CFP: The Formation and Development of New Markets (Workshop 3), London.

International Workshop Series

Tools for the Future: Researching Art Market Practices from Past to Present

We are pleased to invite you to participate in the third of our International Workshop son the formation and development of new and emerging markets organised in London. This workshop is part of the International Workshops Series “Tools for the Future: Researching Art Market Practices from Past to Present”, jointly organised by ART-Dev University Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, Creative Economy-HKU University of the Arts Utrecht and IESA & Institute of Historical Research, London. Through individual presentations followed by group discussions, the series aims at bringing together scholars from different disciplines and areas of study of the art market to confront key issues and related methodologies that can be used to analyse the structures and principals of the art market. Previous workshops were, respectively, on art collectors and the artist as an entrepreneur.

As the art market has developed worldwide, there have been many instances where new areas of producing, trading, collecting and valuating art have emerged onto the market, very often reaching record-breaking prices. This workshop focuses on examples of new paradigms and new ways that art markets function, whether in the primary or secondary sector, the aim being to analyse and understand the mechanisms by which a particular ‘product’ enters the art market, considering who are the main players of such changes, collectors, institutions, dealers or other agents. Equally, it would be interesting to explore market types that have not succeeded or gained a foothold. There are many well-known and well studied areas of innovation in the market, among which can be cited the 17th century imports of Chinese and Japanese ceramics, lacquers and textiles, the development of a market for 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings in Paris and London during the 18th century, or the rise of the Barbizon school in 19th-century Paris, while we have seen the emergence of photography and street art as important areas of contemporary collecting, or even African art. New art forms such as digital and video art raise questions as to whether existing models of agency are still appropriate and thus, whether new technology is fundamentally changing the creation, trade, consumption and validation of art.

In studying the evolution of these markets, the complex relationships between the different agents interacting with each other to create, support and sustain the taste or fashion for these works provide evidence of how art markets function, whether today or in the past. Papers might examine the processes by which new markets are validated and question whether this is a necessary part of acceptance and stability, or whether in the contemporary art market, this is no longer necessary; another question that links past and present markets is the question of investment and whether it is a factor in creating new markets. Underpinning many of these questions lies the issue of information and how important accessibility to that information is for the market. 

We propose to examine these issues from a variety of perspectives and aim to explore questions such as:

1. the relationship between dealers, clients and institutions in the promotion of particular markets
2. the importance of market supply
3. the role of the tastemakers, whether critic, curator or collector
4. charting the rise and fall of the market
5. mapping clients for different markets
6. the role of emulation in creating markets
7. the legal frameworks
8. the importance of government support

As in all our workshops, the aim is to present the methods by which these topics can be investigated: one important problem that researchers face is the reliability and representativeness of the data. Another is how can we judge the importance of networks and social considerations in determining the success of a given market, bringing in statistical analysis as well as network theory. At what point do outliers become mainstream and at what point does this mean a new market has been created?

Paper submission and revised deadlines

We welcome submission of rigorous quantitative, theoretical, and/or qualitative studies contributing to treatment of the questions illustrated above. We particularly appreciate interdisciplinary submissions from the social sciences and the humanities.

Abstracts of papers of up to 300 words (in English) on the above mentioned topics should be sent to a.turpin@iesa.edu before 20 February 2019. Notification of acceptance will be given by 28 February 2019. Full papers (about 8,000 words) need to be submitted prior to the workshop before 20 May 2019.

Submissions should ideally be structured as follows:

 Introduction (Problem definition, research gap and objective)

 Theoretical foundation

 Methodology / empirical research context

 Finding/results

 Implications for art market research and practice

Each paper accepted for presentation will be assigned a discussant who will provide in-depth feedback.

Registration

Registration for the workshop is free. It closes on 25 May 2019.

Scientific committee

Prof. Elisabetta Lazzaro, Creative Economy-HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, The Netherlands               

Prof. Nathalie Moureau, ART-Dev University Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, France

Adriana Turpin, IESA & Institute of Historical Research, London, United Kingdom