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- Title
Through a screen, darkly: Exploring audiovisual media representations of the art market from 2008 to the present.
- Authors
Quiñones Vilá, Claudia S.
- Abstract
Over the past decade, since the 2008 economic recession, the art market has become a global industry worth billions, harnessing the power of technology and social media as well as old-fashioned personal networks. On the other hand, the art market has been criticized due to its relative lack of transparency and raised concern over its ties to antiquities looting, money laundering, and terrorism financing. Amidst these changes, interest in the art market across all levels of society has grown and media depictions of the art market have become prevalent, including films, television programs, and documentaries. These depictions have many themes. For instance: Velvet Buzzsaw skewers critics and dealers alike in the art fair and gallery scene; Riviera illustrates the link between the mega-rich, contemporary art, money laundering, and private art foundations; the protagonist of White Collar is a skilled art forger and thief recruited by the FBI to solve crimes; Blood and Treasure covers antiquities looting in the Middle East; Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery and Driven to Abstraction are documentaries explore criminal aspects of the art world; and so forth. There is even an episode of Drunk History with a humorous version of the infamous robbery at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, demonstrating how the art market has become increasingly mainstream. This article will explore the ways in which selected audiovisual media depictions of the art market from 2008 to the present overlap with reality, as well as how and why the two differ. While representations of the art market have existed prior to this time frame, I am particularly interested in exploring the tension between insiders and outsiders due to the art market's recent popularity with non-market participants and its fixture as a part of the global economy through the constructed image of the art market in recent representations. Both fictional and non-fictional depictions exude a certain allure, even when portrayals are unflattering; but there are also exaggerated aspects that expose preoccupations with participants' behavior and the market itself. By examining these representations, I aim to illustrate how the art market has permeated global social consciousness and what this tells us about its future and ongoing evolution.
- Subjects
MIDDLE East; ART materials; ART industry; MEDIA art; ANTIQUITIES; ART dealers; UNITED States. Federal Bureau of Investigation; ISABELLA Stewart Gardner Museum; ART forgeries; ARTS endowments; JOB fairs
- Publication
Journal for Art Market Studies, 2021, Vol 5, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
2511-7602
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.23690/jams.v5i1.110