In this special end-of-year episode of the ArtTactic Podcast, host Adam Green is joined by Brian Boucher, senior market reporter at ARTnews, to unpack one of the most confounding years the art market has seen in recent memory. Building on Boucher’s recent ARTnews article in which he described the year as “the year the art market stopped making sense,” the conversation explores the sharp contrasts between record-setting auction sales and softer performances elsewhere, the wildly different energy levels across major art fairs and what the wave of gallery closures might signal about deeper structural pressures in the gallery model. They also dig into the rise of increasingly fragmented micro-markets driven by individual artists and career stages, and why this makes it so difficult to draw broad conclusions about the market as a whole. The episode closes with a forward-looking discussion on how collectors, galleries, and auction houses are feeling as they head into 2026, and whether cautious optimism may finally be taking hold.
All content for ArtTactic is the property of ArtTactic and is served directly from their servers
with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
In this special end-of-year episode of the ArtTactic Podcast, host Adam Green is joined by Brian Boucher, senior market reporter at ARTnews, to unpack one of the most confounding years the art market has seen in recent memory. Building on Boucher’s recent ARTnews article in which he described the year as “the year the art market stopped making sense,” the conversation explores the sharp contrasts between record-setting auction sales and softer performances elsewhere, the wildly different energy levels across major art fairs and what the wave of gallery closures might signal about deeper structural pressures in the gallery model. They also dig into the rise of increasingly fragmented micro-markets driven by individual artists and career stages, and why this makes it so difficult to draw broad conclusions about the market as a whole. The episode closes with a forward-looking discussion on how collectors, galleries, and auction houses are feeling as they head into 2026, and whether cautious optimism may finally be taking hold.
Lydia Figes on Writing Survival Notes: Life Lessons from Contemporary Artists
ArtTactic
24 minutes 29 seconds
1 month ago
Lydia Figes on Writing Survival Notes: Life Lessons from Contemporary Artists
In this week's episode of the ArtTactic Podcast, host Adam Green speaks with Lydia Figes, author of Survival Notes: Life Lessons from Contemporary Artists, about her wide-ranging conversations with artists and what they reveal about how artists truly live and work today. They discuss why she wrote the book, what surprised her most about how artists navigate the contemporary art world, the changing role of art school, the power of mentorship and peer networks, the tension between solitude and community, and the core questions every aspiring artist should be asking. The episode offers valuable insight not only for artists, but for collectors, curators, gallerists, and anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the lived experiences shaping today’s art world.
ArtTactic
In this special end-of-year episode of the ArtTactic Podcast, host Adam Green is joined by Brian Boucher, senior market reporter at ARTnews, to unpack one of the most confounding years the art market has seen in recent memory. Building on Boucher’s recent ARTnews article in which he described the year as “the year the art market stopped making sense,” the conversation explores the sharp contrasts between record-setting auction sales and softer performances elsewhere, the wildly different energy levels across major art fairs and what the wave of gallery closures might signal about deeper structural pressures in the gallery model. They also dig into the rise of increasingly fragmented micro-markets driven by individual artists and career stages, and why this makes it so difficult to draw broad conclusions about the market as a whole. The episode closes with a forward-looking discussion on how collectors, galleries, and auction houses are feeling as they head into 2026, and whether cautious optimism may finally be taking hold.