Around 1950, New York City replaced Paris as the center of the art world. Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and their fellow Abstract Expressionists were the leading artistic innovators of their time, and there were in New York City. Many more artists moved to New York to share and learn from these artists. Art critics have recently speculated that London is going replace New York City as the capital of art because of the success of the Young British Artists, or YBAs. In Do the Young British Artists Rule (or: Has London Stolen the Idea of Postmodern Art from New York?): Evidence from the Auction Market, David Galenson uses data from the art market to support the idea that London may indeed replace New York. The prices of the most expensive pieces from the YBAs are greater than their New York counterparts. Damien Hirst and Chris Ofili lead this new school and are the only artists under 40 to have sold pieces at auction for over $1 million. Galenson finds, however, that there is more to the story than a comparison of auction prices. Even though London may replace New York City as the center for the production of art, it is unlikely anytime soon to replace it as the main market for art.
The YBAs emerged onto the art scene in 1988, in a group exhibition called Freeze, which was held in an empty warehouse in London’s Docklands. Damien Hirst, who was then an art student at Goldsmiths’ College, was the curator. Nearly all the rest of the exhibitors were fellow students of Hirst’s. The success of this initial show generated buzz for many more shows which were increasingly more successful. The label for the group was cemented by a series of shows presented by the collector and dealer Charles Saatchi, beginning in 1992, titled Young British Artists.
Previous research by Galenson suggests that art market can be used to evaluate the importance and greatness of a particular artist or a group of artists. This idea makes intuitive sense because the art market provides a vast amount of information about the artists. Like major players in the stock market, buyers in the art market are sophisticated consumers. Many in the art world are dismissive of this evidence, claiming that auction outcomes are uncorrelated with genuine artistic importance, but Galenson’s previous work generates significant evidence to the contrary. Recently, artists have acknowledged the importance of the art market. The artist Jeff Koons declared that “The market is the greatest critic.” Damien Hirst added, “The art world’s about money.”
Using the market as his basis, Galenson compares the YBAs to their American peers. Each artist is ranked according to the highest price for which his or her work has ever sold at auction. The designation of New York or London is determined not by place of birth or citizenship but by residence. Where an artists lives and the people he sees often have the greatest impact on his or her art. The artists are broken down into two cohorts: artists born during 1955-64 and artist born in 1965-75. By breaking the artists into these two groups by age, the authors is able to see if British artists have gained in importance relative to Americans over time.
In the older cohort, the Americans are favored. Six Americans fetch higher auction prices than any of their British contemporaries, and 9 of the top-10 artists are Americans. Four Americans have realized auction prices over $1 million, and nine over $500,000, compared to no British artists over $1 million, and only one over $500,000. One other interesting feature is the presence of five foreign-born artists among the top-10 Americans, compared to three among the top-10.
In the second birth cohort, the comparison produces different results. The British artists are favored. British artists have the two highest prices, and five of the top-6. Both of the two artists who have realized auction prices over $1 million are British. Three of the four artists with prices over $500,000 are also British. The only American advantage is in depth. The tenth American artist sells pieces as prices more than twice that of his British counterpart. However, previous literature by art scholars suggests that the top few artists have a disproportionate effect on the art world so these artists further down the ladder may be relatively irrelevant. And as in the earlier comparison, there are more foreign-born artists among the top-10 Americans, 3, versus the top-10 British artists with one. As the YBAs enter their forties, the auction market does support the claim that British artists of this later birth cohort have made greater contributions to advanced art than their peer American artists. The market shows that the YBA’s entered an art world dominated by Americans, but they have surpassed their American peers.
Galenson realizes that having more important current artists is only part of the story. He believes that is unlikely that New York will be replaced as the business center of the art world anytime soon. To him the intriguing question is whether London will become established as the central place for the production of new art. He also believes that because that the major movements in art are currently conceptually-based, there may not be a need for one central location for art production in the future. London can continue to be an important source of new art, without requiring that New York decline into a subsidiary role.
Galenson explains that many of the art movements in New York and its predecessor, Paris, were types of experimental art. Experimental art has goals and methods that cannot be described precisely. Impressionism is an example. Consequently, its goals and methods can be learned well only through direct contact with its practitioners. With this experimental art, the artists had to congregate to develop their work. New York was a necessary destination for the most ambitious young artists, for Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, and their colleagues because their Abstract Expressionism was also experimental. This changed in the late 1950s, when Johns and Rauschenberg introduced new forms of art that initiated an era of conceptual art that has continued to the present. Conceptual art is a paradigm shift, and its goals are more readily discernable and learnable. Because of this clarity, direct contact is not nearly as necessary. The YBAs adopted many of these modern conceptual art styles with out ever even coming to the United States. As long as art remains conceptually-based, the need for an artistic center will continue to erode.
Galenson concludes that the auction market supports the idea that the YBAs do reign over their American counterparts. It is too early to tell if London will be able to continue its success. It is also too early for the auction market to identify the important artists of the next cohort, who are currently under 30. During the past decade the East End of London looks as if it has become as important to contemporary art as Greenwich Village was in the 1950s. Nonetheless, despite London’s recent success, it may be premature for Americans to concede that London has supplanted New York as the major center for the production of art. In order to know this, it will require at least another generation to prove that London is the next New York rather than another ephemeral hotspot like Düsseldorf. It will be interesting to see if the current excitement for London’s art will produce a magnet for important artists from other countries. The how and where of the people influenced by the YBAs will ultimately decide whether the YBAs formed the new center for art, and whether London will successfully capture postmodern art from New York.
I like how Galenson uses economics to study a seemingly unrelated topic (art). He is a great writer and his work is always a pleasure to read. I especially like his use of quotes from the various artists and art critics.
One thing that confused me was his apparent use of NYC and American and London and British interchangeably. While New York may be home to most of the important American artists, it is not home to all of them. His data does not differentiate between the two. This omission neglects a major part of his argument. He says that artistic centers originally crop up because artists must be in close contact to communicate goals and explore ideas. Although proximity is less crucial for conceptual art, it still has some importance. Londoners may have taken NYC ideas, but the Londoners should stay in contact in order to further develop it. Art movements rarely emerge from vacuums. If an artist lives in, for example, Montana, I do not think that he is influenced by the NYC artists more than anyone else in the world. They are either in close contact or not. His article would have been even more effective if this distinction was addressed explicitly.
Another thing I would have liked Galenson to have discussed was NYC remaining the center for the art market. Inertia should keep the market there for some time, but if London consistently produces better work, then London should become the center. This logic only applies to the work of living artists, of course. I am not sure what percentage of the market comes from living artists. If it very small, then the fact that the top current artists are British is irrelevant, and NYC should remain king. However, I think that living artists play an important role in the auction market. The reason why the art market for the living artists should be where the living artists reside is because many buyers want to talk to the artists directly and see their studios. Buyers of living artists hope to find an artist before he or she reaches his or her peak of fame. Many buyers like to “discover” artists in this way. Therefore, a buyer will want to learn as much as possible about the artist, including where they live and see their studio. For established dead artists, their reputation is more cemented and the incentive for this research is lower because the rate of discovery is smaller and because it is impossible visit the dead artists. I am not sure if this is actually the case, but it’s my take on it.