Call for proposals for workshop #7 Markets for applied arts, crafts and design, part of the International Workshops Series “Tools for the Future: Researching art market Practices from Past to Present”, hosted by Erasmus University Rotterdam on 9-11 June 2022.
This workshop aims to enlarge the perspective of art market research and go beyond the contemporary emphasis on high-end markets for the fine arts by focusing on applied arts, artistic crafts and design. Depending on their historical or geographical contexts, the applied arts have different meanings and hence different values. This workshop aims to examine the various implications in the supply, distribution, and consumption of applied arts, decorative arts, craftworks and design from those of the so-called fine arts.
Deadline: 15 Mar 2022
Suppliers (artists, craftspeople), sellers, intermediaries and buyers active in these market segments offer profiles, know-how and expertise likely to differ from those encountered in current, more established, “western-biased” markets for the fine arts. Many of these goods are usually produced at the crossroads of know-how and (semi)-industrial production. Applied/decorative arts, craftworks and design hold particular cultural and economic properties (e.g., functionality, commercial potential, originals vs multiples) that deserve greater academic attention.
Cultural goods belonging to the categories of applied arts, decorative arts, crafts, and design and transiting through these markets are, among others:
• Creative craftworks
• Furniture (antique/vintage/design)
• Textile arts (quilts, tapestry, woven artworks)
• Ceramics, pottery, porcelain
• Fine glassware
• Silverware, goldsmithing
• Art reproducibles, multiples
We are inviting papers that address innovative methodologies to research these markets in order to highlight original forms of intermediation, entrepreneurship and business models, financing practices, “platformisation”, globalisation, etc. In doing so, we want to gain insights into the structures and dynamics that govern these overlooked creative industries and explore new ways to map and analyse them, at both local and global levels.
Areas of proposed discussion will include, among others:
• Perceived and economic values of these goods
• Economic differences between one off pieces and multiples (e.g. financial value)
• Market structure of these segments (e.g., high vs low-ends, primary vs secondary markets, types of competition)
• Supply chains
• Alternative price determinants and the role of material value and use value in price formation
• Alternative branding and promotion strategies (as opposed to traditional fine arts)
• Buyers’ profiles and incentives to collect applied arts, craftworks and design
• Cultural and economic challenges faced by these specialised markets
• Impact of digitalisation
• Cultural policy recommendations for stakeholders active in these industries
We welcome submissions of rigorous quantitative, theoretical, and/or qualitative studies contributing to the topic illustrated above. We particularly appreciate submissions from different disciplines within the social sciences and the humanities as well as interdisciplinary approaches.
Please submit your abstract of 300 words with a short biography to Filip Vermeylen (vermeylen@eshcc.eur.nl) and Adriana Turpin (a.turpin@iesa.fr) by 15 March 2022. Notification of acceptance will be given by 1 April 2022.