In “Trading Beauty,” Valentina Castellani Makes the Case That Markets and Masterpieces Have Always Been Inseparable
May is a major art month in the New York art world, with a host of fairs on the docket and one of the two most important auction seasons in the world. But it’s also a great season for art even if you aren’t looking to buy, because of the way the market and aesthetics tend to be intertwined, and this is the relationship explored by art historian Valentina Castellani in her new book Trading Beauty: Art Market Histories from the Altar to the Gallery, which debuts May 1 (pre-order here). Castellani brings authority to the subject, having held leading roles at Sotheby's and Gagosian, and we caught up with her to hear more about the book and her thoughts on our curious market moment.
Massimiliano Gioni‘s foreword frames the book as a map of the art world’s “operating system,” and the title pairs “trading” with “beauty”—two words many in the field still prefer to keep in separate rooms. What convinced you that the market isn’t a footnote to art history but the through-line of it?
What convinced me was, quite simply, the evidence of history itself. The more closely one examines how artworks are created, circulated and endured, the more difficult it becomes to maintain the notion that the market is merely a secondary layer—an afterthought appended to a purer, autonomous history of art. It is, rather, intrinsic to that history, woven into its very structure. Indeed, as Massimiliano Gioni writes in the foreword, every object we revere today has also been “a line item in a contract.” Art has never been produced in a vacuum, and in my book, I examine the different market models within which works of art have been created during different epochs. Each model was shaped by specific social, political, religious and cultural circumstances. As a result, the criteria by which art is valued have also varied across time.
If we think of the major turning points—from the Church as the primary patron in the Middle Ages, to the emergence of a more open market during the heyday of the Dutch Republic, to the decisive role of dealers such as Paul Durand-Ruel, who was responsible for the critical and market acceptance of the Impressionists—it becomes clear that the question is not whether a market existed, but how it was structured and how it operated. To take a concrete example, the remarkable paintings in the exhibition dedicated to Raphael now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York were not created as expressions of the artist’s inspiration, but in response to commissions from patrons—popes, wealthy citizens, members of the aristocracy.
This is what I seek to explore in my book—not to reduce art to economics or to diminish its meaning, but to better understand the conditions within which it was made. Indeed, as I suggest in the conclusion, the true wonder lies in the fact that, even within the constraints imposed by patrons, the shifting demands of different publics or the exclusions of race and gender, artists in every epoch have always been able to create works that are sublime, moving and profoundly meaningful.
Chapter 11 draws most directly on your 11 years as a director at Gagosian in New York, using “Picasso: Mosqueteros” and the Manzoni retrospective as case studies. What does writing about those shows from the perspective of a historian reveal that wasn’t necessarily apparent to you from inside the gallery at the time?
Writing about those exhibitions from the perspective of a historian allowed me to grasp how flexible the art system truly is and how porous the boundaries between roles have become. When I was working on shows such as “Picasso: Mosqueteros” or the Manzoni retrospective, the focus was—necessarily—on execution: securing loans, working closely with estates and collectors, shaping the installation and ensuring the highest scholarly and visual standard. It is only in retrospect, when I started teaching my course on the history of the art market at NYU, that I could fully recognize these exhibitions as part of a broader historical shift, in which galleries are no longer simply commercial venues but have become producers of knowledge, capable of mounting exhibitions that rival those of major museums.
Can you detail some of the logistics that went into organizing such ambitious museum-quality shows at a gallery?
As for the logistics, these exhibitions were complex and rigorously conceived projects, extremely demanding to execute and very costly. “Picasso: Mosqueteros,” which was the first show I worked on in 2008 dedicated to the master, grew out of a path the gallery had already established of mounting historical exhibitions, though we significantly elevated both the scale and the curatorial ambition. It was devoted to the late work of the artist, a period long neglected by critics, the public and the market. The last major institutional exhibition had in fact taken place in 1984 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, so the project became a true rediscovery, restoring centrality to a phase that had until then been considered minor.
We invited John Richardson to curate, whose personal knowledge of Picasso brought extraordinary gravitas. The exhibition was anchored by the crucial collaboration with Bernard Picasso, who generously lent most of the works, some of them never shown to the public before. Annabelle Selldorf designed the exhibition installation. The response from both critics and the public was extraordinary. On Saturdays, there were long lines of people around the block in Chelsea where the exhibition was held. “Mosqueteros” contributed, without any doubt, to a reassessment of Picasso’s late production and had a significant impact on the market of the artist’s late works.
The Piero Manzoni retrospective was very much my own initiative, based on two complementary considerations. On the one hand, Manzoni, one of the most important figures of postwar art, who anticipated conceptual practices with works such as Base of the World, Artist’s Shit and his signing of models as Living Sculptures, had never had a retrospective in America, and he still has not. On the other, the gallery had not yet operated in the Manzoni and broader postwar Italian market, which at the time was on the rise.
I built on a longstanding relationship with the Archivio Piero Manzoni and brought in Germano Celant, the leading authority on the artist’s work. The exhibition was conceived with a museum-level rigor and opened in January 2009, at a moment when the world was in the grip of the financial crisis. Yet I felt that Manzoni’s utopian optimism and playfulness—do not forget that he died at only 29—about the idea that art could change the world or at least make it a better place permeated the show, transforming it into an unexpected oasis of reflection that inspired and drew large audiences, including many artists.
I would also emphasize that spearheading these exhibitions was an intense and demanding process—I spent months with the Manzoni catalogue raisonné and Picasso books on my kitchen counter—but also profoundly rewarding on a human level, shaped by extraordinary collaborations. With John, and in close dialogue with the Picasso family, we went on to organize four further exhibitions—each focused on a different period of Picasso’s work—and we quickly developed a deep and close friendship. I met him when he was 84 and he was 95 when he passed away. He not only taught me about Picasso, but showed me that one can remain curious, open and thirsty for life at any age. We had a lot of fun and laughed a lot together. We would gather to work in his large Fifth Avenue apartment—a world unto itself, between a Wunderkammer and a bazaar—where, from time to time, the most curious characters would appear. I still think of those times and of John. I miss him.
The same collaborative spirit defined my work with Bernard and Annabelle—whom I invited to design several subsequent projects and who are both dear friends. Michael Cary, still at Gagosian and now a leading organizer of historical exhibitions, was also part of this “dream team.” I loved working with Germano so much that after the Manzoni retrospective we organized together in 2012 a major and spectacular exhibition devoted to Lucio Fontana’s Ambienti Spaziali. Germano’s death from COVID in 2020 was a profound loss, both personally and for the wider art community. He was a true visionary.
Chapter 13 quotes Richard Serra comparing building East-West/West-East in the Qatari desert to “meeting the Medicis in the 15th Century.” You take that comparison seriously but also consider the broader implications of the Saudi Vision 2030 project, the human-rights concerns around Saadiyat Island and the cultural-diplomacy framing of the Louvre Abu Dhabi. What do you make of the latest developments in the Gulf? Do they portend the end of such Gulf optimism?
Let me begin by saying that I am deeply horrified and saddened by the tragic loss of life and devastation this war is causing. It is difficult to think about art when confronted with such images of suffering. To answer your question: inevitably, this conflict and the shifting balances in the Middle East make an already complex situation more fragile, and will, in one way or another, also affect the cultural landscape of the Gulf. I would not read the current moment as the end of Gulf optimism, but rather as a moment of transition that will inevitably bring changes, though it is not yet clear in which direction they will unfold. The extraordinary ambition that has defined the region over the past decade—from large-scale institutional projects to the cultivation of a global cultural presence—will, I believe, remain in place.
In the book, I quote the comparison made by Richard Serra between working in Qatar and “meeting the Medicis in the 15th Century” precisely because it captures the scale of patronage and cultural investment. At the same time, as with the Medicis in 15th-century Florence, such moments are never purely about art: they are embedded in broader structures of power, diplomacy and historical contingency. The Louvre Abu Dhabi, for instance, is as much a cultural institution as it is an instrument of international positioning. If anything, the present moment underscores that art systems, like all systems, are shaped by external shocks. They do not disappear; they adapt.
The book charts an enormous run-up in the market for ultra-contemporary women artists and African American artists, then cites Rachel Corbett’s reporting that the Black portraiture market dropped sharply in 2024 amid “anti-woke sentiment.” How should a reader distinguish a genuine historical correction from a speculative bubble dressed up as one?
The distinction is rarely visible in real time—which is precisely what makes these moments revealing. What we call a “correction” and a “bubble” often look identical on the surface: rapid price escalation followed by contraction. The difference lies in the depth of underlying validation. A speculative bubble occurs when prices surge without institutional and larger critical approval: when sentiment shifts, the contraction can be abrupt because the supporting structure is thin. A genuine correction, by contrast, unfolds within a broader process of reassessment—museum acquisitions and exhibitions, curatorial attention and scholarship. Prices may fluctuate, but they rest on a thicker system of validation.
An example of how market and critical revaluation reinforced each other is Kerry James Marshall, whose Past Times sold for a record price of $21.1 million (from an estimate of $6-8 million) at Sotheby’s New York in May 2018, following his 2016-17 traveling “Mastry.” As I argue in my book, I consider this price a turning point in the historical reassessment of African American artists, precisely because Marshall, born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama, belongs to an older generation shaped by profound racial exclusion. However, the renewed attention to historical figures was first initiated by the rising market for a younger generation of African American artists.
A similar dynamic underlies the reassessment of women Surrealists, where critical recognition and the market have undoubtedly converged. Cecilia Alemani’s 2022 Venice Biennale “The Milk of Dreams,” titled after a book by Leonora Carrington, exposed these artists to a contemporary audience. Their work resonates today because, alongside the exploration of the unconscious shared with their male peers, it engages deeply with questions of identity and gender, often grounded in unconventional lives. Carrington’s $28.5 million auction record in May 2022 confirmed this growing interest—which, in my opinion, is a lasting shift rather than a passing bubble.
Chapter 13 describes your involvement with 291 Agency and notes that in 2023, artists occupied the top 10 slots of ArtReview’s Power 100 for the first time, with Peter Doig leaving Michael Werner the same year. Is the gallery’s gatekeeping function actually eroding, or just being unbundled across more players?
I would argue that the gallery’s gatekeeping function is not eroding so much as being redistributed across a wider set of actors. What we are witnessing is less a disappearance of power than a reconfiguration of where it sits and how it operates. Symbolic shifts—such as artists occupying the top positions of the Power 100 list or figures like Doig asserting greater control over representation—point to a change in influence, but not to the disappearance of intermediation. Galleries, in my opinion, remain crucial, especially in the early stages of validation, providing financial backing, intellectual context and access to major collections. What has changed is that this role is now shared with a wider range of actors, while social media has transformed how information is accessed and circulated. The system has become more flexible, but the need for validation has not disappeared—it is simply redistributed.
The book argues that Damien Hirst’s 2008 Beautiful Inside My Head Forever auction weakened his secondary market by bypassing the validation function galleries provide, and it’s hard to argue that he’s had a good time since then. That said, many artists—like Josh Kline, in his popular recent essay in October—are questioning the gallery model. How do you think galleries can evolve to be more responsive to artists’ needs?
The 2008 auction Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, in which Damien Hirst consigned more than 200 works directly to Sotheby’s, remains a pivotal moment in the history of the art market. By bypassing his galleries, Hirst staged a radical act of disintermediation—one that, in my opinion, was as conceptual as it was commercial, a deliberate intervention into the very structures through which art circulates. What makes Hirst particularly compelling—I consider him one of the most important artists of his generation—is the way his practice operates simultaneously on multiple fronts. On the one hand, his work challenges established norms of taste while engaging with themes deeply rooted in the history of art: life and death, permanence and decay. On the other, he turns the mechanisms of the art market itself into material, testing and exposing its conventions.
Precisely for this reason, his 2008 auction is so instructive: it shows that bypassing the gallery does not eliminate the need for validation—it simply destabilizes it. That said, the questions raised by artists today—including figures like Josh Kline—are both legitimate and necessary. Galleries will remain relevant to the extent that they evolve from gatekeepers into genuine long-term partners. The model is not obsolete, but it can no longer rely on exclusivity alone; its future lies in being more open, adaptive and aligned with the long-term interests of artists rather than the short-term rhythms of the market.
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