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The $12 Million Stuffed Shark

The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art

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About this listen

Why would a smart New York investment banker pay $12 million for the decaying, stuffed carcass of a shark? By what alchemy does Jackson Pollock's drip painting "No. 5, 1948" sell for $140 million?

Intriguing and entertaining, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark is a Freakonomics approach to the economics and psychology of the contemporary art world. Why were record prices achieved at auction for works by 131 contemporary artists in 2006 alone, with astonishing new heights reached in 2007? Don Thompson explores the money, lust, and self-aggrandizement of the art world in an attempt to determine what makes a particular work valuable while others are ignored.

This book is the first to look at the economics and the marketing strategies that enable the modern art market to generate such astronomical prices. Drawing on interviews with both past and present executives of auction houses and art dealerships, artists, and the buyers who move the market, Thompson launches the listener on a journey of discovery through the peculiar world of modern art. Surprising, passionate, gossipy, and revelatory, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark reveals a great deal that even experienced auction purchasers do not know.

©2008 Don Thompson (P)2017 Tantor Architecture Art Consumer Behaviour & Market Research History & Criticism Marketing & Sales Personal Success Marketing Entertainment

What the critics say

"[An] informative an occasionally hilarious look at the surreal contemporary art market...A clear-headed approach to a frequently high-pitched issue." ( Kirkus)
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Enjoyed this more than I thought I would. As I could never imagine owning an expensive work of art, I thought I might find it dry, but that wasn’t the case. Learned quite a bit about current artists I was less familiar with. Good tips on enjoying art if you are unfamiliar. The bonus was, less than 24 hours after wondering how the Guggenheim ever came to have a museum in Bilbao, Spain, the question was answered in this book. Recommended.

Enlightening

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the author seems to spend half the time talking about specific people and struggles to get to the world and how it works

too much time spent on the who and not the what

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