Dirk Boll

A Cultural History of the Art Auction in 14 Portraits

It is possible that money has always played a role in the perception of art. Certainly this became obvious in the 1980s, when collectors from Japan bought Impressionist paintings following the investment of British pension funds in this category a few years earlier. Similarly, everybody began to buy Contemporary Art in the 1990s. These days it is an accepted fact that the market value of art has a bearing on the canonisation process. We may regret this, but it is unlikely to change any time soon. The all-encompassing transparency that the Internet now brings to the market practically guarantees a grassroots democratic approach and also leaves an indelible mark. Since more than half of all art works sold globally in 2013 achieved prices below €3,000, the market clearly also plays an important role in popularizing the arts.1

Even though art markets follow traditional rules and regulations, they have been subject to unprecedented change since the turn of the millennium. At last, auction houses have achieved a transformation from wholesaler to retail business. This was only possible once they had established themselves in the eyes of the buyer as a third channel of commerce alongside art fairs on the one hand and galleries and dealerships on the other. New auction buyers are mainly ‘end consumers’ who are willing to pay higher prices than traders and are receptive to client development activities.

In the course of this evolution, the art world has quite clearly become an art industry, at least on its commercial side. As such, it now displays numerous industrial characteristics such as procurement analysis, sales planning, client service, public relations, and brand marketing. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the auction business, where sales are of a public nature and industrial elements become increasingly evident the larger a firm becomes.

But what kind of industry is this actually? There are two large enterprises with business plans: Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Think Starbucks, or Nespresso. The implementation of the plan is facilitated by direct competitors from the art trade, who have always had a certain entrepreneurial interest in the success of the auction business model, since they can easily use the public validation of art to support their own commercial activities.

When the hammer comes down at auction, it creates a moment of truth, a price achieved in public. This is often explained and almost condoned by the argument that art is merely used as an investment vehicle and that the market is thus manipulated by its participants. However, even the counter-argument – emphasizing the exceptionally high quality of a work of art that sells at a very high price – is only a mitigation masquerading as an explanation. Economically, there is a simple fact: goods were offered and demand