The one question that gets asked more than any other in the world of art is:
What is this worth?
What is the value of this artwork?
But what do we really mean when we talk about value?
There are all sorts of different forms of value in regards to art:
Keith Hartley: Aesthetic value.
Kirsten Dunne: The intangible value, or of significance.
Kirstie Meehan: It’s perhaps the emotionalone.
Janet Smyth: Be a reflection of who we are.
Kirstie Meehan: It can inspire us.
Lucy Askew: Kind of an enjoyment, sense of wellbeing.
Keith Hartley: There’s a whole stream of different values that art has.
Narrator: So how do we measure these values, in what ways do they interplay with one another,
and who decides what values are the most valuable?
Keith Hartley: I think that money talks.
Narrator: When people ask about the value of art
they’re generally really talking about financial value.
Auctioneer: And $90,000 to start us, $90,000 as bid.
Kirsten Dunne: Instant thought when you say value is monetary value.
Janet Smyth: Yeah we see it, and hear it every day in the galleries.
Kirstie Meehan: The desire to fix it down to a number is quite appealing.
Keith Hartley: I mean it’s like in an auction, when the work of an artist makes a record,
everyone claps…
[sound of clapping]
they’re basically clapping themselves.
Kirstie Meehan: I think it’s understandable, because so much of our current discourse about
art is monetary based, so we’re always talking about who’s made the most at auction
Who the high selling art figures are.
Narrator: So - let’s get into it.
Who, and what, ultimately decide the value of a piece?
Tricia Allerston: Monetary value, I mean it’s supply and demand.
Lucy Brown: In our business, the art market decides what a piece of art is worth.
The collectors who are interested in that work will ultimately determine what it’s
worth, and what someone is willing to pay for it.
Tricia Allerston: When there aren’t a lot of things, we have a global market.
The astronomical values of some works compared to others, we can do very little about.
Narrator: When setting a valuation, specialists consider a variety of factors that contribute
to the value of a piece.
Lucy Brown: So they look at things like authenticity.
They look at condition.
Rarity.
They'll look at what's in fashion.
They’ll look at the subject matter of the work.
All various things – the provenance of the work.
Narrator: The relationship between art and money is well established, but prior to the
19th century, it was power that was the real driving force in the art world.
Autocratic power dominated patronage systems as early as ancient Rome.
Take the reign of Augustus and his advisor Maecenas, characterised by the pair’s commissioning
of work by poets and artists for the benefit of the state.
This relationship continued throughout history. In the renaissance and the early modern periods,
a Pope or a powerful monarch like this guy could simply snap their fingers and insist
on being given a Titian or and Van Dyck by a courtier.
Art was a way of gaining prestige, promoting political positions, and it was often exchanged
or gifted to gain leverage in the courts.
Lucy Brown: If you look back to something really famous, so the Medici Family – 15th century Florence.
They would pay an awful lot of money for these masterpieces.
They’d display them on their walls, and it was a sign of their wealth.
Narrator: But after the industrial revolution, money became the centre of the art world.
Jumping forward to 1958, over 21 minutes, The Goldshmidt sale changed the world of art forever.
An auction of 11 impressionist artworks by the likes of Edouard Manet and Paul Cézanne
it established a new era of expertise and esteem,
said to be the ‘sale of the century’.
Lucy Brown: And it set three world records for a painting price in a single auction.
And it set up, what we now know as, the evening auction.
The evening sale. People dressed up, it was theatre.
They came along and enjoyed the evening, and bid on these beautiful pieces of work.
And that sort of set a high standard back in 1958.
Narrator: Journalists present described ‘whistles of surprise’, ‘cries’, ‘roars of laughter’
and one noted that ‘as prices soared, it was sometimes hard to remember it had anything
to do with art’.
The people buying art and the reasons for doing so are constantly evolving as our world
changes.
Tricia Allerston: This is a sign, if you’re talking about, or interested in power, if
you look at where art goes, it follows the money.
Lucy Brown: In the last ten or twenty years, we’ve seen Asia and Russia, for example, enter that
arena of buying art and collecting.
Keith Hartley: All these things have led to a much more global market base.
Tricia Allerston: We have works which are Italian works, which were in France duing
the French Revolution. French Reviolution happens, they get sold,
they come to London And they get sold in London- London at that
time was one of the richest places. Then those sorts of works go into the great
houses of 19th century Britain. Then started getting sold off and go to America.
Then they’re getting sold in America, and going to the Middle East or China.
It always reflects where the money is.
Narrator: Though financial value is often seen as the be all and the end all, art has
a whole host of other values from the educational to the inspirational.
Tricia Allerston: Art’s very visual, so it can take you – perhaps more easily, to
another time or place.
Kirsten Dunne: It speaks of what society is, or can speak of what society is, or what society’s
going through, or what society looked like.
Lucy Askew: It gives me a sense of joy, a sense of perspective
A sense of connecting with the world around us.
There are so many artists who allow us, through their own work, to see better the world.
I think we’re at a really critical time, in terms of how art can present us with ways
of seeing the world around us in ways that provoke us to action.
Narrator: Art’s capacity to benefit wellbeing and mental health is another key consideration.
Kirstie Meehan: Something we’re thinking about increasingly, is how can artworks or
engagement with artworks, being close to them, kind of help you with those sort of issues?
Lucy Askew: We can stand in front of an artwork and feel a whole set of sensations.
Narrator: Of course, with sky-high prices in the art markets, there are tough decisions
to be made about whether or not the financial value of works are worth the price from public funds.
Particularly given the rise in auction prices in recent decades.
Lucy Brown: If you look at the 1990s, there was another acceleration in prices of art.
And now, just in the last ten, twenty years, we broke $100M mark for a single piece of
work being sold at auction.
Tricia Allerston: It’s difficult for us to buy things, then it becomes we have to make choices
And we have to go through a lot of hoops in order to try and get something that’s worth more.
Keith Hartley: It’s a cut-throat world, and you know, it’s a tough time for museums.
Narrator: Andy Warhol, who was famously obsessed with fame and wealth, said:
But this ignores the power of art to inspire, to educate and to help the mind.
It’s a combination of the art markets, collectors, critics, and galleries that ultimately decide
the value of an artwork. But where all they agree is that generally
it’s the intangible power of art that gives true value.
Lucy Askew: I think there’s an instinctual reaction that we all have to work.
Does it tell me something? Does it do something to me?
Lucy Brown: Anybody, you or I, can stand in front of a piece of work, and have that instinctive
response to it – That’s the intrinsic value of it, and the
financial value cant affect that.
Keith Hartley: In a way, monetary value is meaningless.
I mean, once a work of art has entered the great museums of the world, it’s not really
important anymore - the work of art is there for everyone to see and enjoy.
Narrator: What makes a piece of art valuable to you?
Let us know in the comments below, and check out our channel for more videos in this series.