Hands up for Hirst - via THE ECONOMIST

With Hands Up For Hirst, The Economist offers a thought provoking assessment of the longitudinal impact that the Sotheby’s sponsored, 2008, Damien Hirst auction, “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” has had on the market for the iconic artist’s work. Perhaps most relevant is the penetrating analysis of Hirst’s ambition to increase the amounts paid for his works as primary versus secondary sales.  Most likely, the fluctuations in the sale/demand for Hirst’s work represent a simple market reaction caused by saturation following the auction and the subsequent collapse of financial markets. But, thinking about predominant sales categories for artworks, viewing the charts from the article that analyzed and contrasted the market for Hirst’s work (see below), and considering the recent reflections of Takashi Murakami (click here and here for excerpts) about the impact the financial crisis has had not only on the art market, but also the artist’s process, my wheels began to spin.  

• If the recent boom in art sales has cause the public to expect more from artists, as Takashi claims, what forms does more take?  Does more simply mean more primary works to be sold in galleries? Does more mean daring auctioning arrangements that produce record sales? Or does more include, if not require, all manner of derivative works and project collaborations between artists and outside firms/brands?
  
• The data above illustrates a tremendous appetite for art - both the Hirst and Artnet Index have beaten the S&P 500 for the last decade - but is the market stifling itself by limiting its range of motion to only two primary types of sales? Look what consumer product collaborations have done for Takashi (check the JNOMICS archive for many posts about these and other like projects).  Is this a question of using infinite goods to sell those which are scarce? (click here for more about this)
  
• Obviously the market is much larger than just one artist or movement, but I guess what I’m driving at (it could change tomorrow) is, given the critical insights of Takashi and the torrid fluctuations of Hirst’s market since ‘Beautiful,’ (after selling $270m in ‘08 his sales fell off 93% to $19m in ‘09 and is projected to sell even less this year), would the market be wise to use this moment as an opportunity to expand its reach via a more diversified set of product offerings and price points. Is there a different market structure or group of business models that could expand the influence/purpose of the art market? 
  

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