Art markets, epistemic authority, and the institutional curation of knowledge

ABSTRACT The recent proliferation of data about art prices has been interpreted as the democratization of a formerly secretive economic sphere. Contesting this idea, I argue that such data is collected, controlled, and disseminated by international art dealers and auction houses for the purpose of reinforcing the myth of a single, integrated market for art. Through the analysis of presentation strategies in Gagosian Gallery’s online viewing rooms and Sotheby’s Mei Moses Index, I argue that dominant art world institutions use art history and price data to support the speculative value of artworks and to perpetuate knowledge asymmetries that reinforce their own epistemic authority. I debate whether Friedrich Hayek’s conception of price as an unbiased aggregator of dispersed information is a useful way of conceptualizing speculative value in the art world. I conclude that, in contrast to Hayek’s ideas, contemporary art market data is given the illusion of democratic dispersal while remaining within the purview of dominant institutions. The curation of knowledge involved in this process exacerbates art world inequality and risks sidelining the heterogeneous creative practices that populate a broad range of creative spheres.