international contemporary art fairs in a 'globalized' art ...

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INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART FAIRS IN A ‘GLOBALIZED’ ART MARKET Alain Quemin

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University of Paris-8, Paris, France Version of record first published: 21 Feb 2013.

To cite this article: Alain Quemin (2013): INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART FAIRS IN A ‘GLOBALIZED’ ART MARKET, European Societies, DOI:10.1080/14616696.2013.767927 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2013.767927

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European Societies, 2013 http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/14616696. 2013.767927

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART FAIRS IN A ‘GLOBALIZED’ ART 1 MARKET Alain Quemin Downloaded by [Alain Quemin] at 10:35 22 February 2013

University of Paris-8, Paris, France

ABSTRACT: This article examines the participation of art galleries at international contemporary art fairs (ICAFs) to evaluate what theories of cultural globalisation best describe this type of practice. For that purpose, it draws upon recent and original statistical data in order to examine the geographical distribution of major ICAFs worldwide, that is, their concentration in selected geographical locations, as well as the country of origin of the galleries participating in these events. This is intended to map out the workings of any territorial forms of dominance affecting the art market, seen both in the capability of a given country to organise one or more ICAFs and in that of art galleries to participate in such high profile events. The article firstly reviews relevant literature on cultural globalisation to outline, and also problematise, those interpretative models that can be applied to the particular case of ICAFs. Secondly, it provides and analyses new statistical data on ICAFs and gallery participation mentioned earlier. Thirdly, it examines how this data can be interpreted with the help of current theories of cultural globalisation. It concludes by arguing that the model best explaining the territorial dynamics of ICAFs is one that incorporates a notion of both centre and semi-peripheral domination on a vast periphery of countries including both Western and non-Western countries. Key words: art fairs; art market; visual arts; high culture; globalisation; transnational exchanges

Introduction

This article examines the participation of art galleries at international contemporary art fairs (ICAFs) to evaluate what theory/ies of cultural globalisation best describe/s this type of practice. More specifically, it 1. I would like to thank Marta Herrero for her extensive comments on countless drafts of this article. Her advice and incisive suggestions have greatly improved the final version of this text.

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draws upon recent statistical data in order to examine the geographical distribution of major ICAFs, that is, their predominance in selected geographical locations, as well as the country of origin of the galleries participating in art fairs. This type of exercise is intended to map out the workings of any territorial forms of dominance affecting the art market, seen both in the capability of a given country to organise one or more ICAFs and in that of art galleries to participate in such high profile events. Unlike biennials, non-profit international exhibitions usually held every 2 years (the Kassel Dokumenta, held once every 5 years is an exception) and generally lasting about 3 months (the most prestigious biennials can last up to 6 months), ICAFs are for-profit events organised annually and lasting only a few days. They are a relatively new phenomenon; the first ICAF took place in Cologne, in Germany, in 1969, just 1 year before Art Basel, in Switzerland.2 Each ICAF has an organising committee responsible for the selection of participating art galleries, thus artists are not invited directly, but only by mediation of the galleries representing their work. A number of factors make research on ICAFs timely. Firstly, it sheds new light on a rather unexplored area in the socio-scientific literature on art markets (Smith 1989; Graddy and Ashenfelter 2002; Velthuis 2005), which, so far, has largely ignored the role of art galleries at ICAFs (Moulin 1967, 1992, 2003). One reason for this omission is probably the privacy with which art galleries treat their transactions, and which has made it difficult for researchers to obtain data of these sales. Some recent studies are, however, starting to counteract this trend (Velthuis 2003; Halle and Tiso 2005; Hutter et al. 2007; Quemin 2008). This literature is especially welcome given that participation at art fairs is a major source of income for art galleries (Fournier and Roy-Valex 2002; Quemin 2008). Secondly, it provides a means of comparing the operations of different sectors of the art market: the territorial dynamics of ICAFs with those of auction houses. A large body of literature on the auction market has revealed a strong territorial dominance performed by a small, selected number of countries (Quemin 2000, 2001, 2006). In 2009, only four countries held just over 80% of all fine art auctions: 27.9% USA, 21.3% UK, 17.4% China, and 13.9% France, followed by Italy and Germany, which only held 3.2% of all auctions each (Artprice 2009). Moreover, this territorial dominance is at the hands of major auction houses, namely, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, that hold a duopoly of the auction market (Moulin 2003). In 2009, they held nearly 60% of all the auctions taking place worldwide (31.8% for Christie’s and 27.3% for Sotheby’s) (Artprice 2009). Thirdly, the research presented in this article is designed to provide a valid, useful, addition and 2. By contrast, the first contemporary art biennial, that of Venice, in Italy, dates back to 1895, and the Sao Paulo biennial in Brazil was created in 1951.

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contribution to the literature on cultural globalisation. It has been suggested that the art market is operating according to a global logic (Moulin 1992, 2003; Quemin 2001, 2006; Crane 2009), dominated by the presence of key players that control the number of sales as well as the kind of art sold. However, in order to present a more detailed picture of how globalisation operates in the art market, we still need to ask further questions about its territorial logic. That is, whether the organisation of transactions and events in certain key geographical locations, reasserts some of the arguments and claims made on behalf of the globalisation of culture, or cultural globalisation. The article is divided into three parts. Firstly, it reviews relevant literature on cultural globalisation to outline, and also problematise, those interpretative models that can be applied to the present case study. Secondly, it provides and analyses new statistical data on ICAFs and gallery participation provided by Artprice.3 Thirdly, it examines how this data can be interpreted with the help of current theories of cultural globalisation, and it concludes by arguing that the model best explaining the territorial dynamics of ICAFs is one that incorporates a notion of both centre and semi-peripheral domination.

Cultural Globalisation: An Ongoing Debate

Characteristic of some of the literature on globalisation is the frequently insubstantial nature of the empirical data supporting some of the leading theoretical positions (Sassen 1992, 1999, 2000). Although analyses of globalisation developed and came to prominence in the 1990s and even became central to sociology in the second half of this decade (Bartelson 2000; Bellavance 2000; Therborn 2000b) the use of empirical data was relatively small compared to the amount of academic literature produced on the subject (Ohmae 1990; Lash and Urry 1994; Appadurai 1996, 2000). A case in point is the June 2000 issue of International Sociology, devoted to the topic of globalisation (Therborn 2000a), and a book specifically focusing on cultural globalisation (King 2000). In both cases, there is an almost total absence of empirical data. The authors resort to abstract considerations and very rarely support their analyses with statistical evidence, thus obliterating the fact that such data can in fact provide at least a partial answer to some of the key questions raised by theoretical 3. Artprice is the world leader in art market information, most of which relates to international art auctions. In 2009, within the scope of a partnership arrangement dating back to the early 2000s we had access to exclusive data on international art fairs and participating galleries.

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explorations of globalisation. A similar point can be made about some of the leading authors in this field, and whose contribution will be discussed now. Nonetheless, there are some recent exceptions to this trend that must be noted. A case in point is the work by Anheier and Raj Isar (2007) in their cultural globalisation series, and especially their volume The Cultural Economy where they present quantitative research on this topic drawing upon ‘indicator suites’. A recurring theme in the debate over the specific dynamics of cultural globalisation is the extent to which this phenomenon maintains or generates forms of inequality, and if so, of what kind (De Swaan 1995; Cowen 1998; Therborn 2000b). One line argument is represented by the analyses of Sassen (1996) and Bauman (1998), which suggest that under conditions of globalisation, national borders are being increasingly erased and substituted with growing fluxes or international exchanges, and compared to other sociologists such as those working within a Marxist tradition (Wallerstein 1991, 2000), pay little attention to unequal exchange and national forms of domination. A second line of argument explains how the global is structured more around patterns of flows than around preconstituted entities; Castells (1991), for example, refers to flows rather than organisations, while Scholte (1996) emphasises deterritorialisation as characteristic of globalisation, the increase of flows making national entities less significant. A line of analysis of particular relevance here is that represented by the works of Wallerstein (1991, 2000) and Bourdieu and Wacquant (1999), which point to an imbalance in international cultural exchanges and to the existence of domination effects. Wallerstein makes this point arguing that transnational cultural exchanges merely reflect the contradictions and imbalances in the world economy with a few Western economies dominating the rest of the world. However, for Bourdieu and Heilbron and for Sapiro, the cultural sphere exhibits a certain form of autonomy (Bourdieu 1990) from the economic sphere, seen for example, in the forms of transnational cultural exchanges affecting the fields of literature and of translations (Heilbron 1999, 2001). This school of thought uses quantitative data (Heilbron 1999, 2001; Sapiro 2008) to highlight both the fact that ‘Imbalances (. . .) characterize the very structure of international exchange’ (Heilbron 2001: 146), and that ‘instead of an equilibrium between import and export, the reality of transnational exchange is a process of uneven exchange’ (Heilbron 1999: 439). The conclusion here is that cultural exchanges operate in relation to a clearly discernable geographical centre, which is distinct from its periphery. This is so far the most convincing empirical data used to examine the workings of cultural globalisation with special reference to the field of literacy (Heilbron 1999, 2001; Janssen et al. 2008; Sapiro 2008). In the field of visual arts, a similar conclusion is at 4


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work. The most recognised artists on the international contemporary art scene, and whose work sells for the highest amounts at auctions, are from a very small number of Western countries; a finding that exemplifies the specific workings of cultural hegemony within this field (Quemin 2001, 2006). The data on the participation of galleries at ICAFs is designed to intervene in this debate by asking the following questions: Does the nationality of galleries influence their chances of participating at ICAFs? If so, to what extent and what countries dominate the international market of private transactions in art fairs? Are they the same countries that lead both the international art scene and auction market?

How International Are International Contemporary Art Fairs?

It is common for organisers of ICAFs to use advertising to reinforce the claim that such fairs are part of the international art scene. This is done in order to attract foreign galleries, to gain legitimacy for their fairs and to defend their ‘contemporaneity’. However, the extent to which ICAFs are truly international (that is, worldwide, given that in the contemporary art world ‘international’ tends to be synonymous with ‘worldwide’), or even extra-national varies greatly. The national diversity of exhibiting galleries is generally a good indication of the quality of an art fair, which should ideally resist the frequent pressure to favour domestic galleries and limit the number of places available to national exhibitors (unless it is organised by a leading art-market country with highly reputable galleries). But in order to be truly international, a fair should, arguably, welcome galleries from a broad range of countries, especially major galleries from leading art market countries (particularly the USA, Germany, the UK and Switzerland, as well as France and Italy) (Quemin 2006). The national profiles of participating galleries at Art Basel, the most prestigious international art fair in the world,4 are exemplary in this regard: in 2008, only 10% of exhibiting galleries were Swiss, whilst 23% were from the USA,5 17% German, 10% were from the UK, 8% were French and 7% Italian. Although this example shows little national diversity given the 4. Every year, more than 800 galleries worldwide apply to participate in Art Basel, and around 500 of these are rejected, which are, by far, the highest figures for a contemporary art fair. To be able to apply, galleries have to present a file introducing the gallery and its artists, and the project of their booth at the fair. A selection committee composed of art world experts, high proportions of whom are gallery owners (or curators), decides whether to accept or reject such applications. 5. While US galleries predominate in fairs organised in America (40% at Art Basel Miami and 41% at New York’s Armory Show, 71% at Art Chicago, or at smaller shows: 61% at Palm Beach Art Fair, 75% at the Outsider Art Fair and even 99% at

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small number of countries most represented, it is still the case that Art Basel is truly international insofar as these countries are the most prestigious in art world terms. In all probability, the success of London’s Frieze Art Fair in becoming an integral part of the international art calendar in just a few years is due to the fact that it has attracted a representative sample of galleries from the major art market countries. In particular, it has succeeded in presenting US galleries, thus breaking with the tradition of local (i.e., national) British art fairs and adhering to the blueprint of Art Basel, the market leader. As the number of contemporary art fairs increases, it is difficult for a gallery to claim that it is supporting contemporary artists without offering them greater access to the market than the range of opportunities provided by ‘local’ or national buyers. Art experts, buyers and representatives of major institutions who act as an informal academy (Moulin 1992) by exchanging information and advice on artists, now spend far more time visiting fairs and biennials than traipsing around galleries (with the exception of those in a few major cities such as New York, particularly around Chelsea),6 or searching for new talent on the internet. For galleries, the most attractive fairs are the most overtly international ones generally having the highest number of exhibitors as these are best able to lend legitimacy to the contemporary nature of the participating galleries as well as to the artists and works exhibited. Given that the international reputation of an artist is currently of crucial importance in determining the ‘contemporaneity’ of a given work of art (Moulin 1992; Moulin and Quemin 1993), more often than not it is those art fairs with the most geographically diverse exhibitor profiles (at least in terms of the leading contemporary art market countries; see Quemin 2002, 2006), that manage to attract the largest number of exhibitors. This claim is substantiated by the following list of the 10 largest or most important ICAFs classified by the number of exhibiting galleries and based on our data analysis: Art Basel, leading the way with 304 galleries, followed by Art Basel in Miami (248 galleries), Art Cologne (191), Fiera di Bologna (165), ARCO Madrid (164), Art Chicago (158), the Armory Show (158) in New York, MiArt Milano (156), London’s Frieze Art Fair (150) and FIAC Paris (149). There is generally a statistical correlation between the size of an art fair the Art Show), these are generally more reluctant to travel to Europe. In 2008, US galleries, (and not necessarily the most prestigious ones), only accounted for 13% of exhibitors at FIAC Paris and Artforum Berlin, 9% at ARCO Madrid, or a mere 4% at Art Cologne and 3% at the Bologna Art Fair. 6. This insight comes from David Halle and Elisabeth Tiso’s research in progress on contemporary art galleries in the New York district of Chelsea (to be published in 2013 by Chicago University Press).

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and its reputation or prestige. The smallest fairs that we analysed, Art Now, Art Moscow, Art Paris Abu Dhabi or Print Basel, only manage to attract a few dozen exhibitors at most.


Forty-One Contemporary Art Fairs

The data in our sample consists of a population of 41 ICAFs. With the help of data provided by internet-based Artprice, we identified all ICAFs held worldwide in 2008 specialised in ‘contemporary’ art. We then set up a selection criteria to include only those art fairs that featured: (i) a significant number of foreign exhibitors and (ii) galleries of sufficiently diversified nationality, in order to identify those ICAFs that exhibit an international dimension, and to determine how truly ‘international’ this dimension is. The application to these criteria led us to exclude about 20 ICAFs from the initial population data of art fairs with any kind of extranational visibility. The double criteria were systematically applied to those art fairs with the largest number of exhibitors held in the Western countries that dominate the international art scene, e.g., the USA, Germany, the UK, and France, amongst a few others. However, we were a little more lax when applying the criteria to the often smaller-scale art fairs held in more peripheral countries7 (Heilbron 1999, 2001; Quemin 2006; Sapiro 2008), such as Abu Dhabi and China, in order to make the range of art galleries included in our population as geographically diverse as possible. The list of international art fairs in decreasing number of participating galleries is as follows: Art Basel, Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Cologne, Fiera di Bologna, Arco (Madrid), Art Chicago, The Armory Show (New York), MiArt (Milan), Frieze Art Fair (London), FIAC (Paris), Artissima (Turin), Art Forum Berlin, Art Brussels, Art Paris, Art Singapore, ShContemporary (Shanghai), Art Fair Tokyo, Art Toronto, Art Amsterdam, Vienna Fair, Palm Beach 3, Art Melbourne, Art Taipei, CIGE 2008 (China), Art Miami, NADA art Fair (USA), Melbourne Art Fair, Scope Basel, Art Rotterdam, FEMACO (Mexico), Art LA (Los Angeles), Shanghai Art Fair, Arte Lisboa, ArteBA (Buenos Aires), Art Dubai, Scope New York, Outsider Art Fair (USA), Art Now (USA), Art Moscow, Art Paris Abu Dhabi and Print Basel. 7. In a similar vein, Sapiro (2008) distinguished ‘peripheral’ from ‘central’ languages when analysing international cultural exchanges in publishing, especially through translated works, in order to point up inequalities in the system of international exchanges.

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While the inclusion of a limited number of art fairs that are, in reality, little international in scope is the result of a conscious choice, our population is also skewed in favour of Italian fairs and galleries and it was not possible to eliminate what constitutes a real bias. Three major art fairs are organised in Italy, including two Bologna and Milan that include a very high proportion, two-thirds, of domestic exhibitors. The scale of these events is well beyond Italy’s overall influence on the international art market. The Turin art fair where half of all exhibitors are Italian is much more international in scope. Thence, numerous Italian galleries have access to the international market simply by virtue of being invited to exhibit at national fairs held in their own country. The USA hosts the lion’s share (24%) of the art fairs selected in our population (including the renowned Art Basel Miami, New York Armory Show and Art Chicago). A second place is occupied by Switzerland which organises Art Basel, Italy that hosts ICAFs in Turin, Milan and Bologna, and China which has managed to become a key art market country within the last few years.8 Each of the three aforementioned countries hosts 7% of international art fairs followed by Germany (Cologne and Berlin) (Quemin 2002a, 2006), France (FIAC), The Netherlands and two peripheral countries in art market terms (Heilbron 1999, 2001; Quemin 2006), Australia and the United Arab Emirates.9 Australia benefits from its relative geographical isolation from major international art market hubs, while the United Arab Emirates has recently pursued an active policy of promoting both art and the art market. These countries are followed by 12 others each of which organises just one significant ICAF; inter alia the UK (Frieze Art Fair) despite being a key international art market player itself (Quemin 2002a), especially for auctions. The other countries are Belgium, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore. So while the world counts almost 200 countries in terms of distinct political units, ICAFs those that may be considered to exhibit genuinely contemporary art are hosted in a mere 21 of these countries. Even though ICAFs have spread to other parts of the globe, entire regions and even whole continents such as Africa are completely unrepresented, with most regions represented only marginally. The only exceptions here are the USA (10 ICAFs organised in 2008), a few Western European countries (the European Union hosted 17 events in 10 different countries of unequal influence) and, more recently, China. 8. It must be noted that Chinese art fairs were partially included in the population by adhering to the logic used to broaden the profiles of the actors represented. China plays a more leading role in the auction market for fine art. 9. These also reflect our wish to broaden the national profiles of our data population.

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So what can be said now about the countries of origin of the galleries participating in ICAFs? For the first time the data produced by Artprice on our behalf have made it possible to calculate for 2008 not only the total number of gallery participations at international fairs at 4113 (many galleries participate in more than one fair), but also to ascertain the number of different galleries involved in this social world (Becker 1984) at around 2300 (2322 galleries to be exact). The high number of galleries pertaining to the same country reinforces the previously noted concentration among a few countries and the uneven representation of these countries in the organisation of art fairs. In terms of the galleries’ country of origin participating at ICAFs, the USA (with 464 galleries, 20.0% of them) is far ahead of its usual challenger, Germany (262 galleries, 11.3%) (Quemin 2002a, 2006), which is the leader of a small group of mostly Western countries. Italy comes behind with 9.4% of participating galleries but benefits from the overrepresentation referred to previously. Next comes France (6.4%), closely followed by Australia (6.2%) which tends to control its own domestic market due largely to its physical distance from the major international contemporary art market hubs, as seen in the high proportion of Australian galleries participating at fairs held in their own country. The same could be said of Japan (4.9%). Spain (4.3%) comes in slightly ahead of the UK (4.1%), which remains a big player in terms of contemporary art sales at auctions but does not do as well in terms of participating at ICAFs. These are followed by The Netherlands10 (3.8%), Canada (3.1%) and Switzerland, which despite accounting for only 2.8% of the total, houses some of the world’s largest and most internationally active art galleries.11 Not only is the location of ICAFs limited to a very small geographical, and mainly western, space, but also participating galleries come from a small number of Western countries, 64, that is, one-third of the world’s nations. The USA, Germany, the UK, Italy, France and Spain sent no less 10. See Femke van Hest (2012). 11. Other represented countries are, in decreasing order, China (2.6% of participating galleries), Belgium (2.1%), Austria (2.0%), Taiwan (1.9%), South Korea and Argentina (1.7% each), Portugal (1.5), Singapore (1.1%) and Brazil (1.0%). Mexico, Russian Federation, India, Denmark, Israel, New Zealand, Sweden, Poland, North Korea, Indonesia, Greece, Luxemburg, Ireland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Finland and Thailand, ranked in decreasing order from 0.7 to 0.2%. Turkey, Philippines, Slovenia, Columbia, Vietnam, Romania, Norway, Porto Rico, Venezuela, Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Czech Republic, Monaco, Malaysia, South Africa and United Arab Emirates all weigh 0.1% each. Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Tunisia, Iceland, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Serbia & Montenegro and Islamic Republic of Iran all weigh . . . 0.05% each only.

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than 55.5% of participating galleries, the USA on its own accounts for 20% while the five major European Union countries account for 35.5%.12 Australia (6.2%) and Japan (4.9% of galleries), have taken advantage of their physical distance from major international contemporary art market hubs and major international galleries to exercise a large measure of control over their domestic markets. The remarkable strides made by Chinese artists in contemporary art auction sales terms in just a few years do not translate in an increased presence of Chinese art galleries at ICAFs which represent only 2.6% of participants. Even so, while these figures are indeed modest, Chinese galleries are already well ahead of other emerging economies such as Brazil (1.0% of galleries), India or the Russian Federation (with 0.7% each). It must be pointed out that apart from those countries already mentioned, very few account for more than 1% of participating galleries at ICAFs; Western, and more specifically, European countries continue to have the strongest presence (3.8% Canada, 2.8% Switzerland, 2.1% Belgium, 2.0% Austria and 1.5% Portugal). Non-European and nonWestern countries send a lower proportion of participating galleries: Taiwan (1.9%), South Korea (1.7%), Argentina (1.7%) and Singapore (1.1%). A major country such as Brazil only represents 1% of all galleries, and 44 countries send less than 1% of galleries.

The National Dimension of ICAFs and What They Reveal about Cultural Globalisation

The data presented and analysed in the preceding sections lends further specificity to existing knowledge and understanding of art market dynamics. There are strong parallels with auction house sales (Quemin 2002a, 2006) given the central position occupied by the USA. Still, the gap that can be found in other sectors of the visual arts, for example, between Germany, and other European countries such as the UK, France, and Italy is not at work in the example of ICAFs. However, an important finding has been the somewhat unexpected role played by these fairs in Asia and Oceania and the participation of national galleries at such events, especially given the domination of the auction market and the international arts scene by arts businesses and artists based in/from Western countries. Having said that, no art fair held outside a handful of Western European countries and the USA has any major international influence, 12. The European Union as a whole accounts for 43.1% of participating galleries and thus we can see that the influence of this economic and political entity is concentrated among just a handful of its members.

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and is thus able to attract the most prestigious contemporary art galleries, either American or European (and we should insist again on the fact that such galleries are located in a very small number of European countries). At a time supposedly characterised by the disappearance or weakening of national borders (Sassen 1996; Bauman 1998), the reality revealed by the statistics presented here is a stark one. A strong hierarchy of countries controls the organisation of and participation at ICAFs. Our data make clear that national states still retain much of their power over the international art market, which remains highly territorialised and controlled by a few such national units. These findings lead us to endorse a definition of globalisation, which, in spite of the intensification of exchanges linked to this phenomenon, asserts the prominence of preexisting geographical entities (Scholte 1997), seen here in terms of the countries organising the ICAFs and of the national profiles of the galleries taking part in them. Following from this, the next issue to be raised is that of how to envision the role of such national units in relation to their participation in and organisation of ICAFs? We argue that this domain of the market for contemporary art has a centre, a duopoly formed by the USA and a small number of Western European countries, (Germany, France and Italy, the UK and occasionally Switzerland), belonging to either the centre or to a semi-periphery, depending on the specific data being examined which has consequences for how the boundary between core and the semi-periphery is envisioned. Our findings thus lead us to draw similar conclusions as those put forward by Heilbron: This concentration of production and distribution implies the existence of both peripheral and semi-peripheral zones. But the centre of the system is itself fragmented. Given that the worldwide cultural system includes a limited number of competing centres, cultural globalisation appears first and foremost as a process of polycentric concentration. (. . .) each cultural form has several centres (. . .) (2001: 146, author’s transl.)

The five or six aforementioned countries are all based in the West, and are amongst the world’s wealthiest. In contrast to this resolutely Western centre and semi-periphery there is an artistic periphery consisting of all those countries that do not belong to the dual geographical nucleus. The periphery includes all those countries that do not appear in the above list, especially less developed countries (Quemin 2002b), although not exclusively, as seen in the examples of Japan, Canada and Spain, which, despite being developed, are not always very well placed in our lists. Whilst the apparent prominence of artists 11


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from a wide variety of countries, and from the less developed countries in particular, can be interpreted as a symptom of globalisation in the arts, the auction market and the ICAFs sector are still controlled by the West. In general, non-Western countries play only a minor role in the art market. With reference to the specific example of ICAFs, globalisation has not challenged the US-European/US-Germanic duopoly, or even the US market hegemony (depending on how one sets the division between centre and semi-periphery). In this respect, the art market is still dominated by a few Western countries, namely the USA and Germany;13 France, Italy, the UK and Switzerland tend to form a semi-periphery, but with varying positions depending on the different segments of the market and its institutions. In contrast to the analyses of Sassen (1996) and Bauman (1998), the quantitative data and analysis presented here should lead us to treat these works with a certain amount of circumspection, especially in their emphasis on the weakening of national, territorial borders. The same point applies to arguments stating that the global is structured more around patterns of flows than around pre-constituted entities, and for the arguments of Castells (1991) who also insists on flows rather than organisations. Ditto for the analyses of Scholte (1996), which overemphasise the importance of deterritorialisation. Although transnational fluxes characterise the art market, their national dimension should not be underestimated. We need to account for the structural underpinnings and framings of flows, e.g., movements of art between different countries. Transnational flows are embedded in and facilitated by a hierarchical structure of national units, and it is all the more pertinent to explore how this hierarchy affects the form these flows take, and the power dynamics that makes them possible (Quemin 2007). Although debates about cultural imperialism and the inequality of exchanges in the cultural sphere have to a large degree been based on mainly theoretical and ideological considerations more than on concrete case studies, the example analysed here supports those theories (Wallerstein 1991, 2000; Bourdieu and Wacquant 1999) that point to inequalities in international cultural exchanges and to the existence of domination effects. Still, transnational cultural exchanges do not merely reflect contradictions in the world economy, as Wallerstein argues. Given that some of the wealthiest countries, such as Japan or Canada, play only a secondary or even minor role in the structure of ICAFs, we could also contend that there is a certain autonomy in the cultural sphere (Bourdieu 13. Artists from these two countries occupy pre-dominant positions on the international contemporary art scene (Quemin 2002a, 2006).

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1990) as well as in transnational cultural exchanges in general (Heilbron 1999, 2001) and the art market in particular.


Conclusion

In spite of increasing internationalisation, a study of international art fairs and participating galleries makes it quite clear that the territorial dimension certainly has not disappeared even in a field as ‘globalized’ as the contemporary art market. In the contemporary art market, the national (i.e., state-based) dimension remains a major structural factor, figures show a strong hierarchy both in terms of countries organising ICAFs and the participation of countries in these fairs. The international art market remains highly territorialised and controlled by a few national units in spite of the intensification of exchanges. There is still a centre, a semi-periphery and periphery: the latter comprises all those countries that are not part of the ‘dual-geographical nucleus’ still constituted by the USA, and a small number of Western Europe countries that form a semi-periphery; the rest of the world constitutes a vast periphery playing only a limited, negligible role. Among European countries, there is still clearly a strong hierarchy even though Europe is tending to become more integrated both from a political, and increasingly from a territorial point of view. As in the case of the literary field or other segments of the visual arts field, empirical data reveal that cultural globalisation appears mostly as an increase in transnational exchanges that neither erase national borders, nor the impact of national units. These first converging results should encourage other studies to determine whether this is a general characteristic of the globalisation of culture, or at least of the globalisation of high culture. References

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Address for correspondence: Alain Quemin, 31 rue de Montmorency, 75003 Paris, France. E-mail: [email protected]

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