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Ben Lewis’s new documentary ‘The Great Contemporary Art Bubble’ You can now buy this film on DVD from my website www.benlewis.tv It investigates the reasons behind the boom and bust of contemporary art. The Great Contemporary Art Bubble BBC Four. Monday 18th May. 9.00pm. The last five years have seen an unprecedented craze for contemporary art. Contemporary art prices rose by an average of 800% while works by Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon and Mark Rothko sold for record-breaking prices of £30 million plus. Art critic and film-maker Ben Lewis spent 2008 following the contemporary art market; travelling to art fairs, auctions, museums and the offices and homes of billionaire art collectors. He spoke to dealers, auctioneers, gallery-owners, art market analysts and art collectors trying to find out the reasons behind the greatest rise in the value of art in history. He says: I didnt like what was happening in the contemporary art marketMuch of the art was mass produced, repetitive and commercial. Collectors bought it for investment and stored vast amounts of it in warehousesAnd the special privileges our society gave to art and artists were being exploited by some of the worlds richest people to make yet more money. Everywhere Ben went he was told the contemporary art boom would go on forever fuelled by a new passion for art from the worlds super-rich. But he found other reasons for the boom unusual market practices, speculation, secrecy and tax breaks involving the whole art …
what university is that?
Ben lewis did a talk at my university today, he is very funny, havent really watched his shows, but i am now going to watch them all now, he knows what he is talking about.
where can i watch this?
in America dude. You can’t view BBC programs from America on the net.
that opening quote is brilliant.
BBCAmerica, please show this on the air here!!!
i am an artist. so if you like art you should check out my video.
A great TV doc which shows that underneath all that money, the emperor really had no clothes on all along!
Yeh same here ay, I watched it a few days ago… his voice was annoying but it was so interesting.
just watched this doc on TV in AUS, brilliant, but his voice is quite annoying.
I just did a video called “The Collapse of the Art Market”. In it I make the connection between Jesus turning the table on the temple’s money changers and the genius of the philosophy of aesthetics and the art market.
Anyone know where I might be able to view this documentary?
It’s about time people started to see that crap art is worth nothing.
I just hope that people like Hirst and Richter go bankrupt and have to live in the gutters for a while to learn it’s not ok to rip people off like that.
Just saw this documentary. It is excellent. Hirst is way overrated, it seems.
Excellent work ! Thank you so much !
The only works i like from him are his butterfly paintings and the spiral painting as well. I do not care for his concept art.
damien hirst is soooooooo good….ecspecially his butterfly paintings.
fantastic guy, thanks ben, i’ll be in touch, i am at present going crazy witnessing the corruption clearly visible around the tate and commercial art market in st.ives.
I like the painting at 1:06.