….the more they stay the same, we are told. I came across an interesting illustration of this today, in Apollo magazine. The lead article in the latest edition is about Cecilia Alemani, the new head of the Venice Biennale. This time round she has made a deliberate and sustained effort to increase the representation of female artists in the event, and in particular women from the “global south”, to the point where they will be in a majority among exhibitors. This stood in an interesting contrast to a piece on the state of the art market since the covid pandemic. It seems that “dead white males” still lead in the auctions by a very long way. Despite the global economic down-turn, and the general fall in the art market, at the top end it appears that there are still enough ultra-wealthy people around to protect the top end of the market, where demand and prices are still buoyant.
Another fact, which is also hardly new, is that the great majority of the thousands of young folk graduating from art schools will never ever find themselves a gallery.
It might well appear odd that I should read Apollo regularly, as it is certainly “out of my league”. Not only is it a regular source of good articles on art history (this month on Gillray and Gainsborough) but it does help me to see the big picture in relation to the art world. Those reports on the collecting activities activities of the ultra-wealthy also serve to confirm what I thought anyway about the gross disparities of fortune within our society.