The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art

Don Thompson

Feb 2017 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Adam Verner

About this audiobook

Why would a smart New York investment banker pay $12 million for the decaying, stuffed carcass of a shark? By what alchemy does Jackson Pollock's drip painting No. 5, 1948 sell for $140 million? Intriguing and entertaining, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark is a Freakonomics approach to the economics and psychology of the contemporary art world. Why were record prices achieved at auction for works by 131 contemporary artists in 2006 alone, with astonishing new heights reached in 2007? Don Thompson explores the money, lust, and self-aggrandizement of the art world in an attempt to determine what makes a particular work valuable while others are ignored. This book is the first to look at the economics and the marketing strategies that enable the modern art market to generate such astronomical prices. Drawing on interviews with both past and present executives of auction houses and art dealerships, artists, and the buyers who move the market, Thompson launches the listener on a journey of discovery through the peculiar world of modern art. Surprising, passionate, gossipy, and revelatory, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark reveals a great deal that even experienced auction purchasers do not know.

About the author

Don Thompson is an emeritus professor at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, where he taught strategy and marketing. He has also taught at Harvard Business School and the London School of Economics. Don is the author of The Supermodel and the Brillo Box.

Adam Verner has narrated over one hundred books, including the AudioFile Earphones Award winner Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck. Adam works as a full-time voice actor and on stage in Chicago.