Production Activities in Market Conditions: Specifics and Ways of Optimization

The purpose of the article is to substantiate the theoretical provisions of the peculiarities of the production of cultural and artistic products in the modern art space. The research methodology is based on the principles of a logical approach. Comparative and interdisciplinary approaches are applied. The scientific novelty lies in identifying the main factors that determine the effectiveness of production activities, actualize and stimulate scientific discourse regarding methods of managing the cultural sphere, reveal the features and ways of optimizing the creation, proposal, and production of precisely those projects that demonstrate significant advantages of the producer over competitors, stimulate the creation in Ukraine, a reduced market for cultural services. Conclusion. Deep and comprehensive modernization of the art sphere requires the search for new approaches to optimizing content production. The optimization of production activities is focused on structuring the costs of the cultural and artistic project by deepening, expanding, and updating the professional knowledge, skills, and practical experience of the producer. It is determined that production activity is a multicomponent process in which financial, technical, legal, and labor resources are involved. All these components, one way or another, are related to creativity. In order for a cultural and artistic project to be competitive, it is necessary to take into account the following factors: digitalization of the consumer audience; tastes of the consumer audience; content criticism. Keywords: producer, production activity, production project, art management, art industry, art dealer, art businessman, optimization of production activities.

Pavel Tretyakov’s activity in the antique art market

Статья посвящена деятельности П.М. Третьякова как одного из участников антикварного художественного рынка второй половины XIX века. Анализ деятельности П.М. Третьякова на антикварном художественном рынке позволяет сделать общие выводы о его предпочтениях в коллекционировании и принципах, которых он придерживался, таких как целенаправленный поиск произведений признанных художников и желание добиться некоторой законченности в покупке работ отдельных мастеров. Остается открытым вопрос о взаимодействии коллекционера с посредниками в покупке картин. Изучение истории собирательства П.М. Третьякова может дать представление об участниках художественного рынка второй половины XIX века. In this article, it seems important to pay attention to P.M. Tretyakov as one of the participants in the antique art market of the second part of the 19th century. The goal of this article is to define general conclusions about the preferences of Pavel Tretyakov’s acquires and to identify an area for further work. Analysis of P.M. Tretyakov in the antique art market allows us to draw general conclusions about his preferences in collecting and the principles that he adhered to, such as a focused search for works by recognized artists and the desire to achieve some completeness in the purchase of works by individual masters. The question remains about the interaction of the collector with the art dealer in the acquiring of paintings. Studying the history of collecting P.M. Tretyakov can give an idea of the participants in the art market of the second half of the 19th century and clarify the provenance of some works.

Letter from Brazil

The research addresses a previously unknown segment of the journalist and art dealer Pietro Maria Bardi’s trajectory by highlighting the centrality of the publishing issue in his activity as an organizer of artistic culture. Starting from the letters exchanged with the publisher Valentino Bompiani from 1946 – date of Bardi’s arrival to Brazil, together with Lina Bo – to the early 1950s, the paper traces the common projects, between Italy and South America, in a transnational perspective, thus opening new insights into Bardi’s role within the coeval illustrated art publishing industry and better focusing the planning of his early Brazilian years at the head of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo’s modernist project.

Multi-Modal, Non-Invasive Investigation of Modern Colorants on Three Early Modern Prints by Maria Sibylla Merian

Northwestern University’s Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections owns three hand-colored copperplate engravings that once belonged to an edition of Matamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium by artist-naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717). Because early modern prints are often colored by early modern readers, or modern collectors, it was initially unclear whether the coloring on these prints should be attributed to the print maker, to subsequent owners or collectors, or to an art dealer. Such ambiguities posed challenges for the interpretation of these prints by art historians. Therefore, the prints underwent multi-modal, non-invasive technical analysis to assess the date and material composition of the prints’ coloring. The work combined several different non-invasive analytical techniques: hyperspectral imaging (HSI), macro X-ray fluorescence (MA-XRF) mapping, surface normal mapping with photometric stereo, visible light photography, and visual comparative art historical analysis. As a result, the prints and paper were attributed to a late eighteenth-century posthumous edition of Merian’s work while the colorants were dated to the early twentieth century. This information enables more thorough contextualization of these prints in their use as teaching and research tools in the University collection.

A Japoniste Friendship in Translation: Hayashi Tadamasa and Philippe Burty (1878–1890)

Art critic and collector Philippe Burty (1830–1890) was one of the first friends the Japanese interpreter (and future art dealer) Hayashi Tadamasa (1853–1906) made on arrival in Paris in 1878. The previously unknown letters translated into English within this essay present Hayashi’s work in Paris (1878) and Brussels (1880), his first impressions of Normandy (1882) and New York (1886), and his explanation of the evolution of Japanese painting (1885). They furnish valuable insights into the cross-cultural aesthetics that led the Japanese, the French, the British, the German, and Americans to collaborate in the development of the phenomenon now known as Japonisme, thereby filling in some of the information gaps surrounding Burty’s international networks and Hayashi’s early years in Europe.

ART-BUSINESS: INSPIRATION AND CALCULATION. INSEPARABLE DUALITY

Purpose of the work is to analyze the specifics of the art business as an integral part of the creative economy. By the method of analogies and comparisons of factors of consumer behavior and the formation of the consumer value of art objects, on the one hand, and goods and services, on the other, the specificity of the art business is determined. The article substantiates the thesis that the peculiarities of the implementation of ownership relations inherent in the art business are a key factor that determines the essence of the art dealer institution.