Like them or loathe them, social media platforms now play a prominent role in the art world – whether as marketing tools for businesses, museums and artists, playgrounds for self-promotion, or forums for the dissemination of images and debate. But how far do social media, and particularly Instagram, inform how the art market operates? Have they disrupted traditional sales methods or diversified business opportunities in this sector? And what effect have they had on the behaviour of art world professionals, in terms of decision-making or interpersonal relations?
These are among the topics addressed by Paul Melton in a new Apollo podcast hosted by Thomas Marks and sponsored by Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Melton is a member of the faculty at Sotheby’s Institute of Art New York, and an expert in strategy and communications in the culture sector. In the podcast, he argues that the art market’s infatuation with Instagram brings it closer to financial markets, in terms of how value is assigned in an economy in which attention has increasingly become an asset in its own right.
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