Circulation and the Art Market

Circulation is an exciting prism through which to conduct research into the art market. It invites us to think in terms of flows and exchanges rather than in terms of stock, prices, and quantities sold or bought. It leads towards an examination of the channels and networks that make up the art market, rather than simply to questions of production and sales. It encourages us to base our reasoning on circuits and mobility, rather than on marketplaces and the balance of supply and demand. From a theoretical point of view, circulation adds a welcome complexity to an approach – art market studies – that sometimes risks slipping into a simplistic economic study dealing superficially in prices, stocks, galleries, dealers, and fluctuations in value. A circulatory methodology challenges art market studies as a discipline to go beyond the conventional tools of economic analysis and a delocalized, or even utopian, application of quantitative reasoning. Circulation is an exciting prism through which to conduct research into the art market. It invites us to think in terms of flows and exchanges rather than in terms of stock, prices, and quantities sold or bought. It leads towards an examination of the channels and networks that make up the art market, rather than simply to questions of production and sales. It encourages us to base our reasoning on circuits and mobility, rather than on marketplaces and the balance of supply and demand. From a theoretical point of view, circulation adds a welcome complexity to an approach – art market studies – that sometimes risks slipping into a simplistic economic study dealing superficially in prices, stocks, galleries, dealers, and fluctuations in value. The study of circulation allows for a view of the art market as a vast series of exchanges and connections that begins in the artist's atelier itself. Numerous parties and elements are involved in the creation of these links. Within any given network, artists, friends, and art critics are joined by transnational mediators such as art dealers, collectors, museum curators and exhibition commissioners. Similarly, artworks are not the only objects in a network: they interact with an array of items and systems that accompany them as they circulate: transport crates, rail and air transport infrastructure, articles and postcard reproductions, magazines, books, exhibition and auction catalogues, and so on. The encounters between the art market's supply and demand thus require us to pay attention to a broad range of social and economic fields. Studying this market through its internal movements also throws into sharp relief the significance and the specificity of each site of artistic exchange within the wider system of such other sites. Lastly, analysis in terms of circulation necessitates an approach that accounts for not only economic dimensions but also for the geopolitical, geographical, and sociological. We could perhaps add to this list a further dimension – the psychological. After all, the circulation and the exchange of artworks, of individuals, and of images is governed not only by shifting prices but also by logics of desire and imitation.