Has the art marketplace hit a proverbial wall in the Internet conundrum?

What is being proposed is that the contemporary art markets need an “essential tension” between marketplace practice and creative innovation.

This so-called “normal-market convention” is chronological and continues along one path until it is interrupted by a paradigm shift. An example:

When Nicolaus Copernicus first proposed heliocentrism — the idea that planets revolved around the sun rather than the Earth —

he was not taken seriously.

Today as art museums take a high perch and bequeath validity, as art auctions, art fairs and art galleries abdicate to a self-perceived moral high ground, and the Internet bestows legitimacy to a morass of hodge-podge art indifference.

The lowly artists have become a commodity, purveyors of fine art practice, wonder and amusement.

All one needs is to review auction and gallery catalogs from a decade ago to identify the then new, original, unique, and valuable market trends-setters who (in hindsight) are nowhere to be seen or heard from today. 

The new job of art is to sit on the wall and get more expensive.

– Robert Hughes

In today’s world of alternative-fact art sales, guarantee wish lists and questionable monetary sources, the underlying story is that the art market is nothing but varied stories told by people who already have a stake in it.

As art auctions and markets become worldwide, as regional fairs and territorial art markets aspire and seek international attention, the emphasis and the result is a polyglot of Global Culture. And that is not necessarily a good thing for the art marketplace. 

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