial volatility, recurrent macroeconomic crises, commoditization and financialization of a greater variety of activities, and a retreat in the state's role in production, redistribution, and regulation
• The art world has become increasingly commodified, dominated by the money of economic elites, and susceptible to economic booms and busts
• Impacts of neoliberal capitalism on the art world

  • Increased commodification
  • Dominated by money of economic elites
  • Susceptible to economic booms and busts
• Trends in the art world

  • Rise of international globalization
  • Establishment of freeports to hold artwork free of tax burdens
  • Growing importance of wealthy benefactors in public museums
  • Loss of middle and small art galleries
• To counteract these trends, we propose investing more great public resources in the cultural sector, encouraging artist-owned and managed art cooperatives and art commons, properly taxing large art market transactions, and establishing public registers of valuable artworks