SINOFZIK, Anna; HUBER, Leonie; CATON, Ben
Texte Zur Kunst 35/140 (Dec. 2025) System Change: Art Market and Criticism

"The term system change has a political as well as a technological denotation, referring both to the switch from one political system to another and to the act of replacing the hardware and software components on which a computer runs. The systemic change of the art field, which we examine in this issue, implies a shift in those relations of forces and power differentials that control interpretive prerogatives and keep the art world running. The latter has gone through a comparable shift before, in the late 19th century, when, as Cynthia and Harrison White showed, the Salon system was supplanted by the dealer-critic system.
It marked the emergence of the art dealer and the art critic as two figures who became vital to processes of value formation. The hypothesis we explore in the following is that today we seem to be witnessing a similar structural transformation:
Criticism was the first to start losing significance in the 1990s (a development that Isabelle Graw has described as the shift toward a dealer-collector-curator system), and more recently, the power and influence of gallery owners and curators have also waned. Meanwhile, the art market - like the global market of which it is an integral part - is going through one of its periodic crises, which has affected the gallery business and art criticism as well." [editors' preface]

With contributions by Isabelle Graw, Dirk Boll, Marc Glimcher, Nicole Hackert, Anne Helmreich, Natasha Degen, Sophie Cras and Charlotte Guichard, Henrike Naumann, Todd Levin, Paul Feigelfeld and David Joselit. Plus Tom McDonough on an Art Market in Crisis Mode and Models of Co-Opetition and a discussion between Cem A., Caroline Busta, and Brigitte Weingart.

Published by Texte Zur Kunst, 2025
Periodicals / Art Criticism