Art marketization is not simply a sale of art

The rise of the Chinese art market is basically synchronized with the Chinese market economy.

The "14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China" proposed the development of a socialist market economy in 1992; after the Southern Tour, the "92 School" represented by Chen Dongsheng, Feng Lun, Pan Shiyi, and Wang Gongquan, foresightedly foresaw: modern, open, and free. The market economy will be the development trend of China's economy in the future. At the same time, some sensitive people in the art world have begun to realize that in this situation, art will also become market-oriented.

In 1991, Lu Hao founded the "Art Market" magazine and wrote in the first preface: "In such a context, a term that uses only a similar "economy culture" can more accurately express contemporary In the era of culture, Chinese contemporary art is entering the big circle of the world's "artistic industry" with immature forms and channels."

It can thus be seen that the marketization of art is actually a choice based on the times. It is not just a purely buying and selling relationship. However, people have not been used to the relationship between “art” and “market” for a long time, especially in the 80’s when passion for idealism filled the world. However, after 1994, auctions of Chinese art represented by the Guardian auction opened a precedent for art marketization. In the political environment of the time, “marketization” was actually a way for art to fight for its own space. At that time, many people might not have foreseen the various issues of today’s overheated art market.

Due to the limitations of history, the art market does not have the conditions to establish a healthy market mechanism through adequate trial and error - imagine that even the market economy is in the stage of “crossing the river by feeling the stones,” how can we demand that the art market be Is the beginning healthy and orderly and reasonable? As Lu Wei said, while contemporary art is becoming market-oriented, it is still presented in a variety of “immature” ways. Only this "immature" was ignored in the 1990s.

After 2000, Chinese contemporary art received the attention of the world. Foreign collections stimulated the domestic art market. In just a few years, Chinese galleries and auction houses have increased dramatically. According to incomplete statistics, there are currently more than 2,000 galleries in the country and more than 1,700 auction houses. From 2004 to 2008, the turnover of Chinese art auctions increased substantially every year and entered the market's outbreak period. However, this does not mean that the Chinese art market system is perfect. On the contrary, excessive growth rates and yield rates in the short term indicate that the industry's market system is flawed. In the global economic crisis of 2008, the defects of the Chinese art market have only just begun to be exposed. However, the vigorous investment and support of the state through the administrative approach to the cultural industry has given a strong boost to the weak art market, and on the other hand has also delayed art. Market reform opportunities.

The “Event of the Cultural Exchange” can be seen as a turning point that is quite meaningful. Originally, the “Wenzhou exchange” was a model of cultural industry development led by the government, but this model focused on the defects of the original art market mechanism. The gallery faced tax accountability. Some galleries began to consider turning to Hong Kong; at the same time, the auction performance was no longer as optimistic as it used to be, and even once came the rumors that some auction houses moved to Hong Kong and even cancelled.

In fact, the current situation is that the art investment market is experiencing difficulties, and this difficulty is also related to the recent macroeconomic environment. This does not mean the collapse of the entire art market. On the contrary, this may be the timing for the transformation of the Chinese art market. The malformation of the Chinese art market leads to a low point, which is reasonable and inevitable.

From the point of view of human economic law, the starting point of a complete industrial chain is production, the end is consumption, and the intermediate link is the space for investment activities. Even if the artwork has its own particularities, once it enters the market, it must also conform to the laws of the market.

Since 2004, the model of the Chinese art market has basically been operated by a line such as gallery agents, exhibitions, promotional value-added, delivery, and operation. While the market is booming, the art industry is actually operating in an over-reliant investment market. In the malformed mode of ignoring the consumer market, the real art consumer market has not yet been effectively developed, resulting in the lack of genuine buyers in the art industry.

The so-called "genuine buyer" may include two categories: one is a collector whose primary purpose is to buy a work of art, rather than looking for a chance to profit; one is to use art as a consumer of aesthetic goods, such as Hotel club, personal family. In order to examine the Chinese art market, it is not difficult to find that the current Chinese art market is mainly concentrated in the investment market. Without a sustained, mass consumer market, "art industrialization" is difficult to achieve. The end result is to create an artistic star that has soared in price in the short term, but it often ends up "having no market at all".

At the same time, the lack of a consumer market means the lack of a free market for artworks. Due to the lack of free and adequate circulation, the price of artwork will always lack a reasonable basis. The pricing mechanism of China’s current art market is the logic of “artists' quotes—artificial price adjustments — auction pricing”. The final market price is determined by the auction price, which is obviously problematic. According to the market principle, the formation of commodity prices should be through repeated free trades and gaining pricing in market transactions rather than pricing first.