Art Market Experts

Insightful commentary on the most important trends impacting today’s art world, written by business leaders with rare understandings of how and why art is collected, invested in, supported and appreciated. Observer Arts Contributors bring fresh lenses to the topics that matter most in today’s art market—sharing all of that (and more) with our audience of arts and culture enthusiasts. Read more Expert Insights.

When Algorithms Curate Culture, What Do We Lose?

Michele Y. Smith, CEO of Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture (MOPOP), examines how A.I.-driven curation is reshaping what we watch, listen to and value, and what’s being lost in the process. Smith argues that while algorithms can organize content, they can’t preserve the accidents, contradictions and context that make pop culture meaningful.

By Michele Y. Smith

The Myth of the Digital Threat: How Technology Expands Art’s Reach

Arline Mann, artist and former Goldman Sachs managing director, examines the anxiety surrounding digital art’s rise and what it reveals about how audiences engage with creativity today. Mann explores how online access, global collecting trends and hybrid gallery models are reshaping the art ecosystem, making the case that the future of art isn’t a zero-sum battle between pixels and paint but a richer, more connected world for artists and viewers alike.

By Arline Mann

Beautiful Trash: Sustainability as Condition, Not Cure, in Contemporary Art

Jennifer Findley, an art advisor, curator and founder of the JFiN Collective, explores how artists and institutions are rethinking sustainability as a material condition of contemporary practice. Findley examines how figures like Max Hooper Schneider and Tom Friedman are redefining what it means to create, collect and conserve in an age of excess. The art world’s path forward, she argues, lies not in restoration, but in reconfiguration.

By Jennifer Findley

Rethinking Artist Support: Collaboration and Shared Learning Shapes Grantmaking

By Lu Zhang

An Insider’s Guide to Maneuvering Miami Art Week

By Chloe Berkowitz

Mastering the Fall 2024 Art Fair Circuit: A Collector’s Guide

By Megan Fox Kelly

Do Resale Restrictions Set By Art Dealers Represent a Restraint On Trade?

By Daniel Grant

Art Investment Strategies: How to Capitalize on the Buyer’s Art Market

By Philip Hoffman

When Deaccessioned Art and Antiquities Have Nowhere to Go

By Daniel Grant

Contemporary Art Conservation Raises Thorny Issues Around Responsibility

By Daniel Grant

How Serious Art Collectors Care for Their Collections

By Daniel Grant

A Look Back at Museum Repatriation in 2024

By Daniel Grant

Unlocking Wealth in the Art Market: Why Now Is the Perfect Time to Invest

By Philip Hoffman

What Art Buyers Need to Know About BOGO Deals

By Daniel Grant

How a First-of-Its-Kind Exhibition About African American Artists in the Nordic Countries Came to Be

By Ethelene Whitmire and Leslie Anderson

Why (and How) Gallery and Museum Collections Management Went Digital

By Daniel Grant

The Ins and Outs of Commissioning a Work of Art

By Daniel Grant

What Buyers and Sellers Need to Know About Art Auction Security in the Age of Cyberattacks

By Daniel Grant

Why Defining Exactly Who Is and Isn’t an Artist Matters

By Daniel Grant

Smart Money’s Appetite for Art-Backed Debt Investing: Sotheby’s Announces $700M Art Loan Securitization to High Demand

By Rebecca Fine

Art Law: How Nations Around the World Deal with Forgeries

By Daniel Grant

The Impact of Art Gallery Closures on Artists and Collectors

By Daniel Grant

Why More Artists Are Forming Limited Liability Corporations

By Daniel Grant

On Arts Philanthropy: Why Everyone Wants to Be Komal Shah

By Aurelie Cauchy and Leslie Ramos

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