The ultimate goal of the conspiracy is appearance in a museum, whose trustees already own work by the young star or are actively courting future donations from collectors who own it. A different scenario, often taught in college courses, sees art works as suffused with a unique value, the search for which is undertaken in the ongoing conversation among painters and sculptors that is art history. In this fantasy, art schools inculcate students into the art conversation. The critics' job is to show how artists fit into the historical record and to illuminate the connective tissue of ideas. Collectors and dealers are there, but mainly to participate in the dialogue.
Museum directors pick for their shows only art validated by the cognoscenti.
The art world isn't an unscrupulous racket. There is simply nothing new about the fact that artworks placed in exhibitions and published in catalogues increase in monetary value, or that corporate sponsors are allowed to wine and dine clients in museums, or that lenders to exhibitions are also asked to write checks. One challenge has been the stupendous escalation of art prices. To keep up, museums have been revving up commercial revenue streams and searching for new providers of support. According to a new report by the Alliance for the Arts, which tracks New York arts organizations, government has been picking up a smaller and smaller share of the cost of running the city's nonprofit cultural sector.