The Art Market and Cultural Industries

Course Objective

After completing the course, the student is able to:
LO1: Be conversant with different methodologies that are used when analysing the function of the arts in society;
LO2: Distinguish between the main actors and institutions on the art market, and how their roles and relations have evolved over time, and apply this to case studies;
LO3: Engage with recent theoretical approaches to the art market and its relation and impact on wider socio-economic structures;
L04: Have critical knowledge of the range and scope of public policies stimulating and regulating the production and consumption of culture and the arts, and how they have developed over time;
LO5: Make a critical institutional scan of a cultural institution or agent on the art market.

Course Content

Art works, their makers and public have always been part of social, political, cultural, religious and economic networks. In this respect, the 19th-century concept of “Art for art’s sake” tells us perhaps more about the much-desired emancipation of “artists” in the Western world from the whims of patrons, guilds and art academies, than about art itself. Drawing from a wide range of historical and present-day examples, this course will investigate relations between art, artists and the market. How has the profession of the artist and artistic education changed over the centuries? How can we define the relationship between artists and patrons, then and now? What is the institutional role of art academies, art dealers, museums and the government? Case studies range from late medieval commissions of altarpieces to the rise of the art dealer in seventeenth-century Dutch cities, from the Salon in nineteenth-century Paris to the present-day phenomenon of art fairs. We will also look at museums, from their origins in princely collections to the challenges that current museums are facing, with receding government funding, changing geo-political realities, and restitution claims from both private persons, communities and states. In the final leg of the course, we look at various models of cultural policy and the rationales behind them. Students will learn to look at these processes with an interdisciplinary approach, making use of various methodologies. They will work with key concepts such as social distinction, art worlds, the culture industry, the commodification of art and cultural imperialism to understand the (changing) social significance given to art and the culture industry, and the relationship between art and the economy.

Teaching Methods

• Lectures and Guest lecture
• Group discussions

Method of Assessment

A/ Weekly readings presentations (in pairs) of 30 min, (20%)
+ Reflections & responses (10%)
B/ Individual Research Paper, 1.500-2.000 words words, (20%)
+ Presentation of 10 min. (15%)
C/ Field Report Institutional Scan, max. 1.000 words per person (in pairs), (20%)
+ Presentation of 20 min. (15%)

Entry Requirements

Completed first year.