that, in the first half of the nineteenth century, a vast proportion of the lower classes consisted of farmers, craftsmen, and servants (according to the historian Peter Laslett, at the end of the Old Regime in France, some 40 percent of adolescents in Western societies underwent the experience of domestic service);84 workers in large-scale industries were still only a small minority. This fact shows, retrospectively, the prescience of Karl Marx, whose analyses could be judged utopian in his day, compared to those of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, for example. The latter, as Pierre Ansart has shown, was in a sense the spokesman for the aspirations of craftsmen, who were still a driving force at the heart of the working class.85
The art trade
There is probably no domain in which the commercial dimensions of cultural activities have given rise to more commentary since the beginning of the 2000s than that of contemporary art; trade in artworks has undergone changes that have attracted the attention of a growing number of art historians, critics, sociologists, and journalists. In this case, as in that of stars in the music business, in fashion, or in cinema, local cultural contributions to regional economies or to a region’s ability to attract residents has not seemed to interest the experts nearly as much as the global dimension of the phenomenon. This dimension entails what has been viewed as the formation of an art “market” unified from above, supported by a culture of celebrity on a worldwide scale – a market frequently described by journalists,86 art critics, and observers from the social sciences.87 The words used, especially in texts intended for a broad audience, evoke the vocabulary used to speak of “financial markets,” such as “trend,” “crisis,” “collapse,” “a killing” (as in the stock market), “boom” and “bust,” and “scene”88 (referring to a leading center of worldwide activity in the field). There is an emphasis on the “incredible” prices of certain works publicized by the media and, more generally, on the “colossal” sums that circulate in the upper spheres of the artistic world, as well as on the power in the hands of a small number of individuals on whom both the prices of the works and the reputation of their creators depend.
Three related phenomena, developed during the last few decades, play a pivotal role in these descriptions. First, the importance that has accrued to auctions of contemporary art conducted by the main art houses (such as Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips, and, in France, Artcurial), and, more generally, the development of what is called the “secondary market” (to distinguish it from direct sales by galleries to collectors).89 Second, the multiplication of rankings: starting with the Kunstkompass, created in Germany in 1970, hierarchical listings of the principal artists worldwide (up to a hundred) are published regularly, awarding points to each artist according to varying criteria; these rankings are presumed to exercise considerable influence on collectors’ purchases (an assumption that is sometimes challenged). Other rankings have come along in the last ten years or so, claiming to classify “the most important players in the contemporary art world” on an international scale, “not in terms of fame, but in terms of influence and power”; alongside artists themselves, these lists feature critics, directors of public or private institutions and foundations, collectors, curators, journalists, and bloggers, the best known among the latter being Power 100, published by ArtReview, followed by other publications – for example Le Monde, with its supplement featuring “fifteen who make fashion.”90 Finally, a third phenomenon, already noted above: the relationships established between the art world and the business world, especially businesses devoted to luxury goods. Ties between the arts and business are hardly new, of course: they are attested, for example, in the numerous biographies of collectors who, from the nineteenth century on, have stood out both through their financial successes and through their roles as discoverers and patrons of artists. By contrast, what does seem new is the fact that these ties, once considered private in nature and taken as evidence of taste, ostentation, and profligate spending on the part of supremely wealthy individuals, modern embodiments of the sumptuous practices of the princes of yesteryear, have now largely become public,91 and they serve to support the publicity with which luxury brands surround themselves in order to increase their sales. Thus these brands are likely to be associated not with the register of sumptuary expenditures, which formerly underlay their worth, but with that of commercial utility.
We must note that, while in most of the social science texts we have consulted the contribution of cultural activities to the development of regional economies and their power to attract new residents is generally presented in a more or less positive manner, almost as a social cause worthy of support, the processes associated with the emergence of an international art market are often called out, sometimes implicitly, when they play on the public’s fascination with the rich and the powerful (which can easily turn into indignation), and sometimes in an openly critical way. From the 1920s to the 1980s, roughly speaking, the tendency to denounce the domination exercised by money over art and culture was associated with critiques of industrial society (we shall come back to this point); art, as an expression of the uniqueness of individuals, was viewed as the chief rampart against all-out standardization. Over the last few decades, this tendency seems to have shifted toward new schemas based on the increased proximity between art and finance.
This realignment of critical axes is particularly clear among artists themselves. Celebrity culture, highly publicized connections between famous artists and commercial brands, and the publication of rankings have established sharp lines between a handful of internationally successful artists, whose work is exhibited in museums of contemporary art and sold at the major art fairs, and everyone else. The latter continue to live – to subsist – for the most part by selling their works through galleries that have little or no access to the major fairs, by selling them directly or through local relationship networks (this is hardly a new practice), or else by taking advantage, like artists in the theater world, of efforts at cultural development undertaken at the initiative of local communities or on a regional level. The art world, like the worlds of popular music, cinema, and sports, has thus come to symbolize inequalities in earnings, contrasting a very small number of ultra-beneficiaries – the stars – with a very large number of rejects.92 To prove this claim, one would have to be able to juxtapose an accounting of the total wealth distributed with the total number of individuals active in a given sector who are presumed to be in competition for the stakes. But the relationship itself depends on the way these totals are constructed, especially on the geographical level. This is why the contribution of famous artists – those whose activities are global in scope – to an enrichment economy is generally envisaged in a positive light only when the entity considered is the entire economy of a nation in its competition with other nations; this presupposes treating artists, and “creators” more generally, like brands whose name and “headquarters,” so to speak, must retain a national character.
Arles: from railroad shops to contemporary art exhibits
As we suggested earlier, the case of the city of Arles offers an emblematic example of the transition from an industrial economy to an enrichment economy. After the decline of the dominant local industry, Arles turned toward tourism by promoting its rich ancient and medieval heritage. This transition crossed a new threshold in the early 2010s, with a shift toward culture and particularly toward contemporary art.
From the early decades of the twentieth century until around 1980, Arles was an industrial city. Its transformation from a provincial enclave began in the second half of the nineteenth century, when locomotive manufacturing facilities were set up for use on the lines linking Paris to Lyon and the Mediterranean; these shops came to play a major role in the city’s economy. By 1911, they employed 1,173 people; in the larger urban area, with some 30,000 residents, more than 5,000 made their living from the railroad. Forty-five locomotives were built in the region between 1908 and 1914. By 1920 there were 1,800 employees in the shops. Along with the railroad came industrial exploitation of salt: in nearby Salin-de-Giraud, the chemical company Solvay established a facility that manufactured soda from salt, chiefly for the soap factories in Marseille; it had 500 workers in 1925. Ship-building
