The Supermodel and the Brillo Box
Back Stories and Peculiar Economics from the World of Contemporary Art
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Acquiring contemporary art is about passion and lust, but it is also about branding, about the back story that comes with the art, about the relationship of money and status, and, sometimes, about celebrity. The Supermodel and the Brillo Box follows Don Thompson's 2008 bestseller The $12 Million Stuffed Shark and offers a further journey of discovery into what the Crash of 2008 did to the art market and the changing methods that the major auction houses and dealerships have implemented since then. It describes what happened to that market after the economic implosion following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and offers insights and art-world tales from dealers, auction houses, and former executives of each, from New York and London to Abu Dhabi and Beijing. It begins with the story of a wax, trophy-style, nude upper-body sculpture of supermodel Stephanie Seymour by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, which sold for $2.4 million to New York über-collector and private dealer Jose Mugrabi, and recounts the story of a wooden Brillo box that sold for $722,500. The Supermodel and the Brillo Box looks at the increasing dominance of Christie's, Sotheby's, and a few über dealers; the hundreds of millions of new museums coming up in cities like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Beijing; the growing importance of the digital art world; and the shrinking role of the mainstream gallery.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Economist Thompson (The $12 Million Stuffed Shark) makes the argument that the buying and selling of art has much in common with the buying and selling of other financial products, albeit obscured by subjective concepts of beauty and talent and the fact that the results of major auctions are never found in the business section of the New York Times. Yet, as with the stock market, "selling prices are reprinted in news media around the world regardless of the general indifference of most readers to the items being sold." Thompson himself is not so much indifferent as contemptuous of some prices achieved by contemporary art. In the first half of the book, he questions how value is assigned to a Damian Hirst shark, a bust of model Stephanie Seymour by Maurizio Cattelan, or a stack of Brillo boxes commissioned but never touched by Andy Warhol. An engaging and focused analysis of the market players (artists, agents, dealers, auction houses, and buyers) follows. A chapter on auctions is a particularly insightful illustration of pricing in the context of behavioral finance and game strategy. Because the art market simultaneously ignores, exaggerates, and mimics financial markets, the subject is a goldmine for an economist, and Thompson can be forgiven for the book's occasionally uneven moments. 8-page color photo insert.
