Bloomberg’s James Tarmy has a few choice words for anyone thinking about paying The Cultivist $2500 for the opportunity to enter the art world:
the art world is “exclusive” only in the sense that people who are not there to spend money, or to facilitate the spending of money, are not invited. This is culture as commerce. No one would call a machine-parts trade show exclusive, for example, even though the only people invited are in the industry. Art fairs, despite their exterior trappings, are no different. If you can afford it, you’re in. MoMA’s annual party in the garden. Tables at the dinner range from $25,000 to $100,000, with individual tickets beginning at $2,500.
And that brings us back to the Cultivist and its premise that you can buy your way into the art world for several thousand dollars a year, which is true but also a little off the mark: If the art world is wide open for anyone willing to spend money, and you’re already willing to spend it—congratulations!—you’re already a member of the club. It’s the people without $2,500 to shell out for lunch invitations to whom the doors to (most of) the art world remain firmly, irrevocably shut.
How to Buy Your Way Into the Art World (Bloomberg Business)
