The Art of Art Assessing (Results of a Survey in the Saint Petersburg Artistic Community)

The Art of Art Assessing (Results of a Survey in the Saint Petersburg Artistic Community)


Kolycheva V.A.

Cand. Sci. (Econ.), Assoc. Prof., Department of Statistics, Accounting and Auditing, Faculty of Economics, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia v.kolycheva@spbu.ru

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Kolycheva V.A. The Art of Art Assessing (Results of a Survey in the Saint Petersburg Artistic Community). Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2019. No 11. P. 100-109




Abstract

Development of market economy in Russia has been accompanied by fundamental changes in all the spheres of life of the society. Transition to the market system has affected the cultural sphere as well, the works of art ceased being considered as purely spiritual values. Russian art has started its gradual integration into international art market. How do these processes reflect in the public consciousness? Which social consequences were caused by merge of two intrinsic antagonists – art and economy? It appears that by the present moment already enough time has passed to sum up the first constructive results, the deepest source of information about which are, first of all, the direct participants in the whole set of new processes for the domestic art market, namely, masters, art historians, collectors, etc. In the current article built on the materials of the focused interviews with representatives of the artistic community of Saint-Petersburg are discussed: 1) concepts of the price, value and utility of the art objects; 2) distinctions in the functions performed by commercial and noncommercial art platforms; 3) features of the pricing process of the art works – in both actual and idealized conditions; 4) financial and investment potential of the art monuments; 5) problems and prospects of the Russian art market. The most important of the revealed tendencies is necessary to recognize: 1) desire to combine different types of the creative activity with the growth of a professional experience of the respondents; 2) hidden dissatisfaction with the existing commodity-money operations with the art works; 3) obvious presence of the social expectations in the artistic environment; 4) fairly low assessment of the results of the creative activity.


Keywords
Russian region; art market; art works; pricing process; artistic community; professional judgment

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Content No 11, 2019