all this debt in america will have some kind of an impact on the current art market. or will the indian stock market boom take the art market to another high. will all this hold. Are the contemporary artist better than the modern. are there more buyers for contemporary art. By : james

I dont think that is bad for art Snoose but if you look at history, you will see that these things have always changed what we see as important. Art will still be there and will, because it is an organic thing grow and change in a healthy way. There may not be so much money around but is that a bad thing? Perhaps the burden placed upon artists will shift? Lets see. By : ashwin_u

no, no ,i don`t think its a bad thing quite the oppposite, a good shakeout will remove some of the fluff. just thought i would throw a different light on things and try a little fortune telling. time frame is hard to predict but its a`comin. By : hinduja

Yes there is a big shakeout coming. Back in the late 1700`s, a portrait artist would have dinner in the servants quarters when there was a break in the painting of a well known persons portrait. At that time, an artist was just another workman, no more important than a cobbler or builder. The artificial shift to near godlike status for artists has been rumbled now that it has become evident that their artistic foresight and powers haven`t really changed or enhanced society as much as we were told. If at all. An artist is less important than a nurse and can be less honorable than a road sweeper. Artists are parasites and should either pay there way or give up. They should find their niche in society and realise that the only way forward is to sell their work on saffron. Now that is honorable. By : ashwin_u

yes things have fallen a long way, in the press the word artist is connected to musicians, show business,etc, and painters are never included in the list. i think its mostly because art will never be a mass market item, so when big bucks count, art does not. By : theartstrust

When speculative markets collapse it focuses peoples minds on the intrinsic value of things. They say money talks; if only money would shut up for a while it would give the rest of us a chance. However if you put "art market" into Google News I think that you will find that it`s doing OK. When other markets are uncertain people do tend to invest in art. By : james

I think the downward slide is a good thing. We`ve been living in a false economy for what seems like a lifetime. Time to knock a big chunk off the value of just about everything we own, or borrow, & that includes artwork. I am in property, and yes the property market is overvalued.We need a shake-up to bring a real sense of value to things. but There is so much money that nothing shall slow down for some time. but when it will?? By : ashwin_u

I think the market shall change to new media By : james

There has always been a class issue in any year in any country. lower, middle and upper. Art, well I produce for the lower end as I like to sell to people that want my art, not place it in some vault. I want my art on peoples walls, not stuck in a airless vault to only get looked at once in ten years. I`m glad that I`m lower class and sell to the lower end as its real and loved. As for the state of the market, who cares? I certainly don`t cause it don`t affect me. By : ramg

You are going to see the collapse of all financial institutions. Every commodity will fall in price, and that includes art. People are reorganising their finances and priorities and this will mean they will not be purchasing art, which is great, because then, art will only be produced for arts sake, not money ! Roll on the biggtest depression we will ever see, where money will mean nothing, losing all of its value like in europe during the war, like in many counties in africa right now, only a matter of time before it becomes worthless in the Uk and Usa. This of course has a knock on effect on the rich and their palaces and ivory towers, they become worthless too By : ashwin_u

Without a clear view of where we are now, and the future that we might look forward to, then any loss of confidence in the present established values in art caused by a collapse in the art market would only create a vacuum that would quickly be filled by plausible opportunists. My view of the situation today is that we are a fragmented society and in the future art will necessarily be fragmented too. Artists will have to be more focused on who their audience is and their relationship to them. Art will occupy niches. At the same time their might be some consideration of how these fragments might communicate with each other a bit better. For instance if words meant the same things to politicians as they mean to the rest of us then that might help. By : james

I have been reading off and on a book about the history of photography froma so cialist viewpoint in particular the "everyday". One of the interesting points it makes is that after te 2 wwar the perception of photograsphy changed partially because of the brutalisation of the war but also because of the american govt`s attitude to the soviet union. What happened was that the chiefs of the rising gallery system changed the way that photography was interpreted from a socialist stance to that of the poets eye. what this suggested to me is that the interpretation of art in general lies in the hands of a small minority of people, if you sre not accepted by that group then forget it, you are not going to become a vakuable commodity in the art market and you are not going to make much of a living out of it. it doesn`t actually matter how good or how original you are or whether you are doing something that actually contributes to the understanding of the human condition, to use a cliche. Hirst is a very good example of this, his work is trite, By : ashwin_u

warhol was going to do comic strips and then someone told him liechtenstein had got there first so he went for the soup cans etc. By : ramg

i suspect your view of the past is somewhat coloured by the present. from what i have read the NY art scene in the early 50`s was pretty dead. one `prominent` gallery was simply a vanity project for a local socialite . you have to imagine a much smaller world. there was no american art of note, only the escapees from europe. europe lay in ruins, everyone else was just trying to get back to normal. although i guess art was always a promototional game there was nothing like the money or gamesmanship of today. SO EVEN IF CHANGE IS DUE, THE ART SHALL ALWAYS BE THERE. AND CHANGE IS GOOD By : ashwin_u

You`re right about the 50s. I was thinking of Pop Art, just checked up on my dates, started 1956 but didn`t take off untill 1961. My cynical reasoning is that if Lichtenstine wanted to acknowledge commercial art as a legimate form of folk art then he could have found the people who illustrated the comics, said how much he admired their work, and asked if they had any originals for sale, but this would not have progressed his career or provided anything for the galleries to put on their walls. By : james

Real Art and real impact on the art world is determined by one group: writers and poets, artists and their peer groups. We determine what is art, not the money bags. A small impact can be made by savvy and wise collectors, but they are only vindicated by the writers and poets, artists, and their peers. By : Jal

I`ve always written that one must first solve the problem of feeding oneself. SO IF ART STOPS SELLING, PEOPLE WILL MAKE WHAT SELLS By : hinduja

the policies of Indian government to promote culture, is lethargically slow and corrupt... their documentation is weak and fragile... moreover, the money spent on them is surplusly wasted on parties and incentives to the corrupt officials... we can see the art that is in the veins of India has not been explored or even documented fully... if you see the folk traditions, they are vanishing very fast... so is the tribes.. so, they are moving out from their tradition to do other jobs for the living. That is because something in the system of the government that has prevented them to practice what they have since the beginning. The contempoary artists who come out from the college or have flair to do creative things are also suffering because of non-availability of a documentation agency. the art in India today needs such agencies to document these rare forms of art and also the new creative talents at the same time as per the policy of the government. And generate a good amount to support these creative minds By : rahul_prem1