Holland Cotter Looks at Money in Art
A new year. A new New York mayor. Old problems with art in New York. I have a collection of complaints and a few (very few) ideas for change.
Money — the grotesque amounts spent, the inequitable distribution — has dominated talk about art in the 21st century so far. It’s a basic fact of art history. Emperors, popes and robber barons set the model for the billionaire buyers of today. Of course, it is today that matters to the thousands of artists who live and work in this punitively expensive city, where the art industry is often confused with the art world.