It was Miami Vice and now it's Miami Nice! Investigating the social topography of art fairs

"Professor in Sociology at St. Gallen University, Switzerland, Franz Schultheis became familiar with art fairs by accident. He had been working with Pierre Bourdieu for 20 years and started addressing sociology of art while editing his works in German. [...] In his book, When Art meets Money. Encounters at Art Basel, he investigates the contradictions and dynamics of the money-art relation in the Art Basel scenario, which he describes as a highly selected one. His idea of social topography and status hierarchies is deeply analysed there and emerges from our interview too. He x-rays the socio-economical foundations of the events switching from the urban impact to the symbolic capital and its physical representation, comparing the Swiss model to the Anglo-Saxon one of Frieze while also addressing the curatorial issue." (Sarno 2018: 26)