High Art Down Home: An Economic Ethnography of a Local Art Market

by Stuart Plattner

How do artists, collectors, dealers, and curators whose lives and livelihoods are so intimately affected by the valuation of art manage to cope with such an intangible market?

To answer this question, Stuart Plattner eschews the spotlights and media-hype of glitzy New York galleries, and focuses instead upon the more localized, and much more typical, world of the St. Louis art scene. What emerges is the most comprehensive description ever published of a contemporary regional avant-garde center, where noble aesthetic ambitions compete with the exigencies of economic survival. Plattner's skillful use of in-depth interviews enables the market's key participants to speak for themselves, giving voice to the many frustrations and rewards, motivations and constraints that influence their interactions with their work, the market, and each other.

"Plattner analyzes the social and economic factors that govern art markets outside the long shadow cast by chic New York galleries. An insightful and fascinating work."— Library Journal

"Explains much about the conundrums and paradoxes of the art world as a whole."—Eddie Silva, Riverfront Times

Genres: Art

264 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1996

Reviews

[Julio César · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive ethnography of the art world in a medium-sized city such as St. Louis, conducted in the midst of the economic downturn of the market in the early 1990's. I found a lot of valuable insights regarding the structure of the scene that will help me understand my own field.