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Trade off: Markets for art in the UK
Emilia Telese’s opening essay offers analysis of the markets for art in the UK highlighting the ‘contradictions and idiosyncrasies’ of the relationship between artists and money,
The relationship between artists and money has always been one of contradictions and idiosyncrasies. Fine art higher education in the UK concentrates mainly on the artist’s intellectual pursuit, somewhat disconnected from any idea of financial independence. This promotes the idea that, in order to ‘make a living’, new graduates must ‘acquire’ an agent or dealer, someone who will hopefully turn up at the degree show and hand-pick those merit-worthy enough to add to their roster of artists. This stereotype has been changing in the past ten years as more organisations concerned with artists’ professional development, advocacy and the representation of rights are making the understanding of market dynamics less opaque and mysterious, creating more self-deterministic attitudes amongst new artists. But the problem remains of resolving the relationship between artists and financial stability through their work, and of establishing whether this can result in first-person involvement with a system of value exchanges which many associate with cold-blooded calculation rather than artistic integrity. Whilst many people associate the art market with the...
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