Who Runs the Artworld: Money, Power and Ethics examines the economics and mythologies of today s global artworld. It unmasks the complex web of relationships that now exist among high-profile curators, collectors, museum trustees and corporate sponsors, and the historic and ongoing complicity between the art and money markets. The book examines alternative models being deployed by curators and artists influenced by the 2008 global financial crisis and the international socio-political Occupy movement, with a particular focus on a renewed activism by artists. This activism is coupled with an institutional and social critique led by groups such as Liberate Tate, the Precarious Workers Brigade and Strike Debt. Who Runs the Artworld: Money, Power and Ethics brings together a diverse range of thinkers who draw on the disciplines of art theory, social sciences and cultural economics, and curatorship and the lived experience of artists. The contributors to this book are, in their respective contexts, working at the forefront of these compelling issues.

A fly-on-the-wall account of the smart and strange subcultures that make, trade, curate, collect, and hype contemporary art. The art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and, for some, a kind of alternative religion. In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. She reveals the new dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton's entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.

“A comprehensive guide.” —Artspace. “Whether you are new to the business or a seasoned gallerist, it is always wise to remember the essentials.” —Leigh Conner, director, Conner Contemporary Art Aspiring and new art gallery owners can find everything they need to plan and operate a successful art gallery with How to Start and Run a Commercial Art Gallery. This new edition has been updated to mark the changes in market and technology over the past decade. Edward Winkleman and Patton Hindle draw on their years of experience to explain step by step how to start your new venture. From finding the ideal locale and renovating the space to writing business plans and securing start-up capital, this helpful guide has it all. Chapters detail how to: Manage cash flow Grow your new business Hire and manage staff Attract and retain artists and clients Represent your artists Promote your gallery and artists online Select the right art fair And more How to Start and Run a Commercial Art Gallery, Second Edition, also includes sample forms, helpful tips from veteran collectors and dealers, a large section on art fairs, and a directory of art dealer associations.

How today’s artists survive, exhibit, and earn money—without selling out! Career-minded artists, this is the book you have been waiting for! Making It in the Art World, Second Edition, explains how to be a professional artist and shares new methods to define and realize what success means. Whether you’re a beginner, a student, or a career artist looking to be in the best museum shows, this book provides ways of advancing your plans on any level. Author Brainard Carey, an artist himself with prestigious exhibitions like the Whitney Biennial under his belt, draws on more than twenty years of experience in the art world and from over 1,500 interviews with artists and curators for Yale University Radio. Included is a thirteen-part workbook to help you formulate and execute a winning career advancement strategy, a process that will prepare you for navigating the art world successfully. Friendly chapters walk you through it all with topics such as: Evaluating your work Submitting proposals to museums and galleries Creating pop-up shows Presenting work to the public Doing it your way (DIY exhibits) Organizing events Writing press releases Finding collectors online and connecting Using social media effectively Selling online Raising funds for projects Getting international recognition Making It in the Art World, Second Edition, is an invaluable resource for artists at every stage, offering readers a plethora of strategies and helpful tips to plan and execute a successful artistic career.

The meteoric rise of the largest unregulated financial market in the world-for contemporary art-is driven by a few passionate, guileful, and very hard-nosed dealers. They can make and break careers and fortunes. The contemporary art market is an international juggernaut, throwing off multimillion-dollar deals as wealthy buyers move from fair to fair, auction to auction, party to glittering party. But none of it would happen without the dealers-the tastemakers who back emerging artists and steer them to success, often to see them picked off by a rival. Dealers operate within a private world of handshake agreements, negotiating for the highest commissions. Michael Shnayerson, a longtime contributing editor to Vanity Fair, writes the first ever definitive history of their activities. He has spoken to all of today's so-called mega dealers-Larry Gagosian, David Zwirner, Arne and Marc Glimcher, and Iwan Wirth-along with dozens of other dealers-from Irving Blum to Gavin Brown-who worked with the greatest artists of their times: Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, and more. This kaleidoscopic history begins in the mid-1940s in genteel poverty with a scattering of galleries in midtown Manhattan, takes us through the ramshackle 1950s studios of Coenties Slip, the hipster locations in SoHo and Chelsea, London's Bond Street, and across the terraces of Art Basel until today. Now, dealers and auctioneers are seeking the first billion-dollar painting. It hasn't happened yet, but they are confident they can push the price there soon.

Has corporate business overtaken the art world? It's no secret that art and business have always mixed, but their relationship today sparks more questions than ever. Museum, Inc. describes the new art conglomerates from an insider's perspective, probing how their roots run deep into corporate culture. Paul Werner draws on his nine years at the Guggenheim Museum to reveal that contemporary art museums have not broken radically with the past, as often claimed. Rather, Werner observes, they are the logical outcome of the evolution of cultural institutions rooted in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, the colonial expansion of the liberal nation-state, and the rhetoric of democracy. In a witty and argumentative style, Werner critically analyzes today's art institutions and reframes the public's accepted view of them, exposing how their apparent success belies the troubling forces operating within them. He ultimately argues that the art museum we know and love may have already run its course. An engaging discourse structured as an informal gallery talk, Museum, Inc. is a thought-provoking and passionate polemic that offers ideas for a new, more democratic museum.