The darkest secrets of Art markets (Part -1)

The proverb “Time is money” best applies to the art market. Indeed! For the last two decades, this issue of “Art market scam” has been appearing consistently. And even before that, many may have encountered the problem, fathomed it but couldn’t bring the light to it that way, unfortunately.  Since the art market‍‍`s inception and prestige dominance has been at its peak, the new dimensions of thoughts of the art market being a scam took all the attention now.  

In the very first place, enjoy the liberty of knowing the name of a book that best elaborates the fact of the art market economics and explains it meticulously, “ The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art” by Donald N. Thompson.  Yes, Donald attempted to give his readers the fundamental conceptions of the contemporary art market economics and the psychology of the present art world. 

Allison Schrager, in one of his Quartz articles on 2013, wrote about how a brand building or pseudo prestige creation spearheads the price manipulation of art. He also states that the primary art market differs because galleries keep sales prices secret and are pretty determined about who they’ll sell to. This indicates that sometimes art galleries target potential buyers. Art prices are not market-set prices.

He also bombarded another secret. As per his claims, the art market fosters an artist, and galleries always possess the long-term planning and resources to execute.  In other words, they raise an artist‍‍`s career, boost it and consequently, enjoy the profit. The artist‍‍`s career is a plotted one. 

In that article, he showed exactly the process for an art graduate to follow to grab the attention of galleries and patronisers and then reach for excellence.

There exists a lower tier of the art market as well. But even if the art refers to actual art (relative opinion) and the artist fails to reach the elite end, he may end up not financially supporting himself. 

If we dig deep, one of the dark secrets of the art market is that ‍‍`art gets sold and bought for money laundering purposes‍‍` too. Comply advantages urges and warns people and art dealers to stay ahead of financial crime, and they described how money laundering could take place using art pieces. And in European countries, money laundering using arts has been prevalent for centuries, reports different law firms around UK and Europe. 

We will dig deeper and reveal all the exclusive secrets you still don’t know about art markets, including how time increases the rate of an art piece in a burgeoning manner. 

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