Commercial Art-market

Hughes’s film argues that art is the biggest unregulated market in the world apart from drugs. Contemporary art sales, such as Hirst’s, rake in £10billion a year. Modern art is dottily expensive to buy not, says Hughes, because it’s so good, but because investors believe it will yield quick profits.
“The commercial art market places too much emphasis upon novelty and trendiness,” he says, “because buyers expect that new work will get more valuable in the short-term.”
Of course, a work of art’s net worth – unlike a company’s – can’t be subjected to objective scrutiny. So those artists, such as Hirst, who attract controversy or have a flair for self-promotion are able to inflate the price of their work with some cleverly orchestrated PR. Moreover, collectors who have already invested in these artists would be fools not to play along, as Hughes explains.
“The market is manipulated by collectors who decide to bid up the work of an artist [they’ve already invested in],” he says. “So when artist X comes up on the auction block, the collectors all bid it up, so that they can then multiply the value of their existing holdings in artist X by the value of the inflated sale.”
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history. - Aldous Huxley

“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.”~~~Robert Hughes quotes (Australian art Critic and Author, b.1938)

27 And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left.
28 And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.