In theory, I should like this book. It’s about the corruption of what Rachel Spence calls Planet Art, that, is museums and galleries, and there’s a lot of it about. It extends from the grossly inflated prices given to rubbish artefacts at auction, to the use of cultural philanthropy to elevate the social importance of controversial individuals such as Len Blavatnik and the Sackler family. Throw in the present, problematic funding formula for UK institutions — a third of funding from the Government so long as the museums and galleries raise a third from sales and a third from donors — and I’m right there with her. Patronage has always been a manifestation of power, from Maecenas to the Medicis, but we’ve rarely had such undiscerning patrons of art or such cynical purveyors of it.
As proof the world has gone mad she mentions the preposterous Rabbit by Jeff Koons, a stainless steel bunny sold at Christies in 2019 for just short of £70million as an example of “a particular skein of international contemporary art that has both fuelled and been fuelled by the wolfish art market”. She’s also sceptical about the investment by states like China, whose new galleries are notable for what’s missing from them: Ai Wei Wei. As for the overmighty Guggenheim, she applauds Helsinki for declining a branch.
