cover image The Art Prophets: The Artists, Dealers, and Tastemakers Who Shook the Art World

The Art Prophets: The Artists, Dealers, and Tastemakers Who Shook the Art World

Richard Polsky. Other Press, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-1-59051-406-1

As art investing has been as much a topic in the news as the art itself, a book on the Warren Buffetts of the art world would seem to make perfect sense. The great disappointment of Polsky’s book is that it fails as a primer on what it takes to be able to identify and exploit opportunity in the art world. Polsky (I Bought Andy Warhol) prefers to describe the 24 hours he spent naked in Walter De Maria’s landscape installation Lightning Field than in plumbing the genius and motivations of Virginia Dwan, De Maria’s generous yet mysterious patron. Polsky’s reflections on what it takes to be an art prophet are fairly generic: “Sometimes a visionary dealer can simply be someone who possesses a master salesman’s touch for getting the potential buyer emotionally involved with the work.” Polsky’s art prophets serve mostly as frames for describing some of the art movements of the past 50 years. This is not to say that chapters on comic book art, poster art, and ceramic sculpture—largely unappreciated in the fine art world—are not insightful. On the other hand, chapters on pop art, outsider art, and earthworks provide little more insight than other books on late 20th-century art. Photos. (Oct.)