The 12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary

Resumen del libro

Why would a smart New York investment banker pay 12 million for the decaying, stuffed carcass of a shark? By what alchemy does Jackson Pollock's drip painting "No. 5, 1948 "sell for 140 million?

Intriguing and entertaining, "The 12 Million Stuffed Shark" is a "Freakonomics" approach to the economics and psychology of the contemporary art world. Why were record prices achieved at auction for works by 131 contemporary artists in 2006 alone, with astonishing new heights reached in 2007? Don Thompson explores the money, lust, and self-aggrandizement of the art world in an attempt to determine what makes a particular work valuable while others are ignored.

This book is the first to look at the economics and the marketing strategies that enable the modern art market to generate such astronomical prices. Drawing on interviews with past and present executives of auction houses and art dealerships, artists, and the buyers who move the market, Thompson launches the reader on a journey of discovery through the peculiar world of modern art. Surprising, passionate, gossipy, revelatory, "The 12 Million Stuffed Shark" reveals a great deal that even experienced auction purchasers do not know.

Biografía del autor

Don Thompson es economista, profesor de ciencias empresariales y experto en arte. Ha enseñado en la London School of Economics, la Harvard Business School y la Schulich School of Business de la Universidad de York en Toronto. Colaborador en medios como The Times, Harperx{0026} x02019;s Magazine y The Art Economist, en Ariel ha publicado La supermodelo y la caja de Brillo, y entre sus libros más recientes destaca The Curious Economics of Luxury Fashion.