Art as a Global Business: Dynamics of the Art Market

Art as a Global Business: Dynamics of the Art Market reveals the networks, concepts, and specialized terminology of the often-secretive international art market and offers an introduction to the commercial structures through which art is produced and circulated.

Course discussions outline how these commercial structures relate to each other and analyze the people, institutions, and organizations that comprise art business. Lastly, by emphasizing the effects of pricing, value formation, and globalization on the art market, course lectures assist students in understanding and identifying the risks and challenges that contribute to the ever-changing nature of the commercial art world.

Faculty

Tom Forwood

Faculty, Online Premier

Tom Forwood is a London-based art market consultant, writer, and lecturer specializing in integrated data intelligence for the art world. He is the co-founder of Critical Edge, a new intelligence platform that combines journalism, debate, and data research. He works with collectors, art advisers, commercial galleries and media agencies, building data insights and intelligence for them. He previously worked for Christie’s auction house in London in a number of roles within client operations, accounting, business management, client strategy and business intelligence.

Week 1: Understand art market basics, including the size and composition of the global art market.
Week 2: Look at various sales channels, from primary and secondary markets to auctions and new markets.
Week 3: Examine the demand and consumption of art.
Week 4: Learn about validation processes in key art institutions.
Week 5: Discuss the role of artists in the market and their rights and protections.
Week 6: Explore the opportunities, challenges, and risks in the art market.

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About Flexible Courses

About Flexible Courses

This flexible online course is delivered in weekly modules consisting of recorded lectures, instructor-guided discussion boards, and supplementary resources. The course will include a final project with personalized feedback from the course instructor. All participants will have read-only access to the course materials for an additional 90 days after the course end date.

Review the online course Terms and Conditions.
Students Will Learn
Students Will Learn
- To identify and describe the structure, size and dynamics of the global art market.
- To evaluate and critique art market activities in mainstream, emerging, and growth economies.
- To assess the complex relationships among key players in the art market as related to the production, circulation, and cultural endorsement of artworks.
- To recognize the opportunities, challenges, and risks inherent in the global art market.
Course Completion

Course Completion

For successfully completing this course, you receive a verified Certificate of Completion from Sotheby’s Institute of Art as well as 11 IACET Continuing Education Units. *

Our digital certificates allow you to share new skills with various social media platforms, including LinkedIn. Successful completion is defined by each instructor in the course syllabus and consists, at the least, of regular, thoughtful participation in online activities and timely submission of assigned papers or projects.

*As an IACET Accredited Provider, Sotheby’s Institute of Art offers IACET CEUs for its learning events that comply with the ANSI/IACET Continuing Education and Training Standard.

Art as a Global Business: Dynamics of the Art Market