Journal of Cultural Economy

ISSN: 1753-0350 (Print) 1753-0369 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjce20

PERFORMING CALCULATION IN THE ART MARKET

Marta Herrero

To cite this article: Marta Herrero (2010) PERFORMING CALCULATION IN THE ART MARKET,
Journal of Cultural Economy, 3:1, 19-34

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17530351003617552

Published online: 06 Apr 2010.

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 PERFORMING CALCULATION IN THE ART
MARKET

Marta Herrero

The purpose of this article is to suggest a model of calculation in art markets based upon the work
of Pierre Bourdieu and of actor-network theory. It will be argued that Bourdieu’s concepts of
capitals, economic, symbolic and cultural are useful for the specificity they lend to value making
processes in the art market. However, actor-network theory’s proposal of a distributed form of
agency between humans and non-humans (e.g. calcualtion tools) is favoured here, posing a
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fundamental challenge to Bourdieu’s notion of agency as resting solely at the hands of human
agents. In order to understand the performance of calculation, this article explores the role of
catalogues as an example of a market device in the Scottish auction market. It will be argued that
the performativity of the catalogue cannot be fully understood without taking into account not
only how it represents and enacts the value/s of aeshtetic objects, e.g. paintings, but also how this
performance is mediated by its role as an aesthetic object.

KEYWORDS: actor-network theory; agency; art market; Bourdieu; calculation; catalogue

Economic sociology has inspired a large number of studies of markets, focusing

especially on their role as networks (White 1981, 2000), which shape social relations in
which market actors are involved (Granovetter 1985; Fligstein 2001; Podolny 2005).1 But
despite the plethora of studies on markets, art markets have not been the focus of much
attention from economic sociologists, with some exceptions (Aspers 2005; Velthuis 2005).
As is to be expected, a special interest in the subject can be found within the sociology of
art, which has produced analyses of various dimensions of the operations of commercial
galleries, dealers and auctioneers (White & White 1965; Bystryn 1978; Crane 1987; Moulin
1987; Peterson 1997). Pierre Bourdieu’s (1993) model for cultural markets as markets for
symbolic goods has been a notable source of inspiration, especially his treatment of
markets as fields where agents compete for the acquisition of various forms of capital
(Bourdieu 1977, 1996, 2005).
The purpose of this article is to suggest a possible cooperation between economic
sociology and the sociology of art by exploring how calculation (Callon & Law 2005; Callon
& Muniesa 2005) is enacted by market actors in the promotion of auction sales in the
Scottish art market. Following actor-network theory, calculation refers to a form of agency
performed by both human and non-human, material devices (Callon & Muniesa 2005;
Callon & Law 2005; Muniesa et al. 2007). Some approaches to the sociology of art, and
especially in music sociology, have also explored how artistic materials shape the agency
of users (Witkin & DeNora 1997; Hennion 1997, 2001; DeNora 2000). However, the study of
calculation as a form of interaction between humans and non-human devices is, largely,

Journal of Cultural Economy, Vol. 3, No. 1, March 2010

ISSN 1753-0350 print/1753-0369 online/10/010019-16
– 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/17530351003617552
 20 MARTA HERRERO

absent from sociological approaches to art markets. These have been mostly concerned
with identifying the strategies of actors, dealers, and commercial galleries, in situations of
uncertainty, e.g. in trying to determine what counts as good art (Bystryn 1978; Moulin
1987; Peterson 1997). Thus what prevails is a ‘bifurcation of agency’ (Muniesa et al. 2007,
p. 2) so that market actors embody agency (embodiment of cognition and consciousness
(DeNora 2000, p. 20)), whilst objects, e.g. artworks, are acted upon, defined, categorized,
by actors. As a result, the role of material devices in the performance of calculation remains
largely unexplored.
The article is divided into three parts; it firstly discusses the proposals for calculation
in Bourdieu’s work as well as in actor-network theory, suggesting a set of questions that a
combination of both models can help answer. The second part presents the empirical case
study starting with a background to the Scottish art market, introducing the main auction
houses, the type of art they sell, and the kind of promotion they give to their auction sales.
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The final section offers an analysis of calculation focused on auction catalogues which are
treated here as a market device. This part includes material from leading international
auction houses selling Scottish art, e.g. Sotheby’s, Christie’s, as well as from others
operating mostly nationally, such as Bonham’s, and Lyon and Turnbull. It also draws upon
interviews carried out with auctioneers in order to shed some light on their perceptions of
the role and importance of catalogues.2 The article concludes by arguing that catalogues
play a key role in the performance of calculation in a process of abstraction and
aestheticization of the art object.

Art Objects and Markets: Performing Calculation

My purpose in what follows is to explore how two leading contributions on the
workings of market calculation can be combined into an analytical framework to analyse
art market practices: Callon’s writings3 inspired by actor-network theory (Callon 1998;
Callon & Law 2005; Callon & Muniesa 2005), and Bourdieu’s (1993, 2005) model of
calculation in the art market. Both approaches have criticized neoclassical economic
theory for its failure to account for the diverse forms of calculation prevalent in markets
(Bourdieu 2005; Callon & Law 2005; Callon & Muniesa 2005). However, Bourdieu’s and
Callon’s models differ in important ways.
For Bourdieu (1993, 2005) calculation takes place in markets, which operate as fields.
In the cultural field, market actors, e.g. dealers, critics, gallerists, auctioneers, engage in the
collective definition of artworks and of their value. The usefulness of Bourdieu’s model lies
in how it specifies the different types of value/capital that can be attributed to artworks by
the workings of calculation. This endows artworks with three main types of capital:
economic, cultural and symbolic. Economic capital refers to the financial value of an
artwork, e.g. how much money is paid for it at auction, or when sold by a dealer. Artworks
have cultural capital because they can only be consumed, or appropriated by
apprehending their meaning. The amount of cultural capital of artworks will thus depend
on the various skills and knowledge individuals need in order to decipher their meaning.
Symbolic capital refers to the degree of accumulated prestige and which is given to them
by the field, e.g. given by the number of positive reviews, museum exhibitions, and so on.
However, Bourdieu’s model of calculation posits agency solely at the hands of humans
when he defines a work of art existing only as a result of the beliefs of art market actors. As
he notes, ‘The work of art is an object which exists as such only by virtue of the (collective)
 PERFORMING CALCULATION IN THE ART MARKET 21

belief which knows and acknowledges it as a work of art’ (1993, p. 35). The implication
here is that the production of capitals is a practice reliant upon a previous assignation of
belief; that is, from those who must believe, first, in something being a work of art. Thus,
the belief in the value of an artwork and the amounts of capital attached to it go hand in
hand. When an object is not validated by this collective belief, or judgement, it does not
qualify as ‘art’, and thus it is not assigned any capital. In this line of thinking, it is only the
agency of art market actors, those behind the assignation of collective belief, that is part of
the calculation process. The lack of agency of artworks, their secondary role at the hands
of market actors, becomes even clearer in Bourdieu’s (1982) argument about the struggles
for distinction in which artworks take part. Individuals, art market actors included,
differentiate themselves from others, e.g. having or not a specific taste, highbrow/
lowbrow, depending on the types of cultural/artistic goods they support, consume, e.g.
abstract art, commercial art. These choices are in themselves expressions of calculation. In
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the art market, some actors support abstract art, and differentiate themselves from those
who take commercial success as the basis of art’s value.4
In light of the role given to art and to agents in fields in this model the question
remains, what is the ultimate source of calculation, what makes it possible? For Bourdieu,
calculation takes place or exists within what he calls ‘a space of possibles’ (1993, p. 64),
which means that the ability to calculate depends on access to this space. This access is, in
turn, determined, firstly, structurally, measured by the number of positions available in
each field, and the number of competitors, and, secondly, individually, by the dispositions
of each agent, or the habitus. The habitus is what regulates the agents’ dispositions or
their subjective basis of perception and appreciation of the objective chances available to
them. Most importantly, it is the ultimate judge behind the calculative practices individuals
make, e.g. to do with artistic career or conferring capital to an artwork. As he notes:

The ultimate reasons for commitment to work, a career or the pursuit of profit in fact lie
beyond or outside calculation and calculating reason in the obscure depths of a
historically constituted habitus. (Bourdieu 2005, p. 30)

In this definition, the habitus is the main mechanism behind the choices, e.g. the
production of belief, or calculative practices in which market actors engage. This argument
is problematic because it does not explain how calculation is actually performed, it is all
down to the habitus. Treating the artwork, and the types of capital assigned to it, as the
outcome of the beliefs held by art market actors, as mentioned earlier, which are now
shaped by the habitus, continues to define calculation as a process carried by humans, and
thus assigns all agency, e.g. the capacity to define value, solely to human action/beliefs. In
so doing, the artwork plays a passive role, that of being the repository of the beliefs about
its value held by art market agents. As long as art objects exist only in the realm of the
‘belief’, as the product of internal, subjective forms of perception enacted by actors in their
symbolic struggles, their materiality remains unexamined. However, an artwork’s
materiality is a crucial part of the study of calculation. As will be seen later, its colour/s,
size, whether it is (or not) framed, and its subject-matter, can contribute, or be made to
contribute, to its initial estimates, and eventually to the final price paid for it at auction
(Geismar 2001). Bourdieu’s model of calculation pre-empts the possibility that art objects
have, as Gell (1998) put it, ‘social agency’. This way of thinking about calculation is
fundamentally challenged by actor-network theory.
 22 MARTA HERRERO

Latour’s actor-network theory can be seen as a direct critique of the status of the
object in Bourdieu’s sociology (of art), which relegates objects ‘to a mere ‘projection
screen’ or mirror of various forms of capital’ (Latour 1994, 1996 in Schinkel 2007, p. 718).
This is precisely the starting point of the model of calculation inspired by actor-network
theory (Callon 1998; Callon & Law 2005; Callon & Muniesa 2005) which sets out to explore
‘who (or what) actually calculates (and how) when we say that ‘‘the market’’ calculates?’
(Callon & Muniesa 2005, p. 1229). Calculation, the answer goes, ‘does not take place only in
human minds, but is distributed among humans and non-humans’ (Callon & Muniesa
2005, pp. 1236
1237; Muniesa et al. 2007, p. 2), in the interaction between market actors
and specific material devices. An invoice, a grid, a factory, a trading screen, a trading room,
a spreadsheet, all these are ‘calculative spaces’, material devices involved in different forms
of calculation. In this proposal, material devices are not circumscribed to their instrumental
dimension, e.g. humans using tools to help perform an arithmetical calculation, but are
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part of a reflexive activity. They are objects with agency, articulating actions, acting or
making others act (Muniesa et al. 2007, p. 2), and involved in the production of ‘specific
effects of cognition and action’ (Callon & Muniesa 2005, p. 1237). Texts such as work orders
are objects with agency because they can shape and transform actors’ actions and
behaviour (Cooren 2004). Here subjects are not external to devices because subjectivity is
‘enacted in a device’; the term agencement is used to describe this type of relationship
subjects/objects:
[i]nstead of postulating a break between human agents and the things that they
conceive, produce, exchange and consume, it is possible to highlight the growing
importance of the processes of mutual adjustment between things and human beings,
consisting of multiple iterations and engagements. (Callon & Muniesa 2005, p. 1233)

For an agencement to be economic, it has to render things and processes economic

(Muniesa et al. 2007, p. 3), and the role of market devices, a type of material devices, is
what makes it possible. More specifically, when market devices enact ‘particular versions of
what it is to be ‘economic’, we are referring to ‘market agencements:
Emphasis is put on the conception, production and circulation of goods, their valuation,
the construction and subsequent transfer of property rights through monetary
mediation, exchange mechanisms and systems of prices. Market agencements detach
things from other things and attach them to other things. The same is done to persons
(physical or moral), to their reciprocal duties and to their relations to things. (Muniesa
et al. 2007, p. 4)

Calculation is thus a way of performing market agencements, e.g. valuation of

goods, via the work of market devices and humans. The strength of this second proposal
for calculation as a form of agency lies in bringing the study of market practices in line
with a concern with the materiality of social relations (Gell 1998; Mukerji 1997; Friedland &
Mohr 2004). This dimension is absent in Bourdieu’s work (Hennion 1997) where the main
emphasis is on the internal dispositions of agents and which make calculation possible.
When applied to the art market, this model of calculation offers two main benefits. Firstly,
it does take into account the role of material devices in the performance of calculation,
and thus displaces, or rather distributes, the focus of agency from subjects, e.g. art market
actors, to the interaction between humans and non-humans. By contrast, in Bourdieu’s
model, agency to define what counts as art was posed solely at the hands of actors, and
 PERFORMING CALCULATION IN THE ART MARKET 23

their habitus. Secondly, a more general issue is that it introduces a concern with
materiality, which in the case of the art market is extremely useful. It points at how the
materiality of artworks, the fact that they are sensuous objects that can be apprehended
by their colour, shape, subject matter, needs to be part of an analysis of calculation. What
role does the art object’s materiality play in processes of calculation? How is the art
object’s materiality enacted through the mediation of market devices? What forms of
knowledge and types of action result from the distributed agency amongst art objects,
market devices and subjects? However, there are also advantages in incorporating some of
Bourdieu’s insights into this model; his notion of struggles amongst actors who compete
for the production of capital is still valid. It lends specificity to the types of actions in which
art market actors engage, the existence of hierarchies of knowledge, of disagreements in
attributions of meanings, and struggles for economic power in the auction market
(Geismar 2001, p. 29). It also helps formulate additional questions: what forms of capital
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result from the performative activities of humans and non-humans? How are market
devices facilitating the performance of struggles amongst actors?

The Auction Market in Scotland

Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Bonham’s, and Lyon and Turnbull are the leading auction
houses in Scotland. Sotheby’s and Christie’s have offices in Edinburgh but not their own
salerooms as will become clear later on, and they work with prospective sellers offering
valuations ranging from paintings to ceramics, furniture and jewellery. Although both
auction houses have sales of ceramics and jewellery, their main sales, in terms of revenue,
are the Scottish art sales. Sotheby’s started selling in Scotland in 1968, and in the early
1970s it began its sales of Scottish art. This auction house has two Scottish art auctions per
year, in April and September. Christie’s first sold in Scotland in 1978 with sales in
Edinburgh and Glasgow, and in 1984 these sales were moved to Edinburgh. At present,
Christie’s holds an annual Scottish art sale in October. Only occasionally do these auction
houses sell Scottish art in their London salerooms. Christie’s had a Scottish art auction in
King Street in 2007,5 whilst small examples of Scottish art, of an average of £5,000, are sold
in South Kensington.6 The Scottish sales are an example of what Sotheby’s and Christie’s
auctioneers call ‘theme sales’, which both auction houses organize for various types of
national art: Irish, Spanish, Greek, Scandinavian, and so on. What distinguishes these sales
is the fact that, with the exception of Christie’s sales in Madrid, and the Scottish sales, they
are always held in London and promoted in their local markets.
The other two auction houses operating in Edinburgh are Bonham’s (1793) and Lyon
and Turnbull (1821). Bonham’s has its headquarters in London, and salerooms in
Edinburgh’s city centre. It holds regular sales of items such as jewellery, silver, glass
ceramics, and paintings. Their Scottish sales take place at the end of August to coincide
with Sotheby’s sales; they last for three days and include not only paintings, but also
furniture, silver, books, arms and armour, ceramics and jewellery (B). Lyon and Turnbull
was sold and re-launched in 1999.7 This auction house has its own salerooms and
headquarters in Edinburgh, and it sells Scottish art in its ‘Fine Paintings’ sales, as well as art
by English and French artists. Of the auction houses included here, this is the only one that
does not conduct any Scottish sales. Their other sales include items such as paintings,
books, ceramics, jewellery, glass, and furniture.
 24 MARTA HERRERO

The selection of market locations, and of specific venues for the sale of art as well as
the production of catalogues are the main promotional tools of auction houses. Auction
sales are advertised with previews of the sales, exhibitions, usually including all the
paintings to be auctioned and held in the location of the sale, as well as in other market
locations, and with advertising through catalogues and in the specialized press, The Art
Newspaper, Auction and Antiques, occasionally in mainstream newspapers, in auction
houses’ publicity magazines, Sotheby’s Preview, and Christie’s Magazine, and in Scotland,
in the Scottish Art News. All auction houses publish a catalogue for each of their sales,
which is distributed, sometimes for free, to a list of previous clients, and to those who have
paid a subscription. They are usually available for purchase online and at the auction
house, and they are priced between £20
£25.
From the above, it is clear that the auction market in Scotland operates as a field.
Sotheby’s and Christie’s lead the field for their international renown, followed by Bonham’s
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which operates mainly in the UK, and Lyon and Turnbull that is trying to set itself up as a
newcomer with both a national and an international clientele. These auction houses
compete against each other for the sale of (Scottish) art, and the type of promotion they
give to their sales, as will be seen next, is one way in which they enact this competition.

Performing Calculation in the Auction Market

In auction market research, the study of auction sales is the aspect that has received
most attention (Smith 1989, 1993; Geismar 2001; Heath & Luff 2007), with some interest
also being paid to promotional practices, exhibitions and catalogues (Geismar 2001).
Despite differences in emphasis, the general learning to be derived from this literature is
that, in the auction market, objects not only acquire new owners, but also new values and
definitions, sometimes ‘they even acquire a new history’ (Smith 1989, p. 79). Even though
the term ‘market devices’ has not been explicitly used, it is clear that value construction
processes occur with the help of such devices, e.g. auction settings, exhibition layouts and
catalogues. For example, the sequences of utterances in which auctioneers organize and
reveal their bids, not merely convey information, but act as a script that shapes the
behaviour of bidders, and thus helps determine the value of items at fine arts and antiques
auctions (Heath & Luff 2007). Similarly, in her study of tribal art auctions Geismar (2001)
shows how catalogues, exhibitions, and the performance of auction sales, enable the
creation of different expressions of value and differentiation, authenticity and historical
pedigree, in order to increase the price paid for this art at auction. Modernist visual display
techniques used in catalogues and exhibitions, for example, individualize these pieces and
emphasize their uniqueness, and thus their value (Geismar 2001, p. 36). These
contributions exemplify some of the types of market devices involved in the performance
of calculation in the auction market, and how they can shape actors’ behaviour,
encouraging them (or not) to bid for an item at a price they believe is right. The
following analysis continues with the discussion of market devices and their performance
of calculation in the auction market, with a focus on the sales catalogues produced by
the auction houses selling Scottish art mentioned earlier on. The fifteen catalogues of
Scottish art sales included in this qualitative analysis range from 2005
2008, and were
published by Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Bonham’s, and Lyon and Turnbull. Here catalogues are
more than just conveying information; rather, they articulate a form of textual,
performative agency (Cooren 2004) by shaping the actions of prospective buyers, and
 PERFORMING CALCULATION IN THE ART MARKET 25

constructing ways of perceiving the value of art. Particular emphasis will be given to their
status as material/aesthetic objects, lavishly illustrated, with pleasant images and
photographs, a tool auctioneers use to reinforce the capital of the paintings represented.
To complement this analysis auctioneers’ perceptions on the importance and role of
catalogues will also be referred to.

Catalogues: Ordering Conduct and the Economic Object

This part of the analysis focuses on the auction catalogue as an example of an
organizational text, e.g. reports, contracts, memos, signs, or work orders, and whose main
feature is their performative quality. Organizational texts, like other agents, are involved in
the ‘daily production of organizational life’. As Cooren, referring to Latour, notes:
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Organizations and institutions clearly exist, but our task as analysts is to interrogate their
modes of being through questioning what produces these stabilizing and channelling
effects that characterize organizational life. (Cooren 2004, p. 374)
The organizational aspect of any auction catalogue can be found in the information
provided in its first and last pages. Its aim is to keep prospective buyers informed, with a set
of guidelines that regulate their presence/behaviour at auction sales, as well as any dealings
with the auction house. The first pages function as an introduction to the auction house,
presenting an overall view of the organization and its hierarchy, making reference to its
auction calendar, a description of the specifics of the sale, time and location, a list of dates
and preview venues, and of the specialists involved. This last item of information, which
shows little variation in the catalogues studied here, provides names and contact details of
individual staff members with their photographs. These photographs personalize the
information presented, creating a sense of proximity between the users of catalogues and
the auction house’s representatives. This is an important issue given that most buyers will
never get to deal with these staff members in person; photographs put a face to the rather
abstract and hierarchical institutional structures presented in the auction catalogue.
Another set of practical information concerns organizational arrangements: how to contact
specialists, who to get in touch with in order to organize an absentee bid, or a telephone bid,
as well as directions to the auction venue, which is always illustrated with a photograph. In
addition to this, some catalogues offer a ‘personal touch’. For example, the Sotheby’s 2007
catalogue reproduced a two page painting of Edinburgh castle included in the sale but
signed by the sale’s senior specialist with the following text in handwritten form:
This is Sotheby’s 40th year holding painting sales in Scotland and to celebrate this we
shall be holding our first sale in central Edinburgh at the Assembly Rooms on George
Street. We look forward to seeing you. Andre Zlattinger, Senior Specialist.
The painting’s signature is here substituted by the signature of the auctioneer in a transfer
of authority from the artist to the auction house. The ways in which auction houses
represent their organizational information varies to some extent. Christie’s’ catalogues
offer a similar format to Sotheby’s’, starting with a list of their auction calendar, their British
and Irish art departments, both in the UK and abroad, where the Scottish sale is located,
and the specialists involved in the sale. Whilst both Sotheby’s and Christie’s use
photographs to represent their staff and the sale venues, Bonham’s does not, and Lyon
and Turnbull only provide one of their main office and sale venue in Edinburgh.
 26 MARTA HERRERO

The last pages of all catalogues, after the description of all the lots for sale, continue
to present a set of auction details for buyers. The amount of pages devoted to this
information varies, from eight to ten pages in Sotheby’s and Christie’s catalogues, to only
two or three in those by Bonham’s and Lyon and Turnbull. It includes a glossary of terms,
and a section on the conditions of the sale
buyer’s premium, how to arrange payment,
and how the auction will act, should there be any disputes concerning provenance,
condition of paintings or their payment. The text in these sections is not only explanatory;
it also orders buyers’ conduct:
To bid in person, you will need to register for and collect a numbered paddle before the
auction begins. (Sotheby’s 2005)

Please do not mislay your paddle; in the event of loss, inform the Sales Clerk immediately.
At the end of the sale, please return your paddle to the registration desk. (Sotheby’s
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2006)

It also explains the behaviour or conduct of the auction house:

The auctioneer may open the bidding on any lot by placing a bid on behalf of the seller.
The auctioneer may further bid on behalf of the seller, up to the amount of the reserve,
by placing consecutive or responsive bids for a lot. (Sotheby’s 2008)

We shall have the right at our discretion, to refuse admission to our premises or
attendance at our auctions by any person. (Lyon and Turnbull 2007)

When making a bid, a bidder is accepting personal liability to pay the purchase price,
including the buyer’s premium and all applicable taxes, plus all other applicable charges.
(Christie’s 2007)

In this part of the catalogue, paintings go through a process of abstraction being

referred to as ‘a Lot’. In the case below, gender differences are not accounted for, it is
assumed that all bidders are male. This kind of address has only been found in Bonham’s’
catalogues:
Lots are available for inspection prior to the Sale and it is each Bidder’s responsibility to
examine any Lot in which he is interested prior to the Sale. (Bonham’s 2006)

Immediately a Lot is sold you will: (a) give to us, if requested, proof of identity, and (b)
pay to us the total amount due in cash or in such other way as is agreed by us. (Lyon and
Turnbull 2007)

Even though at first instance this information may seem just a set of practical details,
its representation performs a practical purpose: it is a way of ordering the behaviour and
actions of buyers, bidders and those wanting to attend the auction and its related events.
It offers guidelines as to where to attend the previews, the sale, where successful bidders
need to go to collect their purchases, the legal implications of bidding, and the fact that
they are entering into a contract with an auction house. In addition to acting in the same
role as ‘work orders’ (Cooren 2004), the catalogue also turns the art object into an abstract
object, it standardizes it, becoming the repository of a set of instructions applying to all
the paintings for sale: how to bid for it, how to pay for it, where to go to collect it. Here the
only relevant form of value is economic, a form of value that, seemingly, it is only assigned
at the auction sale.
 PERFORMING CALCULATION IN THE ART MARKET 27

Catalogues as/and Aesthetic Objects

This part of the analysis focuses on the pages introducing and describing the
paintings for sale. In auction catalogues, the list of paintings is always positioned between
the first and final pages of the organizational details referred to above. It will be argued
that it is in these pages where cultural and symbolic capital is built into the paintings, and
that the economic capital, a painting’s price, is intricately linked to the articulation of these
other forms of capital. However, the abstraction of the art object we have just seen is
absent in these pages, what we find instead is an individualization of the art object.
Catalogues are in themselves aesthetic objects, with lavishly illustrated, glossy
covers. A main concern of auctioneers is to produce catalogues that buyers will want to
keep in their bookshelves, acting almost like a manual they can refer to and remind
themselves of the entries, explanations, and descriptions of the pictures (S2, C1, B1). But, as
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an auctioneer explains, the catalogue is a very important promotional tool when it comes
to buyers’ appreciation of it; it can even become a symbolic object, ‘part of a nationalistic
pride’ buyers take in the art they love and like (S2). This is why it is essential that
prospective buyers find catalogues a pleasant object to keep around their surroundings:

Trying to produce something like a catalogue that is and has a pick up nature, and
people don’t mind it being left around like a glossy magazine. Whereas something like a
tacky brochure, people don’t want it on their coffee table, kitchen table or sitting in their
hall. (C1)

The reproduction of glossy illustrated back and front covers is a good way of producing
beautiful catalogues. All auction catalogues studied here display images of one or various
works in the sale. Sotheby’s and Christie’s follow different conventions to other auction
houses. Their front and back covers are taken up with the representation of one image,
usually with the very colourful and vibrant paintings by Scottish Colourists, as will be
mentioned later. These images are not necessarily of the most expensive paintings in the
sale, but they make the catalogue an aesthetically beautiful object. Bonham’s follows a
different strategy. Their front covers illustrate a group of paintings, usually four, of a similar
theme, e.g. landscapes, still lifes. (In its 2006 sale, it reproduced four paintings in its front
cover with estimates of £12,000
18,000, £7,000
10,000, £5,000
7,000, £4,000
6,000, whilst
the most expensive paintings in the sale had estimates of £100,000
150,000 and £70,000

100,000.) By contrast, Lyon and Turnbull’s ‘Fine Paintings’ catalogue covers are in black
and white, with an abstract image represented in their front cover, which is not even
included in the sale or referenced.

Representing paintings. The visual and textual representation of paintings in

catalogues is a way for auctioneers to convey their value, and in this, the materiality of
catalogues, their ability to display images that can be looked at in some detail, is
paramount. A good example is the reproduction of paintings using two continuous pages
that can be opened up, almost like a present, and which try to capture, although on a
smaller scale, the details of the painting itself. This practice enables the user to perform the
action of unfolding the pages, in order to ‘discover’ what the painting looks like.
All the auctioneers interviewed in this study agreed in saying that the catalogue is
one the most important promotional item for their sales. Despite the importance of the
internet, catalogues afford buyers a better experience because they can see the paintings
 28 MARTA HERRERO

in much more detail. Geismar (2001) similarly notes that catalogues offer buyers a form of
‘experience’, which gives them an idea of what price would be appropriate to pay for the
paintings:

each dealer and collector attends the auction with an idea of appropriate price,
expressed in the estimate, reserve, and final sale price. These ideas come from the
experience of the catalogue and view (from the objects themselves), and from the
degree of market knowledge (primarily the exchange histories each participant holds in
mind). (Geismar 2001, p. 29)

Sotheby’s and Christie’s catalogues include an average of 250 paintings, whereas

Bonham’s and Lyon and Turnbull have around 160. All the paintings are numbered, and
they are auctioned in the same order. The information in these presents paintings as
individual art objects endowed with (different amounts of) economic capital, indicated in
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their price estimates, as well as of cultural and symbolic capital. All paintings are given
biographical details
the artist’s name, institutional affiliation (e.g. Royal Scottish Academy
(RSA)), year of birth and of death (when it applies)
the painting’s title, what the painting’s
signature reads, year, medium, e.g. oil on canvas, measurements in inches and
centimetres. These biographical details can be found in all paintings, with the exception
of those of unclear provenance, which are then titled ‘Scottish School’ or ‘Attributed to’
with the century when they were painted. Price estimates are also included as part of
a painting’s description. Bonham’s and Lyon and Turnbull only show prices in British
pounds, Sotheby’s shows them in British pounds and euros, and Christie’s in British
pounds, US dollars and euros. The representation of these prices and their currencies
reveals the auction houses’ position as an international, or national, auction house, with
a network of international buyers, or as dealing mainly with buyers in the UK.
The other set of written information elaborates on the introductory details just
mentioned; it describes each painting. These entries are usually anonymous, except in the
case of Sotheby’s and Christie’s who usually commission academics to account for
provenance and history of certain paintings, and in these occasions their names are
mentioned as a way of authenticating and lending credibility to the information
presented. Sotheby’s and Christie’s devote long texts, up to a page, to qualify some of
their paintings. Lyon and Turnbull offer some a whole page of description, in an average of
six to seven paintings, whereas Bonham’s provides a quarter of a page of information for
only about one or two paintings. The amount of space occupied by text and images
depends mostly on the estimates of a painting. There is a direct correlation between the
price of a painting, and the written information provided in the catalogue. The higher the
estimates, the more likely a painting is to have a great deal of catalogue space, from
one page, to even three or four, devoted to it (including text and images). It also shows
how some auction houses, e.g. Sotheby’s and Christie’s, represent themselves as playing a
more active role in authenticating the painting, giving it a biography.

Images of paintings. The visual representation of paintings can take various forms
depending on the painting’s estimate. The higher its price, the more likely it is its image
will come in large size, sometimes taking up a whole page, or even two pages, as
mentioned earlier. Whilst the convention is to reproduce paintings without frame, only an
average of three to four images per catalogue includes frames, the visual representation of
the original frame symbolizes the painting’s reputation, its symbolic capital. Frames are
 PERFORMING CALCULATION IN THE ART MARKET 29

treated as ‘part of the history of the object’; they are a means of asserting the painting’s
authenticity. When the original frame is lost or damaged, art dealers in particular, always
ensure to choose frames akin not only to the artist’s work, but also to ‘the times in which
the work was produced’ (Heys 2007, p. 29). However, it is rare that an auction house will
choose to re-frame a painting before its sale, but in certain occasions auctioneers have
done so when it can help increase its price. An auctioneer notes how, sometimes, he
recommends vendors to reframe as in the case of three paintings that ‘were in Boots
frames, sort of £30 frames, and we got all three reframed, and I felt it helped’ (LT1). He
adds that caring about the types of frames of paintings is part of auction houses becoming
more of a retail outlet, and thus providing buyers with a final product. In the past,
auctioneers sold paintings mainly to dealers who would then carry out the restoration of
paintings, when necessary, including their reframing.
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The Scottish Colourists

It has become clear by now that the catalogues described here follow a standard
format; they all include a set of conventions, instructions to buyers, visual and written
representations of the paintings for sale, well-illustrated front and back covers. From that
point of view, catalogues of Scottish art are no different from catalogues of any other type
of art. The advantage of this uniformity of practice is that readers are already ‘trained’ in
the use of catalogues, they know where to look for particular bits of information, paintings,
commissions, auction venues, representations of paintings, and so on. However, there is
another element of catalogues that applies in particular to the ones studied here that
deserves special attention, the representation of one of Scotland’s most famous group of
twentieth-century artists: the Scottish Colourists. The term is used to refer to the work of
four Scottish painters, John Duncan Fergusson (1874
1961), Leslie Hunter (1877
1961),
Samuel Peploe (1871
1935) and Francis Cadell (1883
1937), and their followers, such as
John Maclauchlan Milne (1885
1957), Margaret Morris (1891
1980), and Anne Estelle Rice
(1877
1959). The Colourists trained in France and were influenced by French artistic
movements, such as Impressionism, and Fauvism. They applied their knowledge of French
painting to the traditions of Scottish art, still lifes, landscapes, and figurative painting. Their
work has received retrospectives at London’s Royal Academy and the National Gallery in
Edinburgh. An auctioneer referred to this group as ‘the international element of Scottish
art’, with their work selling to collectors in America and Europe (C2).
The auction catalogues where the Scottish Colourists are given special attention are
those by Sotheby’s and Christie’s. These auction houses sell the highest number of
Colourists works, and also the most expensive, an average of forty works per sale, with
exceptional estimates than can go up to £500,000. Almost all the Sotheby’s and Christie’s
catalogues studied here illustrate their front and back covers with the work of Scottish
Colourists. The individual entries are illustrated with the longest amount of written
information, a maximum of a whole page. The details provided are no different from those
in other works, they include a discussion of the painting’s subject, artistic influences,
provenance, exhibition history, but, overall, there is a strong emphasis on making clear the
international influences in the Colourists’ work. For example, a Sotheby’s catalogue (2008)
describes a painting by Samuel John People, The Lobster, as having been directly
influenced by the paintings of Spanish artist Diego Velázquez and by his subject matter
bodegones:
 30 MARTA HERRERO

Together with many other British artists at this time, Velázquez’s virtuoso composition,
brushwork and approach to colour affected both Peploe and John Duncan Fergusson.
The significance attached to the objects in Peploe’s The Lobster is comparable to
Velázquez’s bodegones, his early paintings which monumentalise everyday subjects.
(Sotheby’s 2008, p. 128)

The same text continues to refer to the similarity between Peploe’s painting and the
work of French artist Paul Cezanne and the Fauves: he ‘developed a way of painting more
closely akin to the work of Cezanne and the Fauves with their tropical colour and
delineated tone’. This type of description is a way of making explicit both the cultural
capital of this type of part (how to interpret its meaning) as well as its symbolic capital (its
prestige by invoking a stylistic and thematic association with the work of painters of
international renown).
However, the clearest concerted attempt by an auction house to promote and
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publicize the work of Scottish Colourists can be found in Sotheby’s 2007 catalogue, which
included the highest number of these works for sale in all the catalogues included here, and
with the highest estimates.8 The works were classified into four sub-sections ‘The Early
Years in Paris
1904
1913’, ‘The Later Years in France’, ‘Mature Still Lifes & Interiors’, and
‘Scottish Landscapes’. Each sub-section was introduced by three or four photographs of the
Colourists, thus providing documentary evidence of the history narrated, some of them
showing the Colourists in a rather intimate light, in pictures of them with their families, with
other fellow artists, or on the beach. The text narrates the experiences of the group’s
members, their travels to Paris, their participation in the artistic community, as well as
information on the women they met and fell in love with. It also establishes a connection
between their life histories and the paintings they produced at particular times, which are
precisely those included in the catalogue. This history of the Scottish Colourists is enacted
here by the medium of the catalogue. The fact that catalogues are books one can interact
with by turning their pages enables their users, especially in this case, to perform a
movement through time. The act of turning page/s leads up to a new stage in the
Colourists’ lives. In order to get to the next step, e.g. ‘The Later Years’, one must navigate
first the pages of the catalogue, and thus get to ‘experience’, by reading and looking at
the images, the various forms of value attached to the paintings (cultural and symbolic).
The paintings for sale are part of the history of Colourists, buying the painting, is ultimately
a way of buying into the history enacted by the medium of the catalogue.

Conclusion
This article has offered an analysis of calculation in the auction market, drawing
upon the work of Bourdieu and actor-network theory. The aim here has been to combine
insights from these two approaches in order to produce an analytical framework that
keeps some key insights in each of these models. From Bourdieu’s work, his concepts of
capitals, economic, cultural and symbolic, are of relevance for the specificity they lend to
value making processes. However, his notion of agency is deemed problematic because it
rests entirely in the hands of human actors whose belief in the value of the artwork is what
makes possible, in the first instance, its definition as a work of art. Actor network-theory
fundamentally challenges Bourdieu’s approach to agency, and argues, instead, for a form
of distributed agency which occurs in the interaction between humans and non-humans.
 PERFORMING CALCULATION IN THE ART MARKET 31

In the art market, the role of non-humans is made explicit in what are called ‘market
devices’ which are objects that allow the performance of calculation, and which turn
an object, e.g. a work of art, into an economic object. The proposal in this article has,
thus, been to study how market devices make possible the performance of action, as
opposed to humans being the only source of action, as well as the forms of cognition
they articulate.
The analysis of auction catalogues offered in the last part of this article has been
guided by the insights provided by these two models combined. Auction catalogues are
examples of market devices and the conclusions found here show that both models offer
important lessons to understand the workings of calculation. Firstly, Bourdieu’s concepts
of capital are particularly useful to help explain the various value making processes
operated by the auction catalogue. Apart from indicating the economic capital of a
painting, its estimates, catalogues reproduce cultural and symbolic capital. They construct
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cultural capital, ways of understanding a painting by drawing attention to its subject

matter, the aim/s of the artist in producing the painting, the artistic influences s/he
followed. At the same time, catalogues produce symbolic capital, revealing the signs of
a painting’s prestige, whether it has been exhibited, written about in monographs or
exhibiton catalogues, as well as who has previously owned it. Actor-network theory has
been extremely useful here in helping clarify how auction catalogues are themselves
material tools and how their materiality leads to several types of performance, seen here as
interactions with humans, their users. Catalogues are ways of ordering the behaviour and
conduct of (prospective) buyers, they explain how these are to behave at auction, what
they need to do to pay for their paintings, where to go to collect their work, and what will
happen if they do not follow the strict rules and guidelines of the auction house. A key
insight in the study of how catalogues order conduct is how, in so doing, they also can
turn the art object into an abstract, and standardized object, a ‘Lot’ subjected to the rules
and guidelines of the auction house. Here the art object is abstracted, and standardized,
there is no individuality to it. A totally different form of presenting the artwork is found in
the listings of paintings, where the emphasis is one of individualization. It is here that
Bourdieu’s distinction between different forms of capital comes to the fore and where the
materiality of the catalogue is expressed most clearly. That is, the fact that catalogues not
only mediate the representation of visual images, and of texts, but they also, in so doing,
enable a form of performance for their users, they can turn their pages, and even spend
time contemplating and reading about the paintings. The representation of the Scottish
Colourists, especially in Sotheby’s 2007 catalogue, provides an example of this. This
catalogue conveys a history of the group, a set of narratives illustrating the Colourists’
lives, and divided into sub-sections. Each section includes a series of paintings for sale
which corresponds to the part of the history of the group that was being told. The
catalogue here enables its user an engagement with the history of the Scottish Colourists;
by turning the pages one can progress from the beginning towards the end of their
history. At the same time, the user becomes the consumer of the paintings for sale,
included after each sub-section. The history of the Scottish Colurists and the consumption
of the painting’s various forms of value become intricately connected, and are ultimately
enabled by the medium of the catalogue.
This analysis offers some general propositions about the catalogue as a market
device. It suggests that market devices can do more than enable the perfomance of
calculation, they can also be aesthetic objects. Thus calculation as a form of performance
 32 MARTA HERRERO

cannot be dissasociated from the aesthetics involved in the presentation of the market
device, or catalogue. This aesthetics is conveyed here by some of the catalogues’
suggestively illustrated back and front covers. In turn, art objects are not merely the
repository of beliefs, they are material objects, and their materiality is clearly invoked in the
catalogue. In this case, the bright and vibrant paintings of the Scottish Colourists, as
we have seen, can make catalogues aesthetically appealing. Thus the materiality of the
catalgoue and that of the painting go hand in hand. The catalogue is, as a result, an
aestheticized object, and its performative value cannot be fully understood if this key
characteristic is not taken into account.

NOTES
1. These writings exemplify the embeddedness of economic action approach promulgated
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by Granovetter (1985). See Krippner (2001) for a critique of embeddedness as a paradigm

for economic sociology.
2. Data from the interviews is referred as S for Sothebys, C for Christie’s, B for Bonham’s and
LT for Lyon and Turnbull. In those cases when more than one auctioneer was interviewed
from the same auction house 1 or 2 has been added to differentiate between
interviewees. This research was carried out with the support of a British Academy Small
Research Grant (SG-42685).
3. I refer to Callon, and not his co-authors, to avoid repetition, even though he has co-
written most of the articles cited here.
4. These choices are shaped by the field’s structure. As Bourdieu explains (1993) the artistic
field is divided between the field of restricted production (FRP) where the only measure
of value is allocated by the practices of a small elite, a group of peers, and the field of
large-scale production (FLSP), which measures value in terms of commercial, financial
success.
5. That same year, Christie’s Scottish art sale in Edinburgh in October was cancelled due to
a lack of paintings for a second sale.
6. This is only an average. There are exceptions to this; sometimes works of higher value are
auctioned at South Kensington.
7. Lyon and Turnbull was acquired and is now run by a group of auctioneers who worked at
Phillips in Edinburgh (LT).
8. It included 35 works in its 2006 catalogue and 29 in 2008.

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CATALOGUES
Bonham’s (2006, 2007, 2008) The Scottish Sale.
Christie’s (2006, 2007, 2008) Scottish Art.
Lyon and Turnbull (2006, 2007, 2008) Fine Paintings.
Sotheby’s (2006, 2007, 2008) Scottish Pictures.
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Marta Herrero, University of Plymouth, School of Law and Social Science, Drake Circus,
Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK.; Tel: 44 (0)1752 585787;
Email: marta.herrero@plymouth.ac.uk