Many years ago, at a friend’s wedding in the Cotswolds, I found myself seated next to a celebrated artist. I loathed the man’s work, but at the time I was just a baby art dealer. I remember feeling starstruck in the way one might be meeting a disgraced former politician: impressed, but not sure that I should be.
The artist told me about an enormous and unwieldy installation he had made that had been sold to a wealthy collector. The installation was eventually moved to a private island belonging to the collector where it was displayed in a purpose-built gallery. On the evening of the grand unveiling, as he made small talk with hedge fund managers, arms dealers and oil executives — the kinds of people who have their own art islands — the artist experienced a moment of panic. Suddenly it was as if he were still a little boy making colourful drawings and Plasticine sculptures. Surrounded by these Masters of the Universe, he felt profoundly insecure. It was, he told me, the adult equivalent of showing your parents’ friends a particular praiseworthy finger painting.
The art world is funny about money. There are many reasons for this, but I think at its root it has something to do with what the artist experienced on that island. Art is something which we all do as children. It feels like something we all began by sharing, only for it to be formalised and commodified, first by art schools and then by the market. (This might also explain why people are so quick to criticise artworks — conceptual, performance — which don’t fit into those categories of art — painting, drawing, sculpture — we make as children.) But nostalgia doesn’t explain it all.
