Making Art More Expensive Open Thread

Update: My original title here was misleading (even to me...as the rant below is misguided based on my misreading of a quote). I think the general sense of the post remains valid, but I do want to point out my error and acknowledge the difference it implies. Essentially, Meyer's statement is less disturbing that I originally suggested, but it still raises many of the same issues discussed in the comments, IMO.

There's a don't-miss profile on Tobias Meyer in the March 20th issue of The New Yorker. He's the sauve 43-year-old chief auctioneer and worldwide head of contemporary art at Sotheby's, and his is the kind of story that makes you feel like a total slacker, even if you already work 80-hour weeks.

The profile is a delightful peek into the methods and high drama behind contemporary art auctions, but Meyer said something that is both admirable (given that he understands his job so clearly) and a bit troublesome (in that it's the sort of thing I can't imagine people saying when I was a kid) that I want to explore a bit here:

Bill Ruprecht, the C.E.O. of Sotheby's, says, "People make the mistake of describing our business as being about objects. It's not. I think we handle the interaction between people and objects. The cliche in the auction world is: 'We bring objects alive.'" Meyer puts it slightly differently. "What I love to do is put people in front of art and make them feel it, make them stop everything else they're doing and experience it, deeply," he says. "That's how I make art expensive. And that's my job, for the company and for my clients. To make art expensive." [emphasis mine]

Indeed, that is his job, and he does it extraordinarily well. And, yes, to some degree, that's my job as well, although I prefer to think of it as "to make art important and then irresistible." The difference for Meyer is he doesn't have to make the "important" argument...what he sells is usually already in the history books. But expensive? Why not "irrresistible" first, and then let the desire of the collectors who can't resist it drive the price to what the market will bear? Why think in terms of highest price first and foremost? There's another passage in the article that illustrates what it is about this that bothers me:

[Cheyenne] Westphal [, charman of contemporary art for Europe] is particularly fond of Meyer's trademark move, when the bidding on a work reaches nine hundred thousand pounds, of glancing at a bidder and casually saying, "Make it a million."

Now I want to be careful not to sound like a Boy Scout, or {gasp} a Socialist, but there are two realities at play here. The reality of the buyer, who will undoubtedly get a bit of extra mileage out of telling his/her friends that they paid "$1 million" for a work of art at auction, and the reality for the other 99% of the world, for whom that extra $100,000 dollars could support their entire family for much longer than that collector will be able to dine out on the drama of caving in to Meyer's seductive charm. And although I get the concept that art is valued at what the market will bear, and unless you push, how do you know what that is, I still find it somewhat disturbing. It seemss such an obscene amount of money to treat so casually.

And, of course, I'm a hypocrite. In addition to selling art, I also love to gamble. I love the thrill of casinos and watching folks piss away sums of cash that could put a talented young, but poor, person through college for four years. And that's all Meyer is doing, providing a similar thrill. If the buyer has the money, why not let them spend it on art. That's one less Hummer they'll buy, isn't it?

Perhaps all I'm offended by is the honesty of his rhetoric. If Meyer had said it's his job "to make art irresistbile" it would essentially mean the same thing in the end. What he is doing is not only fully legal, it's arguably good for the overall economy as well, creating more jobs, increasing the art market, and giving greater opportunities to emerging artists.

So why does it stick in my claw craw?

Your thoughts?