by Jon Lackman | 28 May 2009 | Books
Thames & Hudson managing director Jamie Camplin writes in The Art Newspaper:
Is there a crisis in art book publishing? … The challenges are real and substantial, but they are only obliquely connected with the economic downturn … The first is the obvious one of reaching consumers. The growth in public interest in art during the past two decades has not been underpinned by an effective retail infrastructure. Many museums now offer a smaller range of books, in preference to non-book merchandise, which is a dereliction of their duty as custodians of cultural education. The dominant book chains around the world ignore the evident public enthusiasm for art and succeed only in proving that if you do not display art books, you do not sell them. The independents suffer from price competition and the dominant power of Amazon in driving prices down to unrealistic levels … There’s a fourth challenge … if the only thing to distinguish “art” from “life” is that you find it in an art gallery, the discourse about it—the articles and books people write—is in trouble. One reaction is to enter a philosophical cul-de-sac, a dead end of theory and obscurantism. Another is to appropriate art for contemporary society’s great mass-market fuel: celebrity. Neither of these help the art-book publisher’s first duty, which is to encourage people to look at art and help them understand it …
Art has a very strong hand to play in the 21st century. In an era in which technology makes most products more uniform but in which printing technology can show art’s strengths as never before, in which fragmenting marketplaces and marketing platforms need all the help they can get, and in which the power of the visual to sway emotions has never been stronger, art’s distinctiveness, creativity and originality give any art-book programme a strong start.
(See also this 2006 report.)
One other factor is that art books, even if they are popular, have the additional burden of higher overhead costs. Even if they sell as well or better than,say,the latest Dan Brown farrago of nonsense, they may not be as protfitable because of the higher overhead
“The growth in public interest in art during the past two decades has not been underpinned by an effective retail infrastructure” — Thames & Hudson managing director Jamie Camplin
Fascinating and honest quote. The fundamental reason is that the “fine art” world should not exist. It only exists through massive government grants that have created a false industry. Americans have no problems in paying for art, i.e., top 40 music and movies.
If the “fine art” world would only embrace themes and styles as found in movies and popular music, then museums would not need massive government subsidies, a retail infra-structure would blossom, and government regulators would line up to collect the taxes.