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INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARYART FAIRS IN A ‘GLOBALIZED’ART MARKETAlain Quemin aa University of Paris-8 , Paris , FrancePublished online: 21 Feb 2013.

To cite this article: Alain Quemin (2013) INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ARTFAIRS IN A ‘GLOBALIZED’ ART MARKET, European Societies, 15:2, 162-177, DOI:10.1080/14616696.2013.767927

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INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ARTFAIRS IN A ‘GLOBALIZED’ ARTMARKET

1

Alain QueminUniversity of Paris-8, Paris, France

ABSTRACT: This article examines the participation of art galleries at

international contemporary art fairs (ICAFs) to evaluate what theories of

cultural globalisation best describe this type of practice. For that purpose, it

draws upon recent and original statistical data in order to examine thegeographical distribution of major ICAFs worldwide, that is, their concen-

tration in selected geographical locations, as well as the country of origin of

the galleries participating in these events. This is intended to map out the

workings of any territorial forms of dominance affecting the art market, seen

both in the capability of a given country to organise one or more ICAFs and in

that of art galleries to participate in such high profile events. The article

firstly reviews relevant literature on cultural globalisation to outline, and also

problematise, those interpretative models that can be applied to theparticular case of ICAFs. Secondly, it provides and analyses new statistical

data on ICAFs and gallery participation mentioned earlier. Thirdly, it

examines how this data can be interpreted with the help of current theories

of cultural globalisation. It concludes by arguing that the model best

explaining the territorial dynamics of ICAFs is one that incorporates a notion

of both centre and semi-peripheral domination on a vast periphery of

countries including both Western and non-Western countries.

Key words: art fairs; art market; visual arts; high culture; globalisation;transnational exchanges

Introduction

This article examines the participation of art galleries at internationalcontemporary art fairs (ICAFs) to evaluate what theory/ies of culturalglobalisation best describe/s this type of practice. More specifically, it

1. I would like to thank Marta Herrero for her extensive comments on countless drafts of

this article. Her advice and incisive suggestions have greatly improved the final

version of this text.

162 – 2013 Taylor & Francis

European Societies,2013

Vol. 15, No. 2, 162�177,http://dx.doi.org/

10.1080/14616696.2013.767927

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draws upon recent statistical data in order to examine the geographicaldistribution of major ICAFs, that is, their predominance in selectedgeographical locations, as well as the country of origin of the galleriesparticipating in art fairs. This type of exercise is intended to map out theworkings of any territorial forms of dominance affecting the art market,seen both in the capability of a given country to organise one or moreICAFs and in that of art galleries to participate in such high profile events.Unlike biennials, non-profit international exhibitions usually held every 2years (the Kassel Dokumenta, held once every 5 years is an exception) andgenerally lasting about 3 months (the most prestigious biennials can lastup to 6 months), ICAFs are for-profit events organised annually and lastingonly a few days. They are a relatively new phenomenon; the first ICAFtook place in Cologne, in Germany, in 1969, just 1 year before Art Basel,in Switzerland.2 Each ICAF has an organising committee responsible forthe selection of participating art galleries, thus artists are not inviteddirectly, but only by mediation of the galleries representing their work.

A number of factors make research on ICAFs timely. Firstly, it shedsnew light on a rather unexplored area in the socio-scientific literature onart markets (Smith 1989; Graddy and Ashenfelter 2002; Velthuis 2005),which, so far, has largely ignored the role of art galleries at ICAFs (Moulin1967, 1992, 2003). One reason for this omission is probably the privacywith which art galleries treat their transactions, and which has made itdifficult for researchers to obtain data of these sales. Some recent studiesare, however, starting to counteract this trend (Velthuis 2003; Halle andTiso 2005; Hutter et al. 2007; Quemin 2008). This literature is especiallywelcome given that participation at art fairs is a major source of income forart galleries (Fournier and Roy-Valex 2002; Quemin 2008). Secondly, itprovides a means of comparing the operations of different sectors of theart market: the territorial dynamics of ICAFs with those of auction houses.A large body of literature on the auction market has revealed a strongterritorial dominance performed by a small, selected number of countries(Quemin 2000, 2001, 2006). In 2009, only four countries held just over80% of all fine art auctions: 27.9% USA, 21.3% UK, 17.4% China, and13.9% France, followed by Italy and Germany, which only held 3.2% ofall auctions each (Artprice 2009). Moreover, this territorial dominance isat the hands of major auction houses, namely, Sotheby’s and Christie’s,that hold a duopoly of the auction market (Moulin 2003). In 2009, theyheld nearly 60% of all the auctions taking place worldwide (31.8% forChristie’s and 27.3% for Sotheby’s) (Artprice 2009). Thirdly, the researchpresented in this article is designed to provide a valid, useful, addition and

2. By contrast, the first contemporary art biennial, that of Venice, in Italy, dates back to

1895, and the Sao Paulo biennial in Brazil was created in 1951.

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contribution to the literature on cultural globalisation. It has beensuggested that the art market is operating according to a global logic(Moulin 1992, 2003; Quemin 2001, 2006; Crane 2009), dominated by thepresence of key players that control the number of sales as well as the kindof art sold. However, in order to present a more detailed picture of howglobalisation operates in the art market, we still need to ask furtherquestions about its territorial logic. That is, whether the organisation oftransactions and events in certain key geographical locations, reassertssome of the arguments and claims made on behalf of the globalisation ofculture, or cultural globalisation.

The article is divided into three parts. Firstly, it reviews relevantliterature on cultural globalisation to outline, and also problematise, thoseinterpretative models that can be applied to the present case study.Secondly, it provides and analyses new statistical data on ICAFs andgallery participation provided by Artprice.3 Thirdly, it examines how thisdata can be interpreted with the help of current theories of culturalglobalisation, and it concludes by arguing that the model best explainingthe territorial dynamics of ICAFs is one that incorporates a notion of bothcentre and semi-peripheral domination.

Cultural Globalisation: An Ongoing Debate

Characteristic of some of the literature on globalisation is the frequentlyinsubstantial nature of the empirical data supporting some of the leadingtheoretical positions (Sassen 1992, 1999, 2000). Although analyses ofglobalisation developed and came to prominence in the 1990s and evenbecame central to sociology in the second half of this decade (Bartelson2000; Bellavance 2000; Therborn 2000b) the use of empirical data wasrelatively small compared to the amount of academic literature producedon the subject (Ohmae 1990; Lash and Urry 1994; Appadurai 1996, 2000).A case in point is the June 2000 issue of International Sociology, devoted tothe topic of globalisation (Therborn 2000a), and a book specificallyfocusing on cultural globalisation (King 2000). In both cases, there is analmost total absence of empirical data. The authors resort to abstractconsiderations and very rarely support their analyses with statisticalevidence, thus obliterating the fact that such data can in fact provide atleast a partial answer to some of the key questions raised by theoretical

3. Artprice is the world leader in art market information, most of which relates to

international art auctions. In 2009, within the scope of a partnership arrangement

dating back to the early 2000s we had access to exclusive data on international art fairs

and participating galleries.

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explorations of globalisation. A similar point can be made about some ofthe leading authors in this field, and whose contribution will be discussednow. Nonetheless, there are some recent exceptions to this trend that mustbe noted. A case in point is the work by Anheier and Raj Isar (2007) intheir cultural globalisation series, and especially their volume The CulturalEconomy where they present quantitative research on this topic drawingupon ‘indicator suites’.

A recurring theme in the debate over the specific dynamics of culturalglobalisation is the extent to which this phenomenon maintains orgenerates forms of inequality, and if so, of what kind (De Swaan 1995;Cowen 1998; Therborn 2000b). One line argument is represented by theanalyses of Sassen (1996) and Bauman (1998), which suggest that underconditions of globalisation, national borders are being increasingly erasedand substituted with growing fluxes or international exchanges, andcompared to other sociologists such as those working within a Marxisttradition (Wallerstein 1991, 2000), pay little attention to unequal exchangeand national forms of domination. A second line of argument explains howthe global is structured more around patterns of flows than around pre-constituted entities; Castells (1991), for example, refers to flows ratherthan organisations, while Scholte (1996) emphasises deterritorialisation ascharacteristic of globalisation, the increase of flows making nationalentities less significant.

A line of analysis of particular relevance here is that represented by theworks of Wallerstein (1991, 2000) and Bourdieu and Wacquant (1999),which point to an imbalance in international cultural exchanges and tothe existence of domination effects. Wallerstein makes this point arguingthat transnational cultural exchanges merely reflect the contradictionsand imbalances in the world economy with a few Western economiesdominating the rest of the world. However, for Bourdieu and Heilbron andfor Sapiro, the cultural sphere exhibits a certain form of autonomy(Bourdieu 1990) from the economic sphere, seen for example, in the formsof transnational cultural exchanges affecting the fields of literature and oftranslations (Heilbron 1999, 2001). This school of thought uses quantita-tive data (Heilbron 1999, 2001; Sapiro 2008) to highlight both the fact that‘Imbalances (. . .) characterize the very structure of international exchange’(Heilbron 2001: 146), and that ‘instead of an equilibrium between importand export, the reality of transnational exchange is a process of unevenexchange’ (Heilbron 1999: 439). The conclusion here is that culturalexchanges operate in relation to a clearly discernable geographical centre,which is distinct from its periphery. This is so far the most convincingempirical data used to examine the workings of cultural globalisation withspecial reference to the field of literacy (Heilbron 1999, 2001; Janssen et al.2008; Sapiro 2008). In the field of visual arts, a similar conclusion is at

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work. The most recognised artists on the international contemporary artscene, and whose work sells for the highest amounts at auctions, are from avery small number of Western countries; a finding that exemplifies thespecific workings of cultural hegemony within this field (Quemin 2001,2006). The data on the participation of galleries at ICAFs is designed tointervene in this debate by asking the following questions: Does thenationality of galleries influence their chances of participating at ICAFs? Ifso, to what extent and what countries dominate the international market ofprivate transactions in art fairs? Are they the same countries that lead boththe international art scene and auction market?

How International Are International Contemporary Art Fairs?

It is common for organisers of ICAFs to use advertising to reinforce theclaim that such fairs are part of the international art scene. This is done inorder to attract foreign galleries, to gain legitimacy for their fairs and todefend their ‘contemporaneity’. However, the extent to which ICAFs aretruly international (that is, worldwide, given that in the contemporary artworld ‘international’ tends to be synonymous with ‘worldwide’), or evenextra-national varies greatly. The national diversity of exhibiting galleriesis generally a good indication of the quality of an art fair, which shouldideally resist the frequent pressure to favour domestic galleries and limitthe number of places available to national exhibitors (unless it is organisedby a leading art-market country with highly reputable galleries). But inorder to be truly international, a fair should, arguably, welcome galleriesfrom a broad range of countries, especially major galleries from leadingart market countries (particularly the USA, Germany, the UK andSwitzerland, as well as France and Italy) (Quemin 2006). The nationalprofiles of participating galleries at Art Basel, the most prestigiousinternational art fair in the world,4 are exemplary in this regard: in 2008,only 10% of exhibiting galleries were Swiss, whilst 23% were from theUSA,5 17% German, 10% were from the UK, 8% were French and 7%Italian. Although this example shows little national diversity given the

4. Every year, more than 800 galleries worldwide apply to participate in Art Basel, and

around 500 of these are rejected, which are, by far, the highest figures for a

contemporary art fair. To be able to apply, galleries have to present a file introducing

the gallery and its artists, and the project of their booth at the fair. A selection

committee composed of art world experts, high proportions of whom are gallery

owners (or curators), decides whether to accept or reject such applications.

5. While US galleries predominate in fairs organised in America (40% at Art Basel

Miami and 41% at New York’s Armory Show, 71% at Art Chicago, or at smaller

shows: 61% at Palm Beach Art Fair, 75% at the Outsider Art Fair and even 99% at

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small number of countries most represented, it is still the case that ArtBasel is truly international insofar as these countries are the mostprestigious in art world terms. In all probability, the success of London’sFrieze Art Fair in becoming an integral part of the international artcalendar in just a few years is due to the fact that it has attracted arepresentative sample of galleries from the major art market countries. Inparticular, it has succeeded in presenting US galleries, thus breaking withthe tradition of local (i.e., national) British art fairs and adhering to theblueprint of Art Basel, the market leader.

As the number of contemporary art fairs increases, it is difficult for agallery to claim that it is supporting contemporary artists without offeringthem greater access to the market than the range of opportunities providedby ‘local’ or national buyers. Art experts, buyers and representatives ofmajor institutions who act as an informal academy (Moulin 1992) byexchanging information and advice on artists, now spend far more timevisiting fairs and biennials than traipsing around galleries (with theexception of those in a few major cities such as New York, particularlyaround Chelsea),6 or searching for new talent on the internet. Forgalleries, the most attractive fairs are the most overtly international ones �generally having the highest number of exhibitors � as these are best ableto lend legitimacy to the contemporary nature of the participating galleriesas well as to the artists and works exhibited. Given that the internationalreputation of an artist is currently of crucial importance in determiningthe ‘contemporaneity’ of a given work of art (Moulin 1992; Moulin andQuemin 1993), more often than not it is those art fairs with the mostgeographically diverse exhibitor profiles (at least in terms of the leadingcontemporary art market countries; see Quemin 2002, 2006), that manageto attract the largest number of exhibitors. This claim is substantiated bythe following list of the 10 largest or most important ICAFs classified bythe number of exhibiting galleries and based on our data analysis: ArtBasel, leading the way with 304 galleries, followed by Art Basel in Miami(248 galleries), Art Cologne (191), Fiera di Bologna (165), ARCO Madrid(164), Art Chicago (158), the Armory Show (158) in New York, MiArtMilano (156), London’s Frieze Art Fair (150) and FIAC Paris (149).There is generally a statistical correlation between the size of an art fair

the Art Show), these are generally more reluctant to travel to Europe. In 2008, US

galleries, (and not necessarily the most prestigious ones), only accounted for 13% of

exhibitors at FIAC Paris and Artforum Berlin, 9% at ARCO Madrid, or a mere 4% at

Art Cologne and 3% at the Bologna Art Fair.

6. This insight comes from David Halle and Elisabeth Tiso’s research in progress on

contemporary art galleries in the New York district of Chelsea (to be published in

2013 by Chicago University Press).

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and its reputation or prestige. The smallest fairs that we analysed, Art

Now, Art Moscow, Art Paris Abu Dhabi or Print Basel, only manage to

attract a few dozen exhibitors at most.

Forty-One Contemporary Art Fairs

The data in our sample consists of a population of 41 ICAFs. With the

help of data provided by internet-based Artprice, we identified all ICAFs

held worldwide in 2008 specialised in ‘contemporary’ art. We then set up a

selection criteria to include only those art fairs that featured: (i) a

significant number of foreign exhibitors and (ii) galleries of sufficiently

diversified nationality, in order to identify those ICAFs that exhibit an

international dimension, and to determine how truly ‘international’ this

dimension is. The application to these criteria led us to exclude about 20

ICAFs from the initial population data of art fairs with any kind of extra-

national visibility. The double criteria were systematically applied to those

art fairs with the largest number of exhibitors held in the Western

countries that dominate the international art scene, e.g., the USA,

Germany, the UK, and France, amongst a few others. However, we

were a little more lax when applying the criteria to the often smaller-scale

art fairs held in more peripheral countries7 (Heilbron 1999, 2001; Quemin

2006; Sapiro 2008), such as Abu Dhabi and China, in order to make the

range of art galleries included in our population as geographically diverse

as possible.The list of international art fairs in decreasing number of participating

galleries is as follows: Art Basel, Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Cologne,

Fiera di Bologna, Arco (Madrid), Art Chicago, The Armory Show (New

York), MiArt (Milan), Frieze Art Fair (London), FIAC (Paris), Artissima

(Turin), Art Forum Berlin, Art Brussels, Art Paris, Art Singapore,

ShContemporary (Shanghai), Art Fair Tokyo, Art Toronto, Art

Amsterdam, Vienna Fair, Palm Beach 3, Art Melbourne, Art Taipei,

CIGE 2008 (China), Art Miami, NADA art Fair (USA), Melbourne Art

Fair, Scope Basel, Art Rotterdam, FEMACO (Mexico), Art LA (Los

Angeles), Shanghai Art Fair, Arte Lisboa, ArteBA (Buenos Aires), Art

Dubai, Scope New York, Outsider Art Fair (USA), Art Now (USA), Art

Moscow, Art Paris � Abu Dhabi and Print Basel.

7. In a similar vein, Sapiro (2008) distinguished ‘peripheral’ from ‘central’ languages

when analysing international cultural exchanges in publishing, especially through

translated works, in order to point up inequalities in the system of international

exchanges.

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While the inclusion of a limited number of art fairs that are, in reality,little international in scope is the result of a conscious choice, ourpopulation is also skewed in favour of Italian fairs and galleries and it wasnot possible to eliminate what constitutes a real bias. Three major art fairsare organised in Italy, including two � Bologna and Milan � that include avery high proportion, two-thirds, of domestic exhibitors. The scale ofthese events is well beyond Italy’s overall influence on the international artmarket. The Turin art fair where half of all exhibitors are Italian is muchmore international in scope. Thence, numerous Italian galleries haveaccess to the international market simply by virtue of being invited toexhibit at national fairs held in their own country.

The USA hosts the lion’s share (24%) of the art fairs selected in ourpopulation (including the renowned Art Basel Miami, New York ArmoryShow and Art Chicago). A second place is occupied by Switzerland whichorganises Art Basel, Italy that hosts ICAFs in Turin, Milan and Bologna,and China which has managed to become a key art market country withinthe last few years.8 Each of the three aforementioned countries hosts 7%of international art fairs followed by Germany (Cologne and Berlin)(Quemin 2002a, 2006), France (FIAC), The Netherlands and twoperipheral countries in art market terms (Heilbron 1999, 2001; Quemin2006), Australia and the United Arab Emirates.9 Australia benefits fromits relative geographical isolation from major international art markethubs, while the United Arab Emirates has recently pursued an activepolicy of promoting both art and the art market. These countries arefollowed by 12 others each of which organises just one significant ICAF;inter alia the UK (Frieze Art Fair) despite being a key international artmarket player itself (Quemin 2002a), especially for auctions. The othercountries are Belgium, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Canada, Mexico,Argentina, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore. So while the world countsalmost 200 countries in terms of distinct political units, ICAFs � thosethat may be considered to exhibit genuinely contemporary art � are hostedin a mere 21 of these countries. Even though ICAFs have spread to otherparts of the globe, entire regions � and even whole continents such asAfrica � are completely unrepresented, with most regions representedonly marginally. The only exceptions here are the USA (10 ICAFsorganised in 2008), a few Western European countries (the EuropeanUnion hosted 17 events in 10 different countries of unequal influence)and, more recently, China.

8. It must be noted that Chinese art fairs were partially included in the population by

adhering to the logic used to broaden the profiles of the actors represented. China

plays a more leading role in the auction market for fine art.

9. These also reflect our wish to broaden the national profiles of our data population.

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So what can be said now about the countries of origin of the galleriesparticipating in ICAFs? For the first time the data produced by Artpriceon our behalf have made it possible to calculate for 2008 not only the totalnumber of gallery participations at international fairs at 4113 (many galleriesparticipate in more than one fair), but also to ascertain the number ofdifferent galleries involved in this social world (Becker 1984) at around 2300(2322 galleries to be exact). The high number of galleries pertaining to thesame country reinforces the previously noted concentration among a fewcountries and the uneven representation of these countries in theorganisation of art fairs.

In terms of the galleries’ country of origin participating at ICAFs, theUSA (with 464 galleries, 20.0% of them) is far ahead of its usualchallenger, Germany (262 galleries, 11.3%) (Quemin 2002a, 2006), whichis the leader of a small group of mostly Western countries. Italy comesbehind with 9.4% of participating galleries but benefits from theoverrepresentation referred to previously. Next comes France (6.4%),closely followed by Australia (6.2%) which tends to control its owndomestic market due largely to its physical distance from the majorinternational contemporary art market hubs, as seen in the highproportion of Australian galleries participating at fairs held in their owncountry. The same could be said of Japan (4.9%). Spain (4.3%) comes inslightly ahead of the UK (4.1%), which remains a big player in terms ofcontemporary art sales at auctions but does not do as well in terms ofparticipating at ICAFs. These are followed by The Netherlands10 (3.8%),Canada (3.1%) and Switzerland, which despite accounting for only 2.8%of the total, houses some of the world’s largest and most internationallyactive art galleries.11

Not only is the location of ICAFs limited to a very small geographical,and mainly western, space, but also participating galleries come from asmall number of Western countries, 64, that is, one-third of the world’snations. The USA, Germany, the UK, Italy, France and Spain sent no less

10. See Femke van Hest (2012).

11. Other represented countries are, in decreasing order, China (2.6% of participating

galleries), Belgium (2.1%), Austria (2.0%), Taiwan (1.9%), South Korea and

Argentina (1.7% each), Portugal (1.5), Singapore (1.1%) and Brazil (1.0%). Mexico,

Russian Federation, India, Denmark, Israel, New Zealand, Sweden, Poland, North

Korea, Indonesia, Greece, Luxemburg, Ireland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Finland and

Thailand, ranked in decreasing order from 0.7 to 0.2%. Turkey, Philippines,

Slovenia, Columbia, Vietnam, Romania, Norway, Porto Rico, Venezuela, Chile,

Uruguay, Peru, Czech Republic, Monaco, Malaysia, South Africa and United Arab

Emirates all weigh 0.1% each. Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Tunisia,

Iceland, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Serbia & Montenegro and Islamic Republic of

Iran all weigh . . . 0.05% each only.

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than 55.5% of participating galleries, the USA on its own accounts for20% while the five major European Union countries account for 35.5%.12

Australia (6.2%) and Japan (4.9% of galleries), have taken advantage oftheir physical distance from major international contemporary art markethubs and major international galleries to exercise a large measure ofcontrol over their domestic markets. The remarkable strides made byChinese artists in contemporary art auction sales terms in just a few yearsdo not translate in an increased presence of Chinese art galleries at ICAFswhich represent only 2.6% of participants. Even so, while these figures areindeed modest, Chinese galleries are already well ahead of other emergingeconomies such as Brazil (1.0% of galleries), India or the RussianFederation (with 0.7% each).

It must be pointed out that apart from those countries alreadymentioned, very few account for more than 1% of participating galleriesat ICAFs; Western, and more specifically, European countries continue tohave the strongest presence (3.8% Canada, 2.8% Switzerland, 2.1%Belgium, 2.0% Austria and 1.5% Portugal). Non-European and non-Western countries send a lower proportion of participating galleries:Taiwan (1.9%), South Korea (1.7%), Argentina (1.7%) and Singapore(1.1%). A major country such as Brazil only represents 1% of all galleries,and 44 countries send less than 1% of galleries.

The National Dimension of ICAFs and What They Reveal about CulturalGlobalisation

The data presented and analysed in the preceding sections lends fur-ther specificity to existing knowledge and understanding of art marketdynamics. There are strong parallels with auction house sales (Quemin2002a, 2006) given the central position occupied by the USA. Still, the gapthat can be found in other sectors of the visual arts, for example, betweenGermany, and other European countries such as the UK, France, andItaly is not at work in the example of ICAFs. However, an importantfinding has been the somewhat unexpected role played by these fairs inAsia and Oceania and the participation of national galleries at such events,especially given the domination of the auction market and the internationalarts scene by arts businesses and artists based in/from Western countries.

Having said that, no art fair held outside a handful of WesternEuropean countries and the USA has any major international influence,

12. The European Union as a whole accounts for 43.1% of participating galleries and

thus we can see that the influence of this economic and political entity is

concentrated among just a handful of its members.

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and is thus able to attract the most prestigious contemporary art galleries,either American or European (and we should insist again on the fact thatsuch galleries are located in a very small number of European countries).At a time supposedly characterised by the disappearance or weakening ofnational borders (Sassen 1996; Bauman 1998), the reality revealed by thestatistics presented here is a stark one. A strong hierarchy of countriescontrols the organisation of and participation at ICAFs. Our data makeclear that national states still retain much of their power over theinternational art market, which remains highly territorialised andcontrolled by a few such national units. These findings lead us to endorsea definition of globalisation, which, in spite of the intensification ofexchanges linked to this phenomenon, asserts the prominence of pre-existing geographical entities (Scholte 1997), seen here in terms of thecountries organising the ICAFs and of the national profiles of the galleriestaking part in them.

Following from this, the next issue to be raised is that of how toenvision the role of such national units in relation to their participation inand organisation of ICAFs? We argue that this domain of the market forcontemporary art has a centre, a duopoly formed by the USA and a smallnumber of Western European countries, (Germany, France and Italy, theUK and occasionally Switzerland), belonging to either the centre or to asemi-periphery, depending on the specific data being examined which hasconsequences for how the boundary between core and the semi-peripheryis envisioned.

Our findings thus lead us to draw similar conclusions as those putforward by Heilbron:

This concentration of production and distribution implies the existence of both

peripheral and semi-peripheral zones. But the centre of the system is itself

fragmented. Given that the worldwide cultural system includes a limited

number of competing centres, cultural globalisation appears first and foremost

as a process of polycentric concentration. (. . .) each cultural form has several

centres (. . .) (2001: 146, author’s transl.)

The five or six aforementioned countries are all based in the West, and areamongst the world’s wealthiest.

In contrast to this resolutely Western centre and semi-periphery there isan artistic periphery consisting of all those countries that do not belong tothe dual geographical nucleus. The periphery includes all those countriesthat do not appear in the above list, especially less developed countries(Quemin 2002b), although not exclusively, as seen in the examples ofJapan, Canada and Spain, which, despite being developed, are not alwaysvery well placed in our lists. Whilst the apparent prominence of artists

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from a wide variety of countries, and from the less developed countries in

particular, can be interpreted as a symptom of globalisation in the arts, the

auction market and the ICAFs sector are still controlled by the West. In

general, non-Western countries play only a minor role in the art market.With reference to the specific example of ICAFs, globalisation has not

challenged the US-European/US-Germanic duopoly, or even the US

market hegemony (depending on how one sets the division between centre

and semi-periphery). In this respect, the art market is still dominated by a

few Western countries, namely the USA and Germany;13 France, Italy, the

UK and Switzerland tend to form a semi-periphery, but with varying

positions depending on the different segments of the market and its

institutions.In contrast to the analyses of Sassen (1996) and Bauman (1998), the

quantitative data and analysis presented here should lead us to treat these

works with a certain amount of circumspection, especially in their

emphasis on the weakening of national, territorial borders. The same

point applies to arguments stating that the global is structured more

around patterns of flows than around pre-constituted entities, and for

the arguments of Castells (1991) who also insists on flows rather than

organisations. Ditto for the analyses of Scholte (1996), which over-

emphasise the importance of deterritorialisation. Although transnational

fluxes characterise the art market, their national dimension should not be

underestimated. We need to account for the structural underpinnings and

framings of flows, e.g., movements of art between different countries.

Transnational flows are embedded in and facilitated by a hierarchical

structure of national units, and it is all the more pertinent to explore how

this hierarchy affects the form these flows take, and the power dynamics

that makes them possible (Quemin 2007).Although debates about cultural imperialism and the inequality of

exchanges in the cultural sphere have to a large degree been based on

mainly theoretical and ideological considerations more than on con-

crete case studies, the example analysed here supports those theories

(Wallerstein 1991, 2000; Bourdieu and Wacquant 1999) that point to

inequalities in international cultural exchanges and to the existence of

domination effects. Still, transnational cultural exchanges do not merely

reflect contradictions in the world economy, as Wallerstein argues. Given

that some of the wealthiest countries, such as Japan or Canada, play only a

secondary or even minor role in the structure of ICAFs, we could also

contend that there is a certain autonomy in the cultural sphere (Bourdieu

13. Artists from these two countries occupy pre-dominant positions on the international

contemporary art scene (Quemin 2002a, 2006).

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1990) as well as in transnational cultural exchanges in general (Heilbron1999, 2001) and the art market in particular.

Conclusion

In spite of increasing internationalisation, a study of international art fairsand participating galleries makes it quite clear that the territorialdimension certainly has not disappeared even in a field as ‘globalized’ asthe contemporary art market. In the contemporary art market, the national(i.e., state-based) dimension remains a major structural factor, figures showa strong hierarchy both in terms of countries organising ICAFs and theparticipation of countries in these fairs. The international art marketremains highly territorialised and controlled by a few national units in spiteof the intensification of exchanges. There is still a centre, a semi-peripheryand periphery: the latter comprises all those countries that are not part ofthe ‘dual-geographical nucleus’ still constituted by the USA, and a smallnumber of Western Europe countries that form a semi-periphery; the restof the world constitutes a vast periphery playing only a limited, negligiblerole. Among European countries, there is still clearly a strong hierarchyeven though Europe is tending to become more integrated both from apolitical, and increasingly from a territorial point of view. As in the case ofthe literary field or other segments of the visual arts field, empirical datareveal that cultural globalisation appears mostly as an increase intransnational exchanges that neither erase national borders, nor the impactof national units. These first converging results should encourage otherstudies to determine whether this is a general characteristic of theglobalisation of culture, or at least of the globalisation of high culture.

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E-mail: aquemin@univ-paris8.fr

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