Girl Econ 101

Should we start a revolution?

I want to preface this by saying that I am NOT an economist and don’t know too much about the global economy. All I have is my intuition and my heart! I have been thinking a lot about the death trap that is the pricing of art. I think about how many young artists whose prices peak so early that before the point of maturation, only about 0.1% of people can actually afford to collect it. What does that do to any desire for experimentation? It feels like the work becomes stagnant just at the point when it’s supposed to start getting interesting.

One of the things I won’t allow in the art world or in my personal life is the idea that I should follow the status quo because it is what is done. It has taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that, actually, naturally I don’t want to (and my most important privilege is that I don’t have to), adhere to societal norms that don’t make sense to me. Realising that I’m not conventional, nor do I have to be is one of the most liberating things to ever happen to me. Sometimes it feels lonely, but most times it feels right.

I’m always thinking about my work with this in mind, finding ways to make this art system work for me. To not dig myself into deep financial holes for the sake of looking like I have motion. I say no all the time. And sometimes I ask myself if that represents a lack of ambition. If my dedication to working within myself and my means signifies that I will never be great. No risk no glory, right? But I want it to be sustainable, to make audiences (and myself) happy, to make the artists (and myself) money.

Anyways, I have an idea. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I’m a little worried that someone that knows finance and economics is going to read this once and be like…this doesn’t make sense. But here goes. What would happen if artwork prices did not constantly have to increase in value? What if there was a (loose, non-binding) cap for the market of living artists? You know how in sports, you’re probably going to have one big contract, probably between the ages of 25 and 28, and then on either side of that you are paid what is normal for your age range. In art, should the big contract not be in your late 40s or 50s? Should you not be accruing a lifetime of experience and experimentation before your work becomes inaccessible to 99.9% of the world?

I am constantly worried about the pressure young, popular artists are under. To sustain a market, to make enough work but not too much, to keep galleries happy and open.

The idea of the value of an artwork increasing infinitely makes me really uncomfortable. If I use the example of luxury here, say Hermes, the price increases are always incremental. Never really to the point of pricing out their core customers or supporters. What if we didn’t increase pricing exorbitantly after every museum show or insane auction result or sold out exhibition. What if at the beginning of an artists’ career, we say, hey, I feel like your ultimate primary market goal price should be $250k, and we will be steadily working towards that. What if once an artist’s work reached a certain price it just didn’t have to get any higher? What if we all practiced satisfaction and contentment?

What if there was no shame in your primary market prices fluctuating or going down? What if different models cost different things? So more commercially popular artwork has a certain price, and then if that artist were to experiment with something new, they might price it lower, with no shame and with an invitation for a different type of collector to come in?

One of the reasons I’m thinking about this is, no matter how much black people have progressed, we are constantly priced out of artworks by the top tier of black artists. And I also think about how often I hear our greats disrespected, snide comments about their markets, their works not selling anymore, their recent “poor” auction results.

There is obviously no one size fits all solution to this. But I think it might be nice for artists and us as auxiliaries to think a bit more thoroughly about how they see their markets, what they want to achieve, who they want to sell to, and create models that are flexible and dynamic.

I have had a really hard time connecting to “blue-chip” artists recently. There is something that feels overly polished about the exhibitions, like the urge to be commercially successful is negatively impacting the art of making. I’m trying to figure out how (in my immediate world) to bring back imperfection, mess, feeling. Because when people are spending a lot of money on something, they want it to be perfect and polished. I get it. They don’t want to see signs of experimentation, of amateur-ish mark-making or messy lines. So it feels like we’re stuck in this loop, of career artists making work that will help them sustain their careers, and collectors expecting that if they’re paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for something, it better look exactly as advertised. And I personally, want out of this cycle. Should we start a revolution? Let me know what you think.