Gatekeepers and Quality

This master thesis is about the characteristics which Amsterdam gallery owners use to make a judgement on quality in the contemporary arts. By applying the technique of interviewing and the technique of the content analysis, the research is not only based on opinions but also on facts. For this research there were semi-structured interviews held with eight different gallery owners. During these interviews possible characteristics for judging quality in the arts were discussed. After these interviews there was a content analysis applied on the websites of these eight galley owners. The websites of the gallery owners supplied a database of biographies from 161 artists (short texts on the oeuvre/career of a particular artist). During the content analysis there was searched for mentioned characteristics which could be used to define quality in the arts. Also there was searched for the characteristics as discussed during the interviews. After the interviews and the content analysis were performed, the results of these two applied techniques were combined. As a result, the following can be concluded. The founded results did not answer the original research question ‘What are the characteristics on which gatekeepers judge quality in the arts?’ The founded results answered another question, namely ‘Which characteristics are used by the gallery owners to create a better economic perspective?’ this did not mean that the research was a failure; it means that this research provided other insights than expected up front. The research can question the intentions of the gallery owners, because do the gallery owners gain trust or do they want to create a better economic perspective for themselves? Characteristics that are used by the gallery owners to create a better economic perspective are: size, age, social behavior, technique, material, authenticity, medium, edition, and theme. Gallery owners are always busy with, what I like to call, Timing the Market. I am sure that gallery owners always have some pure intentions, but they always try to gain a better economic perspective. If the gallery owners time the market they know what the demand from the consumers is at that time and they can react on that demand. If they do so and if they time the market in the right way then, in the end, they can create a better economic perspective. So, is a gallery owner trust worthy or has the gallery owner a hidden agenda by always timing the market so that a better economic perspective can be created?