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Passie of professie. Galeries en kunsthandel in Nederland
Gubbels, T.
Publication date
1999
Link to publication
Citation for published version (APA):
Gubbels, T. (1999). Passie of professie. Galeries en kunsthandel in Nederland. Uniepers.
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Summary
Passion or profession
Private art galleries and art dealers
in the Netherlands
The contemporary art w o r l d is one ot' constant uncertainty and confusion for several artistic and social reasons. It deals w i t h 'goods', works of art, that have inextricable aes-thetic and economic value. In the second half of the twentieth century these works of art are characterized by a plurality of different styles and trends, w h i c h is reflected in the motivations and behaviour of actors in the contemporary art market. Artists, art dealers and collectors are active at different professional and artistic levels from professional to amateur. Transactions in the art market are mostly not standardized and relations are complex because they are usually to be found on the personal, artistic and business levels at the same time. Moreover, actors in the art market often simultaneously fulfil different (professional) roles and positions, for example as dealers, collectors and connoisseurs. In this opaque art world private art galleries and art dealers fulfil a central role because they are " m i d d l e m e n ' between producers (artists) and consumers of art (buyers/collectors). They function as gatekeepers in the selection and legitimation of contemporary art. Private art galleries exercise a specific form of dealing in contemporary art; selling it by organizing exhibitions of works of art by living artists. Often they represent, more or less permanently, a select group of artists whose works of art they also have in stock. Art deal-ers are specialists in buying and selling art works as opposed to owndeal-ers of private art gal-leries w h i c h are primarily exhibition organisers but in practice there are a lot of mixed types. Private art galleries often combine a museum w i t h a commercial function. O n the one hand they offer the opportunity to exhibit a selective (personal) choice of works of art and on the other hand they are a shop, whose success depends on the sale of works of art in order to generate an income. Private art gallery-owners are in fact cultural bankers; art and commerce come together in them.
The way private art galleries dealt w i t h their double identity as well as func-tioned and posifunc-tioned themselves, in an artistic and commercial sense, in the contem-porary art w o r l d in the Netherlands since World War II is discussed in this dissertation. In the beginning of the sixties there were no more than thirty private art galleries, by the nineties there are more than six hundred active. Through this huge increase,
tion and specialisation the private art galleries from the seventies onwards developed an o w n field in the art w o r l d w i t h its o w n rules and habits, coalitions and organisations. The w o r l d of private art galleries became a separate domain in the Dutch art w o r l d .
A significant selection of private art galleries w h i c h , for artistic or economic reasons (or both), have been important at different times, play the leading role in this dis-sertation. Against a changing socio-economic background these galleries are portrayed from the perspective of production (which artists, styles and trends they represent), distribution (the backgrounds and policy of the gallery owners, their idealism versus c o m -mercial goals) and consumption (which part of the market they attract). The development of the private art galleries is also placed in the context of changes in the national art w o r l d with an analyse of the changing competition-relations between private art gal-leries, museums, and other institutions that are concerned w i t h the distribution of con-temporary art works. Also the role of Art fairs and associations of gallery owners and the influence of the international art markets are discussed. Finally the important role of state policies for visual arts in general and particularly the private art galleries are described.
