Abstract
This paper aims at understanding, from the inside, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying restrictive administrative measures on the art market. It is based on the interviews and ethnographic surveys made by graduate students from the Ecole du Louvre, from September 2020 to May 2021. This methodology makes it possible to demonstrate that, during the crisis, art market professionals were driven by the motto “the show must go on”. On the one hand, they wished to keep a straight face and remain silent on their individual difficulties, preferring to talk about their vocation and the positive effects of the crisis. On the other hand, the commercial activity continued despite everything; if the pandemic accelerated the digital turn of the art market, the physical contact with the works and the collectors remained primordial. The art market thus remained physical but accelerated its digital turn. The proportion of each interactional framework—physical and digital—is still uncertain, difficult to measure today and to predict in the long run.
Highlights
A Master Based on Encounters with ProfessionalsAfter a year of “second cycle” at the École du Louvre, centered on museology, students choose one of five routes for their second year, at the end of which they receive their diploma, i.e., the equivalent of a master’s degree. They can specialize in “research” routes (“history of art, research applied to collections” or “museology research”), or choose from among the three “vocational” routes, i.e., “mediation”, “heritage professions” or “art market”
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The difficulties of access to sources and the asymmetry of information make any global research on the art market difficult, not to mention the lack of historical perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the art market, both in the short term and, in the long run
Summary
After a year of “second cycle” at the École du Louvre, centered on museology, students choose one of five routes for their second year, at the end of which they receive their diploma, i.e., the equivalent of a master’s degree. They can specialize in “research” routes (“history of art, research applied to collections” or “museology research”), or choose from among the three “vocational” routes, i.e., “mediation”, “heritage professions” or “art market”. Between September and December 2020, the students met, as a whole class, with an auctioneer, three gallery owners with different specialties—contemporary art, ancient art and Oceanian artefacts—dealers active at the “marché aux Puces de Paris Saint-Ouen”, an antique dealer, an expert, two decorators, two art advisors, a press agency director, a museum curator, a couple of collectors, an economist and an auction house digital director.. Between September and December 2020, the students met, as a whole class, with an auctioneer, three gallery owners with different specialties—contemporary art, ancient art and Oceanian artefacts—dealers active at the “marché aux Puces de Paris Saint-Ouen”, an antique dealer, an expert, two decorators, two art advisors, a press agency director, a museum curator, a couple of collectors, an economist and an auction house digital director.8 These exchanges took place at the École du Louvre or at the venue/residence of art market professionals. Arts 2021, 10, 53 doing an internship in ten different institutions—auction houses, art galleries, art advisors, regulatory council or private art foundation.
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