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Conceptual Revolutions in Twentieth-Century Art

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  • David Galenson

Abstract

Art critics and scholars have acknowledged the breakdown of their explanations and narratives of contemporary art in the face of what they consider the incoherent era of "pluralism" or "postmodernism" that began in the late twentieth century. This failure is in fact a result of their inability to understand the nature of the development of advanced art throughout the entire twentieth century, and particularly the novel behavior of young conceptual innovators in a new market environment. The rise of a competitive market for advanced art in the late nineteenth century freed artists from the constraint of having to satisfy powerful patrons, and gave them unprecedented freedom to innovate. As the rewards for radical and conspicuous innovation increased, conceptual artists could respond to these incentives more quickly and decisively than their experimental counterparts. Early in the twentieth century, the young conceptual genius Pablo Picasso initiated two new practices, by alternating styles at will and inventing a new artistic genre, that became basic elements of the art of a series of later conceptual innovators. By the late twentieth century, extensions of these practices had led to the emergence of important individual artists whose work appeared to have no unified style, and to the balkanization of advanced art, as the dominance of painting gave way before novel uses of old genres and the creation of many new ones. Understanding not only contemporary art, but the art of the past century as a whole, will require art scholars to abandon their outmoded insistence on analyzing art in terms of style, and to recognize the many novel patterns of behavior that have been created over the course of the past century by young conceptual innovators.

Suggested Citation

  • David Galenson, 2009. "Conceptual Revolutions in Twentieth-Century Art," NBER Working Papers 15073, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15073
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    Cited by:

    1. Etro, Federico & Marchesi, Silvia & Stepanova, Elena, 2020. "Liberalizing art. Evidence on the Impressionists at the end of the Paris Salon," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    2. Renée B Adams & Roman Kräussl & Marco Navone & Patrick Verwijmeren & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2021. "Gendered Prices [Can culture affect prices? A cross-cultural study of shopping and retail prices]," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(8), pages 3789-3839.
      • Renée B Adams & Roman Kräussl & Marco Navone & Patrick Verwijmeren, 2021. "Gendered Prices," Published Paper Series 2021-4, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    3. Claire Dupin Beyssat & Diana Seave Greenwald & Kim Oosterlinck, 2023. "Measuring nepotism and sexism in artistic recognition: the awarding of medals at the Paris Salon, 1850–1880," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 47(3), pages 407-436, September.
    4. Börsch-Supan, Axel & Weiss, Matthias, 2016. "Productivity and age: Evidence from work teams at the assembly line," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 30-42.
    5. John Galbraith & Douglas Hodgson, 2015. "Innovation, experience and artists’ age-valuation profiles: evidence from eighteenth-century rococo and neoclassical painters," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 39(3), pages 259-275, August.
    6. Elias Julio Jorge & Castro Walter, 2023. "Adam Smith, Experimental Innovator, through the Lenses of Conceptual Innovators," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4649, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    7. Galbraith, John W. & Hodgson, Douglas J., 2012. "Dimension reduction and model averaging for estimation of artists' age-valuation profiles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 422-435.
    8. Zhiyong Tu & Lan Ju, 2019. "A Normative Dual-value Theory for Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies," Papers 1904.05028, arXiv.org.
    9. Adams, Renée & Kräussl, Roman & Navone, Marco & Verwijmeren, Patrick, 2018. "Is gender in the eye of the beholder? Identifying cultural attitudes with art auction prices," CFS Working Paper Series 595, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    10. Douglas Hodgson, 2011. "Age–price profiles for Canadian painters at auction," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 35(4), pages 287-308, November.
    11. Lan Ju & Zhiyong Tu & Changyong Xue, 2019. "Art Pricing with Computer Graphic Techniques," Papers 1910.03800, arXiv.org.
    12. David W. Galenson & Simone Lenzu, 2023. "Two old masters and a young genius: the creativity of Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Jean-Michel Basquiat," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 47(3), pages 489-511, September.
    13. Michel Serafinelli & Guido Tabellini, 2022. "Creativity over time and space," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 1-43, March.
    14. Robert B. Ekelund & John D. Jackson & Robert D. Tollison, 2015. "Age and productivity: An empirical study of early American artists," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(4), pages 1096-1116, April.
    15. Sanz, Esteve, 2015. "Copyright indicators and the costs of symbolic production: The cultural dimension of telecommunications policy," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 208-217.
    16. Stoyan V. Sgourev, 2013. "How Paris Gave Rise to Cubism (and Picasso): Ambiguity and Fragmentation in Radical Innovation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(6), pages 1601-1617, December.
    17. Galenson, David W., 2018. "Pricing revolution: From abstract expressionism to pop art," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 86-100.
    18. Ennio E. Piano, 2022. "Specialization and the firm in Renaissance Italian art," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 46(4), pages 659-697, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics
    • Z11 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economics of the Arts and Literature

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