Truly, it is the investors who are deciding the future of postwar and contemporary art. Consider the hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen. In a rare interview in 2006, this media-shy recluse lamented to The Wall Street Journal, "It’s hard to find ideas that aren’t picked over, and harder to get real returns and differentiate yourself." It should be safe to assume that a hedge fund manager with a winning market track record lasting a quarter of a century is not in the business of losing money. Through his collection of art, variously reported to be worth between $300 million and $700 million and amassed over little more than five years, Cohen may have discovered work that gives him pleasure, but he has also found a way to diversity his portfolio. In 2004, Cohen purchased Hirst’s pickled shark, "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" (1991), from Charles Saatchi, Hirst’s Maecenas, for what was then considered an outrageous price, $8 million (see more on Hirst’s shark in News, page 34 of this issue). But he still does not want to take it home. Instead, Cohen has convinced the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to display his purchase on loan for a set period of three years. Cohen’s investment benefits from the museum’s formidable aura, while the museum looks to hook a future patron.
 
When our nation’s finest museums are reduced to banks for an investor’s appreciating assets, the art world is suddenly far beyond the purview of critics. To really know what the future of art will bring, you’ll have to ask the investors.

James Panero is the Managing Editor of The New Criterion.