Revolutions, Art, and the Market Conference 4-5 June 2026

Art market trends and practices, whether historical or contemporary, are affected by networks of complex and often competing forces. As moments of political, economic, intellectual or technological rupture, revolutions have significantly shaped art market systems and fortunes, refracting and redirecting collecting ambitions, displacing existing markets and creating new ones, and promoting novel modes of commercialisation of art.

Embracing wide chronological and geographical spans, this conference considers how revolutions have inflected the circulation and consumption of art and facilitated the emergence of new art market practices and collecting paradigms. The conference is deliberately adopting a broad definition of the term Revolution, intending to encompass its political, cultural, intellectual, economic and technological incarnations.

9.15-9.45 Coffee and Registration

9.45-10.00: Welcome

10.00-12.00: SESSION 1: Revolutions in the Age of Enlightenment (Chair: Dr Barbara Lasic)

Dr Catherine Dossin, Associate Professor, Purdue University: Franklinmania: The French Art Market and the Making of the American Revolution

Dr Gabriel Wick, Assistant Professor, New York University in Paris: Marketing Gardens: the Duc d’Orléans, Palais Royal, Le Raincy, and the Parisian public, 1785–1793

11.00-11.30: Coffee Break

Dr Jan Dirk Baetens, Assistant Professor, Radboud University & Dr Evelien De Visser, Curator, RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History: Art for All: The Emergence of a Mass Market for Cheap Paintings in the Age of Revolutions

12.00-12.30: Q&A FOR SESSION 1

12.30-13.30: LUNCH (not provided)

13.30 – 14.30: SESSION 2: The 1917 Russian Revolutions and their Aftermath (Chair: Lis Bogdan)

Dr Natalia Murray, Lecturer, Courtauld Institute: All the Empty Palaces. The Fate of Private Collections in Russia after the 1917 Revolutions

Daniel Bulatov, PhD Candidate, University of Münster: Beyond the Market: Soviet Patronage and the Economics of Western Revolutionary Art, 1920s-30s

14.30-14.45: Q&A FOR SESSION 2

14.45-15.15: Tea Break

15.15 – 16.45: SESSION 3: Modernist Revolutions and Cross-border Networks (Chair: Dr Bernard Vere)

Lara Virginie Pitteloud, PhD Candidate, University of Neuchâtel: Exhibiting Modernism in Revolutionary Odesa: Izdebsky’s Salons and the Formation of Transnational Art Market Networks (1909-1911)

Dr Lucia Colombari, Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma: The Afterlife of Italian Futurism: Postwar Art Markets and Transatlantic Networks

Annie Wong, Independent Art Historian: After the Cultural Revolution: Wu Guanzhong and the Making of a Transregional Chinese Modernist Market

16.45-17.15: Q&A FOR SESSION 3

17.15-18.15: KEYNOTE – Dr Adrian Locke, Curator Emeritus, The Royal Academy of Arts: Frida Kahlo and the Mexican Revolution (provisional title)

18.15-19.30: Drinks reception

10.00-12.30: SESSION 4 Revolutions, Representations, and Structural Transformations (Chair: Dr David Bellingham)

Maxence Garde, Curator, Gulbenkian Museum: Building on a Revolution – a Transformative Economical Approach of Egyptian Antiquities after 1952

Dr Iris Gilad (online), University of Tel-Aviv: Revolution and Recognition: War, Canon Formation, and the Israeli-Palestinian Art Market

11.00-11.30: Coffee Break

Aurella Yussuf, PhD Candidate, University of Birmingham: Revolutionary Rhetoric and Market Continuity: Black Political Rupture and the Art Market after 2020

12.00-12.30: Q&A FOR SESSION 4

12.30-13.30: LUNCH (not provided)

13.30-14.30: SESSION 5 Cultural Revolutions and New Market Practices in Asia (Chair: Dr Ivy Chan)

Dr Vivian Tong (online), Lecturer, Hong Kong Baptist University: Shaping Taste in an Evolving Market – Historical Chinese Works of Art and their Auction Market in Hong Kong from the 1970s-2020s

Dr Katie Hill, Senior Lecturer, SIA London: The cultural bond of Maoism: political memory and (cultural) value in contemporary art from China

14.30-14.45: Q&A FOR SESSION 5

14.45-15.15: Tea Break

15.15-16.45: SESSION 6 Digital Revolutions (Chair: Dr Melanie Fasche)

Georgia Gerson, PhD Candidate, University of York: NFTs and the Art Market: Revolution or Continuity?

Dr Giulia Taurino, Getty Research Institute: Beyond Network Centrality: Machine Intelligence and the Recovery of Invisible Markets

Dr Jonathan Adeyemi, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Loughborough University: Political Revolution and Digital Mediation: A Sustainable Increasing Stake of African Art in the Global Market?

16.45-17.15: Q&A FOR SESSION 6

17.15: Concluding Remarks

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Host or Publisher Sotheby's Institute of Art