| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £3.50
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Talking Prices: Symbolic Meanings of Prices on the Market for Contemporary Art (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £3.50, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
The book is an excellent, readable and thorough analysis of how prices are set in the contemporary art market. -- "The Art Newspaper
[Talking Prices] provides an excellent analysis of the tension between art and commerce that characterizes the art world. -- Stuart Plattner, American Anthropologist
Velthuis' essay is absorbing because it challenges our understanding of economics, culture, and society. Its narrative is stylish and refined; at times the discourse shows craftsmanship and attention to details, like a still-life of Pieter Claesz; at other times it is bold and sophisticated, like a painting of Karel Appel, or Kees Van Dongen. It is an essay definitely worth reading. -- Calin Valsan, Journal of Cultural Economics
[Talking Prices] provides an excellent analysis of the tension between art and commerce that characterizes the art world. -- Stuart Plattner, American Anthropologist
Velthuis' essay is absorbing because it challenges our understanding of economics, culture, and society. Its narrative is stylish and refined; at times the discourse shows craftsmanship and attention to details, like a still-life of Pieter Claesz; at other times it is bold and sophisticated, like a painting of Karel Appel, or Kees Van Dongen. It is an essay definitely worth reading. -- Calin Valsan, Journal of Cultural Economics
Review
Olav Velthuis has built a graceful, sturdy bridge across a torrent: the turbulent flow of art markets. On one side we have the supposition that art and money follow incompatible principles; on the other, the claim that markets reduce all commodities to creatures of supply and demand. By looking closely at the actual culture and social connections of art markets in New York and Amsterdam, he arrives at insight after insight into a meaning-drenched form of commerce, and by extension into the place of meanings in markets of every kind. This bridge stands firm.
(Viviana A. Zelizer, author of "The Purchase of Intimacy" and "The Social Meaning of Money" ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
(Viviana A. Zelizer, author of "The Purchase of Intimacy" and "The Social Meaning of Money" ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
From the inception of the modern art market in the first half of the nineteenth century, art dealers have defined their own identity as disinterested promoters and patrons rather than merchants and marketeers of art. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
From the inception of the modern art market in the first half of the nineteenth century, art dealers have defined their own identity as disinterested promoters and patrons rather than merchants and marketeers of art. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Intriguing economic analysis of how fine art is sold
9 Feb 2007
Format:Hardcover
Getting a handle on the economics of the art market is much like grabbing smoke. Dealers are loath to discuss the financial side of their business and the private nature of their transactions frustrates researchers. Even the ostensibly open world of auctions is full of slippery practices. None of that deterred Olav Velthuis, whose exhaustive research into the art market yields a fascinating economic analysis. He explores the anticommercial bias of dealers and even finds some tangible factors that influence art prices. While impressive, Velthuis' work would have benefited from a more conversational, less academic tone. His fascinating price study, for instance, focuses on "coefficients" and "t-values" rather than on actual prices. Still, we recommend this study for its ambitious and intriguing attempt to shed light on a little-known corner of the economy.
Explaining art world behavior with economic models.
20 April 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Velthius does a nice job taking the often curious behavior of art world players and explaining them with standard economic models. Why do dealers price primary market paintings at half their auction value? Why does a culture of favoritism and gift giving trump a transparent market model? How do dealers think about pricing the work of an artist for their first gallery show? Through a serious of interviews, data analyses, and observations, Velthius tackles these questions and many more.
The author pays particular attention to the competing worlds of aesthetics and commerce that must uncomfortably coexist in the art world. On the one hand, art world players insist that economic considerations are crass where beauty and scholarship should reign supreme. But at the end of the day, dealers are businesspeople who need to pay rent, support their artists, please collectors, and support themselves.
If you're hoping to use this book to price art or predict future prices, you'll probably be very disappointed. The book makes some very rudimentary empirical observations that should be obvious to anyone even casually involved in the art world (larger paintings are more expensive than smaller paintings for a given artist), but the author concedes that pricing is too idiosyncratic to hope to build anything approaching a robust pricing model.
While this book waxes academic, it should be pretty readable to anyone with a rudimentary background in economics. The art world jargon is kept to relative minimum. If you're looking for a breezy, entertaining read, I'd strongly consider The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art.
The author pays particular attention to the competing worlds of aesthetics and commerce that must uncomfortably coexist in the art world. On the one hand, art world players insist that economic considerations are crass where beauty and scholarship should reign supreme. But at the end of the day, dealers are businesspeople who need to pay rent, support their artists, please collectors, and support themselves.
If you're hoping to use this book to price art or predict future prices, you'll probably be very disappointed. The book makes some very rudimentary empirical observations that should be obvious to anyone even casually involved in the art world (larger paintings are more expensive than smaller paintings for a given artist), but the author concedes that pricing is too idiosyncratic to hope to build anything approaching a robust pricing model.
While this book waxes academic, it should be pretty readable to anyone with a rudimentary background in economics. The art world jargon is kept to relative minimum. If you're looking for a breezy, entertaining read, I'd strongly consider The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art.
6 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Very enlightening
6 May 2007
Format:Hardcover
The book isn't easy reading, but it has some very useful information for artists regarding pricing of their work.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Art, Architecture & Photography
- Books > Business, Finance & Law > Biographies & Histories > Business & Economic History
- Books > Business, Finance & Law > Economics
- Books > History > Cultural History
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Academic Sociology
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Anthropology > Social & Cultural
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Communication Studies > Media & Communication Industries
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Sociology
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
