TOOLS FOR THE FUTURE – RESEARCHING ART MARKET PRACTICES FROM PAST TO PRESENT
International Workshop #7
Markets for applied arts, artistic crafts and design
Erasmus University, Rotterdam
9-11 June 2022
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
The workshop Markets for applied arts, crafts and design is part of the International Workshops Series “Tools for the Future: Researching art market Practices from Past to Present”, jointly founded by Elisabetta Lazzaro (Business School for the Creative Industries – University of the Creative Arts, UK), Nathalie Moureau (University Paul Valéry, Montpellier 3) and Adriana Turpin (IESA Art & Culture, Paris and the Society for the History of Collecting, London). Through individual presentations followed by group discussions, the workshops series aims at bringing together international scholars and professionals from different disciplines, periods of study and areas of practice of the art market to confront key issues and related methods that can be used to interpret, analyse and operate through the structures and principals of the art market. Previous workshops were on art collectors (Montpellier, June 2018), the artist as an entrepreneur (Utrecht, December 2018), formation and development of new markets (London, June 2019) communication strategies (Rome, November 2019), legislation and legal structures (Ljubljana, September 2020) and financial practices (Paris, June 2021). The department of Arts and Culture Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam will host the next workshop of this successful series in Rotterdam on 9-11 June 2022.
This workshop aims to enlarge the perspective of art market research and go beyond the contemporary emphasis on high-end markets for the fine arts by focusing on applied arts, artistic crafts and design. Depending on their historical or geographical contexts, the applied arts have different meanings and hence different values. This workshop aims to examine the various implications in the supply, distribution, and consumption of applied arts, decorative arts, craftworks and design from those of the so-called fine arts.
Suppliers (artists, craftspeople), sellers, intermediaries and buyers active in these market segments offer profiles, know-how and expertise likely to differ from those encountered in current, more-established, “western-biased” markets for the fine arts. Many of these goods are usually produced at the crossroads of know-how and (semi)-industrial production. Applied/decorative arts, craftworks and design hold particular cultural and economic properties (e.g., functionality, commercial potential, originals vs multiples) that deserve greater academic attention.
Cultural goods belonging to the categories of applied arts, decorative arts, crafts, and design and transiting through these markets are, among others:
- Creative craftworks
- Furniture (antique/vintage/design)
- Textile arts (quilts, tapestry, woven artworks)
- Ceramics, pottery, porcelain
- Fine glassware
- Silverware, goldsmithing
- Art reproducibles, multiples
We are inviting papers which address innovative methodologies to research these markets in order to highlight original forms of intermediation, entrepreneurship and business models, financing practices, “platformisation”, globalisation, etc. In doing so, we want to gain insights into the structures and dynamics that govern these overlooked creative industries and explore new ways to map and analyse them, at both local and global levels.
Areas of proposed discussion will include, among others:
- Perceived and economic values of these goods
- Economic differences between one off pieces and multiples (e.g. financial value)
- Market structure of these segments (e.g., high vs low-ends, primary vs secondary markets, types of competition)
- Supply chains
- Alternative price determinants and the role of material value and use value in price formation
- Alternative branding and promotion strategies (as opposed to traditional fine arts)
- Buyers’ profiles and incentives to collect applied arts, craftworks and design
- Cultural and economic challenges faced by these specialised markets
- Impact of digitalisation
- Cultural policy recommendations for stakeholders active in these industries
Abstract submission and deadlines
We welcome submissions of rigorous quantitative, theoretical, and/or qualitative studies contributing to the topic illustrated above. We particularly appreciate submissions from different disciplines within the social sciences and the humanities as well as interdisciplinary approaches.
Please submit your abstract of 300 words with a short biography to Filip Vermeylen (vermeylen@eshcc.eur.nl) and Adriana Turpin (a.turpin@iesa.fr) by 15 March 2022. Notification of acceptance will be given by 1 April 2022.
Scientific Committee
- Elisabetta Lazzaro, Business School for the Creative Industries, University of the Creative Arts, UK
- Ellen Loots, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands
- Nathalie Moureau, ART-Dev University Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, France
- Anne-Sophie Radermecker, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
- Adriana Turpin, IESA Art&Culture, Paris, France
- Filip Vermeylen, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands