I read Helguera's Index a couple of months ago in Art On Paper, and I thought it was an interesting piece (especially the statistics about art schools) and wanted to pass it on. You can find it in the July/August 2007 issue. Also, you can download a PDF of it here.
Percentage of people in the art world who think panel discussions are boring: 74
Percentage of people in the art world who believe that contemporary art does not contribute to public political dialogues in a significant way: 79
Average tuition cost for a four-year B.F.A. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, including living expenses: $162,480
Number of years that it would take to repay a school loan in this amount, including interest, with monthly installments of $350: 44
Estimated percentage of artists who still make art ten years after leaving art school: 10
Estimated percentage of art school graduates who succeed financially: 1
Estimated percentage who also succeed critically: 0.2
2006 sale price of Jasper Johns’ False Start, the highest price ever paid at auction for a living artist’s work: $80 million
Number of people in Burundi who could cover their living costs for one year with this amount: 200,000
Number of New York elected officials who defended The Drawing Center against being ousted from the planned International Freedom Complex after a New York Daily News article stated that the center sponsored “Anti-American art”: 0
Percentage of people in the art world who feel that people in the art world publicly support each other but secretly antagonize each other: 53
Percentage of people in the art world who feel that people are not sincere when they socialize at an art opening: 87
Percentage of those who often pretend they know an artist when they actually don’t for fear of being looked down upon: 50
Number of pages of advertising in the Summer 2007 issue of Artforum: 400
Ratio of advertising to editorial pages: 2.8 to 1
Monthly salary for a curator at the Centro Wilfredo Lam in Havana: $55
“Representation fee” that Agora Gallery in New York charges artists: $3,000
Average amount a performance artist gets paid to perform in the United States: $500
Average amount writer Malcolm Gladwell requests as a speaking fee: $30,000
Fee that the Guggenheim Museum charges to conduct a feasibility study for a Guggenheim in any given city: $1,000,000,000
Commission percentage that Damien Hirst’s Mexican gallery takes from the sale of his works: 5
Estimated number of people working at Jeff Koons’ studio: 50
Total staff at Bronx Museum of the Arts: 30
Number of assistants James Rosenquist hires to help make his paintings: 0
Number of Google hits for the Venice Biennale: 1,200,000
Number of Google hits for the Museum of Bad Art, an online museum: 9,510,100
By Pablo Helguera. Sources: artcritical.com; artnet.com; Bloomberg.com; Ford Foundation museum stats; Hermetic Lounge art world poll, 2004;
New York Times GDP stats; ocregister.com; Saatchi Gallery forum; SAIC’s tuition costs from the institution’s website.
