Artist’s rights and the market – Part 1
The Haitian artist Jean Herard Celeur got up at an art talk at the Maison Dufort in Port-au-Prince last month and animatedly asked how the value of an artist’s work is determined. He was referring mainly to the market value, which is not necessarily the same as the inherent artistic value or merit of the work. As Celeur’s intervention illustrated how art prices are negotiated and what should revert to the artist is a particularly vexed question here in the Caribbean.
Historical circumstances and present-day experiences have led to a deep mistrust of the mechanisms of the art market, which has, indeed, often been exploitative. There are mounting demands on the part of many artists in the region to be more empowered in those negotiations and for there to be greater transparency in the art market’s mechanism. Celeur is part of the Atis Resistanz, a group of self-taught artists in the Grand Rue community, for whom representational empowerment in the art world is a central and critical issue. His work has attracted significant critical recognition and has been exhibited internationally.
The question certainly arises as to why it is deemed completely normal for certain well-established, mainstream Haitian artists to sell their work routinely for over US$10,000 a piece, while eyebrows are raised when a self-taught artist, such as Celeur, who does not come from social privilege but from a poor inner-city community, seeks to do the same. Determining one’s rightful place in art market – or markets, as there are many layers and contexts in which various dynamics and standards apply – can indeed be a most frustrating experience for artists, with significant and often deeply uneven power differentials between artists, dealers, patrons, and collectors. These uneven power dynamics are, in turn, embedded in the deep socio-economic disparities that characterize Caribbean societies and this is, inevitably, a source of contention, especially now that art market information is readily available to all who have access to a smart phone.
While artistic value obviously plays a key role in the prices an artist’s work can attract, many other factors are at work, such as fashion and demand, professional history, critical recognition and reputation, rarity, and, inevitably, expectations of subsequent profit. The market value of a work of art is, at the end of the day, nothing more than what the market is prepared to pay for it, in a particular context and at a particular point in time. It is never absolute or permanent, and can change significantly over context and time, upwards or downwards. The nineteenth century Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh, notoriously, sold only one work in his lifetime, but his paintings now attract record auction prices as high as US$75 million. It is capitalism in action.
From that perspective, art is a luxury commodity which is subject to seemingly contradictory dynamics that can be hard to fathom for artists and laypersons, alike. One such principle is that, at least, in its highest echelons, the art market favours what the art sociologists Ruth Phillips and Christopher Steiner have called, “the commercial appeal of anti-commercialism.” Or to put it plainly, art that is mass-produced with obvious commercial intent, overtly catering to market demands, rarely appreciates in value and may even have no long-term market value to speak of, no matter at what price the work was originally sold.
Entrenched market expectations about particular types of art also play a role in how art prices are negotiated. The expectation with self-taught art, for instance, is that artists will sell it for low prices, and often in substantial quantities, and that, with some luck, resale prices will be significantly higher, usually with nothing reverting to the artists or their estates. Here in Jamaica, I am thinking of the market history of the paintings and sculptures of John Dunkley, which now attract some of the highest prices in the market for Jamaican art, or of Mallica “Kapo” Reynolds.
Dr Veerle Poupeye is an art historian specialized in art from the Caribbean. She lectures at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica, and works as an independent curator, writer, researcher, and cultural consultant. Her personal blog can be found at veerlepoupeye.com.
