QUOTATION # 112.

EXCERPTS OF INTERVIEW: Francis Outred on the Explosion of the Contemporary Art Market

QUESTION: You have been active as an artist and curator; you had a theoretical and art historical background. Was going to an auction house not problematic?

A lot of artists, art historians, art critics don’t like auction houses because the valuation there happens through money.

There’s been this old conflict between art and money, already Pliny in the 1st century was complaining about degradation of art because of its connection to money.

Didn’t you have a problem with exchanging the symbolic value for the financial value?

ANSWER: Obviously that was always an issue; it was even more so in my time; people really didn’t cross that divide at all.

For a lot of people, I was like Judas; they felt I’d almost turned my back on the artists. But my position was a relatively creative one because I felt I could make a difference.

I never had an issue with the connection between art and money at all. From my perspective, it seemed crazy that great art was being made which was not being appreciated in the artist’s own lifetime and allowing them to continue their careers.

 I never wanted to go for just a “job” in my life. I looked at it as a kind of mission to try to change the perception of the auction house within various parts of the art world.

When I came there, as an artist and curator, I thought that we could show these artworks better than they were being shown at that time.

At that point there was absolutely zero interaction between auction houses and artists; I wanted to get the artists who were upset with the auction houses to be more in discussion with them.

This second exhibition will focus on the research he carried out between 1979-1994, in dialogue with Abdelkébir Khatibi and Abdellatif Laabi.

Exhibition Mohammed Kacimi “L’Œuvre révélée”; From December 28th, 2021 to February 5th, 2022; At Comptoir des Mines Galerie, Marrakech; Opening TODAY Tuesday, December 28th, From 5:00 pm.********

QUESTION: What have been the biggest transformations of the art system looking from your perspective of the 30 years?

ANSWER:The biggest transformation is that the audience has expanded exponentially. The audience on all levels is probably somewhere between 30 and 100 times what it was.

The appetite for the consumption of art in whatever form has transformed. Obviously, the Internet has also helped with that and for me, as somebody doing my own thing, Instagram and Google are very important tools.

 This transformation of the audience has obviously had a big impact on markets and in turn the market has had a big impact on the industry. As a result, you’ve seen this breakdown of the boundaries between museums, galleries, artists, auction houses and advisors, which I think is very important. All of these different elements are learning from each other now and openly doing so.

I think that museums depend more on galleries and auction houses than they have done in the past.

Galleries depend on the auction houses’ transparency of price to sell their new works. You can’t set a gallery price for Mark Bradford for $10 million without the precedent having been set at that level in the auction market.

Coming back to your original question to me, “How could you as an artist go into an auction house,” I think that if you did it today, it would be much more acceptable.

 I went to the Christie’s viewing in October in London and saw representatives from the Royal Academy walking around. Museum people are very present at auction house viewings now because they know it’s important for them to understand what’s going on in the marketplace.

****The full Outred interview is available at here.