It’s nice to be guided by Freakonomics’ infectious curiosity

The successful book series Freakonomics from the economist duo Stephen J.Dubner and Steven Levitt has had an equally successful podcast spin-off for a few years now: Freakonomics Radiopresented by Dubner. Here social and cultural phenomena are discussed in episodes with an impressive arsenal of experts, under the motto ‘The hidden side of everything’.

Recent episodes have addressed the appeal of Dallas as one of the fastest growing cities in the US and the attractive business model of bad news. In December, the podcast made The Hidden Side of the Art Marketa three-part series about the many enigmatic sides of the art market, certainly for an economist, which, according to Dubner, is so ‘opaque’ that it ‘barely functions as a market’.

If only because what passes for ‘the art market’ in the news (generally reports of art icons breaking auction records) is actually the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Dubner gets everyone in front of his microphone, from the director of the Museum of Modern Art (the Moma) in New York to well-known gallery owners and artists. How intertwined is the world of dealers, speculators and auction houses? What role do museums play in this? How do you actually determine the price of a work of art? And why does an artist (or his heirs) hardly share in the profits when his work is auctioned again, so many years after the original purchase?

You learn enough from it, if only because it is pleasant to be guided by Dubner’s infectious curiosity, but the triptych is especially recommended because the common thread is formed by the career of the American portrait painter Alice Neel (1900 -1984), an artist for whom recognition came late. And the really high prices for the work are only recent, no doubt also helped by a major recent retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Alice Neel: People Come First.

Neel always went her own way. She was a female artist in the male-dominated top segment. And she was figurative, while the abstract expressionists ruled the world with their savage canvases. Meanwhile, Neel meticulously portrayed her own world. Dubner goes on a fascinating quest (always a good podcast form) in search of the moments in the career that ensure that Neel now joins her contemporaries. And also speaks to her old GP, the last man she portrayed. He now suddenly has a million dollar work hanging above his bed.