By MICAH J. MALONE For the past few columns I have focused on artists who began their careers – and built reputations – with work marked by a ruthless economy of means. Many artists who start with low cost materials…
By MICAH J. MALONE I’ve hesitated to comment on the following story, if only because it is still being written. However, the fascinating conundrum that faces Chris Burden and Gagosian Gallery is far too rich to pass up. As was…
By MICAH J. MALONE What does it mean to sell something that does not have a definitive form? In my exploration of this question, I will focus on the generation that has led to many misconceptions about the commodity status…
By MICAH J. MALONE The fantastic book “Old Masters and Young Geniuses” does something almost unheard of: Author David Galenson formulates the two distinct archetypes of modern art through economic criteria and data. For Galenson, modern artists can be differentiated…
By MICAH J. MALONE Marcel Duchamp was always part of the market. Indeed, one can argue (and many have before me) that nearly all of Duchamp’s gestures were linked in one way or another to the economic machinery of his…
MARKETWATCH By Micah J. Malone Developing surprising ways to extract value from existing products is nothing new. In many ways it defines modern innovation. If one looks at the internet, arguably the single most important invention in today’s post-modern society, one…
MARKETWATCH By Micah J. Malone As exciting as this is, imagine how exciting the collapse is going to be! The above quote turned out to be a bit of a prelude. Speaking at the Frieze art fair well before the economic…
MARKETWATCH By Micah J. Malone Within the Blogosphere of art, I cannot count the number of times in the last week I’ve read some version of the phrase “the tanking of the economy will refocus the art world on interesting ideas…
MARKETWATCH By Micah J. Malone How are artists affected by a down economy? With artists being both inside and outside of the general market, it is often difficult to gauge the effects a poor economy actually has. On the one hand,…
MARKETWATCH By Micah J. Malone Marketwatch was created as a means to speculate on what is good economic value in art. From time to time I will write upon great market choices, emphasizing small-scale enterprises. When talking about art markets, comparisons…