What is it about?
This chapter examines the forces pushing for the use of art as a financial investment and the forces working against that move.
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Why is it important?
Given that artworks are almost the ultimate difficult-to-value item, examination of the moves towards treating artworks as investments is an interesting area for accounting, finance and economics, with relevance for all difficult-to-value asset areas.
Perspectives
One interesting part of this chapter is the motivation for art gallerists to be opposed to treating artworks as an investment. Not only are there moral qualms about treating as assets artworks that should be looked at and appreciated, there can be practical opposition, given the potential downside of speculation.
Erica Coslor
University of Melbourne
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This page is a summary of: The Financialization Of Art, November 2012, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199590162.013.0025.
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The Financialization of Art
The financialization of art merits the attention of social scientists studying finance for a number of reasons. First of all, in spite of the fact that the investment potential of art has long been recognized (section one), its recent financialization has been resisted by both members of the art world and of the financial markets. Members of the art world have opposed the definition of art as an asset class and the commensuration efforts which this definition entails (see second section). Members of the financial community, in contrast, have hesitated to recognize art as a valid asset class because of the art market's lack of liquidity, transparency, and standardization. Their opposition has, however, gradually eroded in a three-stage process of increasing rationalization and scientization of the market. As part of this process, art investment has been legitimated by adopting role models, organizational blueprints, and market devices from the world of finance (section three). Economists have played a key role in this process of rationalization and scientization: they have developed art price indexes that, by rendering art recognizable as an asset class, function as boundary objects (see fourth section). But in spite of the market-making efforts of economists and other "institutional entrepreneurs" (c.f., Battilana, Leca, and Boxenbaum 2009), the financialization of art is hardly complete. This is predominantly caused by continuing information asymmetries and failure to construct liquidity in art markets (section five). [Excerpt]
The Financialization of Art
The financialization of art merits the attention of social scientists studying finance for a number of reasons. First of all, in spite of the fact that the investment potential of art has long been recognized (section one), its recent financialization has been resisted by both members of the art world and of the financial markets. Members of the art world have opposed the definition of art as an asset class and the commensuration efforts which this definition entails (see second section). Members of the financial community, in contrast, have hesitated to recognize art as a valid asset class because of the art market's lack of liquidity, transparency, and standardization. Their opposition has, however, gradually eroded in a three-stage process of increasing rationalization and scientization of the market. As part of this process, art investment has been legitimated by adopting role models, organizational blueprints, and market devices from the world of finance (section three). Economists have played a key role in this process of rationalization and scientization: they have developed art price indexes that, by rendering art recognizable as an asset class, function as boundary objects (see fourth section). But in spite of the market-making efforts of economists and other "institutional entrepreneurs" (c.f., Battilana, Leca, and Boxenbaum 2009), the financialization of art is hardly complete. This is predominantly caused by continuing information asymmetries and failure to construct liquidity in art markets (section five). [Excerpt]
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