Artist-run Galleries - Differentiating Three Models in Current Contemporary Art Markets

Abstract

In the past five years the contemporary art market in a Western European and US context has progressed in its economic growth, professionalizing certain art world roles and encouraging the rise of young international galleries and private museums in the US. This article focuses on a particular local establishment of artist-run galleries in New York at the intersection of art production and commercial/instituional recognition. Artists founded art-run galleries that show strategies to exhibit and sell works of art in a peer-to-peer scenario, breaking with some established safeguarding protocols of emerging and established White Cube galleries. The article examines these strategies and demonstrates a reflective symbiosis between artist-run galleries and commercial and institutional recognition in the contemporary art market.

Keywords

• Contemporary Art Market, Artist Run Galleries, Contemporary Art