Freakonomics Episode 2: The Maker and the Mark-ups

 NOTES ON EPISODE 2 “I’ve Been Working My Ass Off for You to Make that Profit?”

What is the nature of the producer in a market where the fungibility of the product remains intentionally elusive?

Being unable to start with the raw material to product trajectory of most priced goods (Tom Sachs notes that a friend of his pointed out art isn’t a commodity), one must rely on a felt quality to price art. 

And has been mentioned at the start of each episode, “99.9% of artists you see in galleries will never go up in value,” truly what are we talking about when trying to index the market? 

• Art is sold 

• Artists need galleries/ gallerists 

• Art history must be fueled  

• See the museum 

• See the maker 

So if posterity as a “timeless good” is at stake, why de-value the maker as seen by the Alice Neel model? 

Why not give the money made at auction, or at least a portion, to the artist. Given the aforementioned example, why not at least give a portion of the proceeds to the Neel estate? 

How could an artist of sporadic, albeit art historically objective importance have lived in near destitution? 

What is the nature of the markup, is the market an inherently antagonistic site for the artist and what is the role of agonism in the museum, the market, the gallery and the auction? 

See: Jimmie Durham “The Place of Art in Art Places” 

& 

Chantal Mouffe “Institutions as Sites of Agonistic Intervention” 

Agonism defined: 

• Philosophical outlook emphasizing the importance of conflict to politics 

While the series speaks to contemporary artists Tom Sachs and Tschabalala Self about their views on the market (namely the gallery, auction and museum), Alice Neel is of prevailing interest to the series, and I’d say the guiding light. 

Alice Neel, though a contemporary artist herself now deceased, could be argued as the art historical nature of the market, which could suggest antagonism, while Tom Sachs and Self seem to embody the agonistic. 

See: the flattening of the market as the rise of globalisation

Alice Neel as a maker who resisted the art historical importance of portraiture and her time’s push for the abstract could be seen as the last great example of the need for a patron outside of the gallery model. Or is she agonistic collateral damage? Should some careers be seen as such? 

“Rauschenberg got lucky” at auction and while living. 

Do we need the auction to create and solidify the importance of an artist? 

The retrospective? 

The curator? 

The gallerist?