Tästä maasta tulee saunavihta. Sekä kotimaista basilika. Haluat pasittain tuoretta yrittiä salaattiin tai pizza-päälle. Koti-maista tuoteperheistä löydet maistuvaa jokaisen ruokahetkeen. Kotimaista, tästä maasta. Ja S-ryhmän ruokakaupoista. Meille akria elänvakuutuksessa on tärkeää, että lemmikilläsi on mahdollisuus parhaa sen hoitoon. Elänvakuutuksessa on tarjoavat sopivan turvan kaikenlaisiin tarpeisiin. Siinä valitset vakuutuksen laajuuden, metarjoamme maksuttaman etä elänlääkärin, sekä nopean suora korvauksen klinikan kasalla. Luöllisää, akriapistefi. Kuten tänään on tärkeää, että seuraavaksi, koko kaiken ja oon osa ja kylsiä ja kylsiä. Kylsi ja kylsiä, muistaa ja muistaa, seuraavaksi ja muistaa. Suomessa on tullut syy resource breakthrough olet sokteltaровna afin sosiaalajan artiessa. Buona, usability Mosten syytä huipsハ아ikkaivista hystääkin giveawayus, Nvidia plankeista siihen, kun on attempting. Sitten on, että on tullut syytä huipsハ아ikkaivista hystääkin, mutta onko se, että arti ei ole kumatodeita? Kumatodeita on orensjuus ja koppu. Siinä ei ole kumatodeita, mutta itse on yksi kumatodeita, ja suomalaiset on suomalaiset ja suomalaiset. Tämä on tosi kumatodeita. Onko se, että on tullut syytä huipsハ아ikkaivista. 55-lifetä olet jäällä New York-sidä, ja myökset ovat jäällä kumatodeita, ja kumatodeita on yksi kumatodeita, jota on yksi kumatodeita, jota kumatodeita, jota kumatodeita, jota kumatodeita. Saksi maailma on joutunut, mutta onko se nyt joutunut. Marka kohtaan toallsi about the better especially -
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ay sun maoppounceeista en ole29. Se on muut Edwardaun stoittavasti suuritt � caution mat Alexi telefonen jälkeen 255. Mutta niissä jälkeen ei ole Alex Niels niitä. Se on yksi famalia, joka on tosi pahdottavasti. Se on näitä 100-duolle. Se on yksi niitä, jota ei ole mukaan mukaan. Se on se, että se on väärä, että se on tullut russi. Tiedä on Frikinamikos. Se on yksi famalia, että se on tullut russi. Se on yksi famalia, että se on yksi famalia, että se on yksi kertoo. Se on yksi famalia, että se on yksi kertoo, että se on yksi kertoo. Se on yksi hienoa, että se on yksi kertoo. Se on yksi famalia, että se on yksi kertoo. Se on yksi kertoo. Se on Frikinamikos. In October 1973, Sudobi's Auction House in New York helda sail of contemporary art. It came from the collection of Robert and Ethel skull who had made their money running a taxi cab empire. The sail turned out to be the start of a craze that has only accelerated ever since. Robert skull had been a passionate collector of paintings by Jasper John's Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Robert Rousssonberg and many others. When skulls started buying these paintings, often directly from the artists, they weren't particularly expensive. By 1973, that had changed. Sudobi's broke several records at night, selling 50 pieces from skulls collection for a total of $2.2 million, on average, that's $44,000 per piece. Today, that number sounds quaint. As we heard last week, a single, Alice Neill painting, and not at all a remarkable one, recently sold for $2.5 million. But in 1973, people were blown away by these auction prices. Big prices were one thing for old master paintings, but for art that was made recently and bought cheap. Here's the art critic, Robert Hughes, from a documentary called "The Mona Lisa Curse". $1,000 to $2,000 on average for a Rousssonberg or Jasper John's. The painter and graphic artist, Robert Rousssonberg, a fixture in the pop art scene, was one of the biggest names in the sail. Years earlier, Robert skull had bought directly from Rousssonberg, a piece called "Thaw". He paid $900. On this night, at Sotheby's, it sold for $85,000. Rousssonberg, on whose work skull had made such a profit, "Gate crashed skull celebrations". The documentary shows Rousssonberg giving skull a not-so-playful punch in the shoulder. And then he says, "I got a price set, you need some flowers!" In case you couldn't make that out, the artist says to the collector, "For Christ's sake, you didn't even send me flowers!" To which the collector says, "Send you flowers!" Then Rousssonberg says, "It was a great markup!" "It was a great markup!" "You're right, you're right!" "I've been working my ass off, "but you can make that profit." Rousssonberg was angry. He felt skull was disloyal. No longer a collector, but a profiteer. But then, skull turns the tables. He points out that Rousssonberg would also benefit from these inflated prices. "Hi, by George, that you're gonna sell now. I've been working for you too. We worked for each other." Rousssonberg freezes, he doesn't seem to know what to say, as if he hadn't even considered what the inflated auction price would do for him. And then, he gives skull a hug. "You buy the next one, okay? "You buy the next one." "Well, I'll take a look at it and then. " "I'm with this studio." "All right, why not?" [Train horn] So that was a quasi happy ending for Robert Rousssonberg. Still, here's a big question. When you see an artwork selling at auction for many multiples of what the artist originally received, should you feel bad for the artist? Knowing they don't get a penny? No, you shouldn't, because auction prices have greatly increased.
signaling power for the primary market. That's Magnus Rache, an economist who studies the art market. Sometimes prices in auctions are much higher than the gallery prices. However, you'll soon see that the prices in the galleries will go up because the galleries justifies the price increase by saying, "Hey, look at the recent auction results." Galleries and buyers are using auctions in order to inflate prices. But Rache argues there is a catch, a gigantic catch, 99.9% of the artists that you see at galleries and exhibitions, their value will never increase. In other words, Robert Rouchenberg was lucky to have the problem he had. Lucky that his work was considered special enough to be sold for a huge markup on the secondary market in an auction. This meant he could at least indirectly recover some of that markup by increasing his prices on the primary market. But again, Rouchenberg was in a tiny minority. The art market is a gigantic pyramid with just a few artists at the top who command high prices. Truthfully, it's feast or famine. Everybody wants to buy your work or nobody wants to buy your work. That's Candice Prendergast, another economist who studies the art market. He is at the University of Chicago where he also manages the business school's art collection. We have an endowment and our annual budget is a little short of a quarter of a million dollars, which even though it's a lot of money is a pittance to the contemporary art world. So talk about that. I've had a little experience with galleries and artists and auction houses and museums in New York where it seems that there is this really almost a handful of desired upcoming artists. But the minute they're anointed, their price goes from close to zero to quite a lot. The way that relationship usually works is that they will show their first couple of times and the price might be $20,000. Once it becomes known that this is a desired artist, there is a line around the corner. But the price doesn't change from 20 for a while. Instead, what they do is they give it to MoMA, if MoMA was interested. MoMA is the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Or increasingly, they give it to very well placed private collectors. And once it gets into that network, that's what allows prices to go up like crazy. So what you have is that strange interregnum where people are queuing around the corner. And this is where you also get a lot of the discontent of galleries where somebody will buy it at $20,000 and the next day they'll turn around and sell it at auction. And galleries obviously don't like that? No. In the same way as what happens with Cubs tickets, you know, playoff tickets, they turn around and flip it. I believe this happens with luxury watches too, even when they're sold at market prices and some high-end cars like a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Absolutely. It's exactly the same thing. Or it's even true for sneakers, for example. And companies are now deciding how to manage that kind of secondary market in a way that they didn't before. When it comes to contemporary art, the galleries who represent artists have to manage this potentially large gap between their market, the primary market and the auction market or other secondary sales. I mean, at the core, we set prices based on supply and demand. That's David's Werner, one of the most successful art dealers in the world. He runs galleries in the US, Europe and Asia. Last year, he did more than three-quarters of a billion dollars in sales. But then we also look at external factors. What's happening in an artist's career? Are there major exhibitions in the horizon? Is this artist making very few pieces? And we come up with the right price. It's fair, respectful to the career, but not ahead of the market so you create a problem down the line. Let's say you find a new artist and this artist has 12 paintings and the right price is $100,000. Can we work with that number for starters? Sure. But you know you could easily find 12 people to buy these paintings or maybe one person to buy all of these paintings for $200,000 each or maybe $500,000. What would be the downside of going for the maximum price? The downside might be that the artist decides to create a very different body of work and all of a sudden those 12 buyers run for the exit. They don't like this work. You are stuck out there with very high prices, right? The downside is also that all of a sudden three works by this artist show up at auction and don't sell. And you are stuck out there with very high prices and you can't recover. The prices are somewhat miraculously a one-way road. Prices have to go up to sustain careers and that's why I'm very much of the philosophy. If you want to be in it for the long haul, be smart about prices. Don't be greedy. Go step by step. This is one of the things that makes the art market such a strange market. For most products, when demand rises sharply, the manufacturer will increase supply and/or raise prices in order to exploit that surging demand. And that works fine if you're making widgets or t-shirts. You can quickly ramp up supply even tenfold if you have to. But if you are a galerist with an artist who suddenly grown hot, you can't tell them to just paint ten times faster, although you'd better believe it has been tried. As far as raising prices, that has its own problems too. As David's Werner told us, you don't want to have to lower prices later and damage the artist's reputation. And as Canis Prendergast told us, you also don't want to allow just anyone to buy the painting because that anyone might be a speculator who's only interested in flipping the painting at auction for a large profit. So what can a galerist do? Canis Prendergast again. It's not pervasive, but does happen. When you buy a work, they will make you sign a contract which gives them, meaning the gallery, the right of first refusal for any further purchases. So if you decide to sell it, you have to sell it back to the gallery. Those contracts exist, but are not very pervasive. Because they're borderline illegal? Correct. I think that's exactly what it is. A more common tactic is for galleries to select their buyers very carefully. How did they manage this? Imagine you walk into a gallery and see a piece you really like. Some of the other pieces by the same artist are marked with a red dot, meaning it's salt. This one has a green dot. That means it's reserved. And what does reserved mean? Yeah, that's a crazy thing. The artist Tom Sachs again. On reserve means, which is such a bullshit thing, which means someone's interested in this. It's like, so I can't really promise it to you, but it also probably means if you are really important, I'll probably screw over the first guy and sell it to you. What kind of important do you mean when you say that? Like is just wealth important enough? No, I think wealth is very, very important. I think influence like, hey, this guy might buy two paintings and give one to a museum. For another view of how galleries manage their buyers, I went to Amy Capelazzo. She is an art market powerhouse who knows pretty much everybody and everything. I walk in, let's say it's a gallery showing a relatively new artist. I've read a lot about this artist. I think she's amazing. They're hot, hot, hot, right? Right. And I'm not told they're sold, but I'm not told the price either. I'm sorry, it's on hold right now. And I say, well, whatever it's on hold for, I'm willing to match and increase 25%. What happens now? Typically dealers won't do that because you probably have a cadre of four or five that are your mainstay collectors. And you really have got to reward them first because they come back for every show. And they'll buy something even that's not hot, hot, in your next show. Do you find it an ethical practice of the gallery? I find it a practice of necessity that might have only 10 paintings and there's 100 people asking. So it's going to be some discriminating process that determines who gets what? A lot of small galleries have a roster of artists, let's say, 10, 12 artists that they sell and represent. And maybe one or two of them is the cash car for the whole pack. So those two artists become the bait for collectors and the dealers might say, well, I can't tell you this, but I can tell you this other artist I represent. And if you start buying the stuff you don't want, it will eventually get you the stuff you do want. I heard a story of a gallery saying, I'll tell you this piece by this artist only if you buy this other piece by this other artist that I represent that doesn't sell as well. Right. I mean, it's not like that's illegal. Right? It's just sh*t. Can you imagine if you were that second artist and you heard that story? I guess you'd be grateful that something sold because it's money, but like, ew, it's slimy. Just to be clear, this is not the only slimy scenario that Tom Sacks has encountered during his career. There's this phrase that was coined by a friend of mine, an art dealer named Hugo Nathan called LPM lies per minute. He says, oh, she's got about seven LPM. He's only working at a three. And the lies are things like, always in secondary market, they will sell a piece for like $100,000. Let's say you own the dealer and I saw
for $100,000 and we did deal that we'd split at 50/50, right? But I tell you that we only sold it for $70,000. And everyone finds out everything because they're bragging about it at the cocktail party. But the R World is so f***ed up that they'll tolerate a certain amount of lying as long as it's worth their while to do the next deal. I don't really understand it. That's not how I was brought up, but that's something that happens. And I know that's happened to me because I found out. And the guilty party in this case was a gallerist then. It's always the gallerist that lies. Coming up after the break, we speak with another successful artist, Shavallal Aaluself, about being on the supply side of this very strange market, especially in the auction market. Completely dysthopic, surreal situation. And what is it that makes an artist keep going, even with all these headwinds? Nothing will stop them. Nothing. I'm Stephen Dubner. This is Freakonomics Radio. We'll be right back with the second episode of our three-part series, The Hidden Side of the Art Market. The Hidden Side of the Art Market. Shavallal Aaluself and I'm a painter. Shavallal Aaluself grew up in Harlem, got a degree in studio arts from Bard and then an MFA from Yale. Soon after, she landed a solo show and gallery representation. Now she is in her early 30s. Her career has already been a critical and commercial success. I think the art world can be very opaque. And until the point that you are fully immersed in it, many things don't make sense. Self is especially known for historically conscious portraits of black female figures, mixing paint, fabric and other materials. In galleries, her work likely sells for the mid to high five figures, but the art world being what it is, that's hard to verify. One of her galleries told us, "I am afraid I cannot provide a price range for Shavallal Aaluself's artworks on the primary market." Whatever the case, price isn't the only thing that self is thinking about when she sells a piece. I mean, I care a lot about who buys my artwork. The work has its own life once it leaves your studio and in it having its own life, it has its own story and part of its story as the person who owns it. I like to note that them owning the work can somehow broaden the narrative around that one particular piece. Self has had some positive experiences with buyers. Like works going to people who are wonderful collectors that may be done a line because they're not huge name collectors when it have been offered works. And she's had some less positive experiences. Early on in my career, a lot of people presented themselves as if they were going to be good fits for my work, that they really liked the work, that they respected the work. When reality, they saw no value in the work outside of it being an object. If you are not an artist or don't care much about art, that may sound odd because a painting by Shavallal Aaluself is, of course, an object. Those kinds of people are the ones that have resold the work. Those are the kind of people that have reduced the work to a pure monetary value. This too may sound odd. Shavallal Aaluself objecting to the idea that the original buyer of her work would focus on its monetary value. There was, after all, a mutually agreed upon financial transaction that put the painting in the buyer's possession in the first place. In a capitalist environment, we tend not to think too much about the emotional connection between the things we consume and the people who produce them. This does seem to be changing a bit. More and more consumers want ethically produced food and clothing, for instance. But for the most part, free markets train us to not make a strong connection between producer and consumer. That's what prices are for. A price is the point at which the desire of a consumer meets the need of a producer. But the art market is different. As we've been hearing in the series, price doesn't necessarily perform its standard function in the art market. There's too much subjectivity and too much volatility. But there's an even bigger issue. The products being sold here are the personal creation of an individual artist. A given artwork is an intimate, emotionally charged extension of the human who made it. So think about it from the artist's perspective. You've already agreed to sell what is essentially a piece of yourself. But then later, the buyer decides to get rid of it. Shabbalal herself has been successful enough to see her work resold at auction for a significant markup. Her auction average is over $270,000. How does she feel about that? I don't like my artwork selling at auction. I think the whole thing is vulgar, especially given the subject matter of my work. The overwhelming majority of my paintings deal with the black female body. Just a whole idea of having to have conversations about these works being at auction is so gross. I don't want my work in that context. I don't want my work being spoken about in that context. I don't want people bidding on my work in that way. It's very exploitative in many ways. The artists don't gain anything. You're using their name and all the works that they've made to put on this big production. A lot of people are making money off this, but the artist themselves, they're oftentimes overly exposed. And not in a way that's productive. I asked Tom Sachs how it feels when his work comes up for auction. How does it make me feel? It feels a little bit like a grift. Not a lot of my work goes up at auction. My work is so great. That people love it more than money and they hang on to it. Does the auction house even contact you or your gallery to say we've got this Tom Sachs piece coming up for sale? They contact me because they want me to promote it. They want me to make sure that it looks good. They want to make sure that it's not broken. That's clean. And that I made it. They want to make sure that there's a certificate of authenticity. And it's in my interest for it to yield a high price at auction, even if I don't get any of that. It's in your interest because it affects your overall reputation. There's a hope that it helps and doesn't hurt the primary market. But I really don't care about that stuff because I can't really control it. I can consecrate that I made it. I can offer help to explain if there's some questions, but it's not the motivating force. Sachs is represented by several galleries in the US, Europe, and Asia. Some of his pieces are large, complicated, and very labor intensive. Like the interactive space mission he was getting ready to show in Hamburg. But he makes smaller stuff too. Like a sneaker he made in partnership with Nike designed to hike around Mars in an earlier virtual space mission. His studio in New York employs roughly 20 people all trained in the intricacies of producing Tom Sachs originals. He even created a film about the proper way to work in the studio. It's called Ten Bullets. And the film itself is a work of art. Tongue in cheek and quite possibly a masterpiece. The studio is a complex and enigmatic working environment full of precise rules and principles. We call these rules and principles the code. Considering his substantial overhead, I wanted to know how Sachs and his galleries price his work. One thing I never do is say, oh, it cost me a dollar to make it so I can sell it for two or so for five. I never think about it like that. I make the thing I want to make and then I kind of hold it at arm's length like Macbeth and it's a skull in my hand. I'm like, what is this thing? Is this worth $3 or $1? And then I have to be really honest with myself and put whatever the cost and time aside and just let it be what it wants to be because when Marsel do show him, lean that snow shovel up against the wall and the critics said, how long did it take you to put that snow shovel against the wall? And he said, only just but a moment, but a lifetime before in contemplation. But when the sneakers, let's say, get sold on the secondary market for like two grand, what's that feel like for you? I know it's eight grand now, by the way, which is super annoying. It's embarrassing. It wasn't my intention. We were working to correct that because the whole point of doing a sneaker is to get it on people's feet and the fun of that and like sharing. I always tell artists, look, stop trying to hide from the
art market. That again is the art market maven Amy Capelazzo. And by the way, you need the market because otherwise the value of your work is simply a curiosity. There is no real ascertaination of value. So if you want to make a living, you need that big bag of market out there. Capelazzo has sold the work of countless artists at auction, often for prices much, much higher than they sold it for originally. She also knows many of these artists personally, including Tom Sachs. Oh, he's a high maker, like he's obsessive maker. So his priority is not making a lot of money. But he's got a studio to run, he's got a family and so on. But let's say I buy a piece by Tom Sachs through one of his galleries. Let's say I pay 50 grand, then 20 years from now, I sell it at auction for 100 times that much. As Tom's friend and supporter, how do you feel about that progression? Because the auction house is going to get more money from that commission than he did for making it. Does that strike you as fair? Look, artists used to sometimes call me and say, "I can't believe you're selling my work. I just sold that for $50,000." I was like, "Well, listen, I can put you on the phone with some other artists who sold the work for $50,000 and today it's worth two. If you want to just like balance out your concern, we could talk about what would happen on the other side." And I'd say, did you sell the work for money? Because if you traded it for love or something, maybe there's a rep in warranty problem on the ownership and I want to make sure there was clear title. If you traded it for money, that's the way it goes. How can you argue with that? But here's an interesting fact about the art market. Many artists are themselves priced out of it, even very successful artists. Tom Sacks again. One of the things that's been frustrating for me about my art career is like, "I'm not an art collector. I don't have the resources to buy the art that I want." You don't have the resources to buy your own art at market, price, right? I don't. I don't. In our camp and things have come up at auction, I haven't been able to buy them. This we should know is how capitalism often works. The bounty goes not to those who supply the market, but those who manage it or manipulate it. I wanted another perspective on this idea. So we went to Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art. When it comes to the art market, Lowry is a knowledgeable but largely disinterested party. If you're in the museum world, the art market runs parallel and sometimes intersects with what we do. But we're not as focused on the art market as many might think. Yeah. Talk to me for just a moment about Tom Sacks, if you would. I understand MoMA owns a lot of his works, practically a complete collection. Tom told us that he's grateful for all the support he's had from everywhere and he's hardly a starving artist. But he told us that he doesn't really have enough money to buy his own work when it goes on the secondary market. And I'm curious what you think of that situation of the value that's being accrued to artworks where the creator is often left out of the value chain. It's complicated. I'd like Tom a lot. I admire him. I think he's one of those artists whose work asks probing questions and is always surprising. He can take you to the moon and beyond faster than any other artist I know. But I've never thought about the degree to which artists are capable of acquiring their own work on the secondary market. But you can look at that through many different lenses, one of which is it shows that his work is accruing in value. And presumably that means that the next thing he sells will also benefit from that value. This you will remember is the same point the art collector Robert Skull made to the artist Robert Rouschenberg back at that 1973 auction. I've been working my ass off for you to make that trouble. How about yours? That you're going to sell now. We worked for each other. Robert LaLaSelf has also heard this argument. The idea is that if you work sales for a certain amount of money at auction, then you can raise your prices. But that's not always the case. And even if you couldn't, the auction is not something that is consistent or stable or even sane really. So to base your market on something that's constantly a flux like that is not a really good idea. As for being priced out of the market, self is in a similar position to Tom Sachs. Could I afford to buy one of my pieces at auction? No, I would not be able to. I don't know if I can even buy one of my pieces at primary market. The art's very expensive. But yeah, some pieces I would definitely love to buy back in the future. They're pieces that I miss and have disappeared. They've been purchased at auction and no one knows where they're at. It's all very secretive. But if I don't, it's okay. I've made the work myself. I suppose I can make myself another one, you know, front end of the world. But if you ask Shabbalala Self, whether an artist should get a share of the sale price when her work is resold at auction? Of course. I definitely feel like artists should get a royalty if their work is resold. I think most people would agree with that. The notion of an artist's royalty on resale is not a novel idea and it's not an imaginary idea. But it's back to Amy Capelazzo for some details. Can you tell me anything about legislation or regulation having to do with secondary market sales and the share of those sales that may go to an artist or a state? The art market has a funny history about this. A resale royalty to a living artist or an artist's state exists in Europe in something called the "Dwar des Suite" and it's for EU countries and it includes a couple of other non-EU countries. Dwar des Suite means right to follow in French. It's officially known in Europe as the artist's resale right. The law is meant to ensure that when a physical work of art is sold on the secondary market, the creator or their heirs will get a share of the price. But it wasn't really constructed right. It's not an intelligent form of taxation because you end up writing checks to like Gerhard Richter for 14,000 euros. As a matter of fact, the royalty is capped at just 12,500 euros. And Gerhard Richter is one of the top-selling living artists. His auction record is over 46 million dollars. Like if there's ever anyone in the world who doesn't need 14,000 euros, it's Gerhard Richter. And the artists who would be beneficiaries of such a thing generally have no markets. So when you sell something for 5,000 euros and they get a check for 50 euros, I mean, it's hard to say you're really doing what you intended. Maybe the smarter solution is like in Britain, they started a lottery where a certain percent of the lottery went to support the arts. Because what you're trying to do is with all the big rich money flowing into the art world, you're trying to help artists and help those pursuing artistic practice who might not have commercial output or are more committed to performance or other kinds of artworks that are less commercial to have a robust culture of that. I think the Dwarf to Suite is goofy and misguided. As this type of law may be, there are plenty of American artists who would like to see it practiced here, but it doesn't exist here. I asked Glenn Lowry from MoMA whether he'd be in favor. Well, other forms of artistic production like music have different copyright structures than the visual arts that permit creators to benefit from the ongoing use for periods of time of their creation. And in fact, living artists today do benefit from any reproduction of their works of art, at least if they belong to one of the many arts collaboratives that have come together. I'm all for artists benefiting from their creativity. And while the Dwarf to Suite has been discussed in this country on many occasions, it has been impossible to adopt for a variety of reasons, but we know from Europe that it can be made to work. And there's no reason why an artist shouldn't have the same benefit that a musician or a filmmaker has. What are the reasons that that isn't possible here? I've been in enough discussions over the years to understand that there just isn't the kind of consensus. Rather at the state or federal level to make that happen. There have been artists' royalty acts proposed in Congress, but none passed. The state of California did pass a royalties act backed by among others, Robert Roushenberg. It set aside a 5% royalty when the work of a California artist was sold in California by a California collector. As you can imagine, these restrictions were sufficiently narrow to prevent many royalties from being collected. After some legal challenges, the California royalty law was narrowed even more and now applies only to artwork created during a single year, 1977. Somehow it seems fitting, given everything we've learned about the art market this far, but an attempt to address this relatively simple royalty issue was so badly mangled. As we heard earlier from the economist, Candace Prendergaz, it's one of the strangest markets that I think I have ever seen. And Prendergaz, who truly loves art, is a great artist.
believes that the strangeness of the art market, it's illiquidity, it's lack of clear and obvious rules, that this has a large consequence. I think the market structure itself helps to lead to what's a very elitious to good. So because it is an elitist good and a luxury good, I think I see the obvious downside of that, which is that most people are excluded from participating in or enjoying something that theoretically could be a public good instead of a luxury good. Is there any way to quantify the loss of not having art be for the most part of public good? It's a terrific question. I don't know quite how to do it. Let me do it in a more negative sense, which is most forms of contemporary culture could legitimately claim to change people's beliefs, change political discourse or whatever. That's certainly true for music over the last 30 years. I think it's true for film. I think the great failing of contemporary art is that it leaves no mark essentially on the public. And I think it's because the public simply doesn't understand it, because the public simply doesn't interact with it. So it's very difficult to quantify what the cost is. But I think it's great failing, is its absence of impact on society more broadly in a way that I think most cultures have successfully done. And I think what's so striking is how many artists are trying to have that impact, but instead end up in an art warehouse in Switzerland. It's kind of heartbreaking what Prennigast suggests that the art market itself is responsible for the failure of modern artists to have a real impact on society. Isn't that in the end the true value of art? But Prennigast also notes that artists don't give up trying. I was struck by Tom Sachs' view of the art market that for all its sliminess and bullsh*t and lies per minute, all his words, by the way, that he is as devoted as ever to doing what he does. He's even fine with the current gallery system and the 50% commission that most galleries take. - And I think, by the way, whatever they take, it's a really good deal for me. - Because why? They don't do nothing. They have the expense of real estate. If they're good, they get out there and they sell it and do their job so I can do my job. My work is my life, so my dealers are really taking care of my life. It's kind of life and death, so someone can facilitate that in big ways and small ways, like emotionally, and then just take care of the finances. It means everything to me, so I can do the one thing that I'm put on this planet to do better than anyone else, which is make Tom Sacks art. I'm the best at making Tom Sacks art. That's the only thing I'm the best at. And Shabbalala Self, who finds the art market opaque and bizarre and vulgar, again, all her words, she too is fully committed to her life as an artist. Artists are meant to make works that are true and meaningful, that can help change people's opinions about themselves and about others and about the world in general. There's something that I've always done. It's the thing that I did before I ever got paid, before I made any money. I made art and I wanted to study art, and I wanted to be an artist. And MetroSpec, I realized that I always was an artist, but just now I'm a working artist. It's really knowing difference. And if I never got paid for another piece of work, I'd probably get more rest, so maybe I would make better work. I don't know. I feel a bit more clear-minded. And if you are looking for the ultimate example of the commitment to art making despite a mountain of hurdles, despite poverty, despite not having your work sell, just look to Alice Neal. In death, her work sells for hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. In life, she was marginalized. And yet. Alice Neal continues to inspire artists. That's Neal's biographer, Phoebe Hoban. But it's not just because of the fact that she's a great artist. It's also because she never gave up. As a role model, as someone who is so devoted to their passion and to their own creative drive, that nothing will stop them, nothing, not the death of a daughter, then the strangenment of a second daughter, the abandonment of her husband, and suicide attempts, nothing stopped this woman. Painting alone for 20 to 30 years, and just piling up the canvases in the hallway. Coming up next time, in our third and final installment of the hidden side of the art market, we track down the last person Alice Neal ever painted. This is my sitting Alice Neal's backyard. This is Alice beginning the portrait. We try to identify the biggest sources of disruption in the art market. This is where NFTs and the blockchain come in. Massive amount of information available today that was not available 20 to 30 years ago. New York is definitely not the singular global center that it was. And we chat with the disruptor of disruptors. Pain in the ass, troublemaker. For me, it's just one thing. Art, art, art, art. That's next time on the show. Until then, take care of yourself. And if you can, someone else too. Freakinomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. We can be reached at
[email protected]. You can and should listen to the entire archive of Freakinomics Radio. It's available free on any podcast app. This episode was produced by Morgan Levy with research help from Lyric Baudich and Alina Kulman. We also had help this week from Jeremy Johnston. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippen, Zach Lepinski, Mary Duke, Ryan Kelly, Emma Terrell, Jasmine Klinger, Eleanor Osborne, and Jacob Clementi. Our theme song is "Mr. Fortune" by the hitchhikers. All the other music was composed by Luis Guerra. If you like this show or any other show in the Freakinomics Radio network, please do recommend it to your friends and family. That is the best way to support your favorite podcasts. As always, thank you for listening. So, if you were a corporation, I don't know, maybe you are an LLC or whatever, what's your profit margin look like? I'm a profit margin. That kind of says it right there. I kind of went to the Marcel Duchamp School of Art, which is like, "Everything's Art and Nothing's Art." It's either "Priceless Art" or "Worthless Trash," and that's very hard to tell the difference. The Freakinomics Radio Network, the hidden side of everything. Stitcher. Good night.
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