After 15 years as global director of Art Basel, art industry veteran Marc Spiegler has a new goal: educating the next generation of art professionals. Spiegler will partner with Art Market Minds, the organization behind the annual art business conference, to launch a new online learning platform, The Academy, and offer 10 hours of courses in February. The catchy title “Understanding Today’s Art World with Mark Spiegler” promises participants a brief tour through the intricate cogs of the contemporary art market. Priced at a relatively modest £750, the program will offer four 2.5-hour live online courses, making it ideal for those who are ambitious and pressed for time.
This isn’t Spiegler’s first foray into academia. As a senior lecturer at Milan’s Bocconi University, he brings a journalist’s curiosity and a market insider’s savvy to his teaching. “Teaching has been a long-standing passion for me and I have closely followed the evolution of the art world for decades, first as a journalist and then as a market protagonist,” Spiegler told the Observer. “I’m delighted to be launching this new educational platform with Louise Hamlin and her team. Our goal is to provide a unique opportunity for anyone looking to enter the field to quickly gain the knowledge they need to navigate the world of contemporary art .
The course promises to reveal the major forces shaping today’s art market, from digitization to the inexorable intergenerational transfer of wealth and the relentless pull of social media. “Students will leave with a clear understanding of how all the different players fit together now and how those roles may shift in the future,” Spiegler said, hinting at a no-nonsense, practical approach.
Spiegler’s course will be followed by the Cultural Catalyst Program, a marathon 10-week workshop designed to help learners transform ideas into polished presentations. “It’s going to be pretty intense for the students,” Spiegler said. “They’ll have guidance from me and the Art Nova finance team, but at the end of the day, they’ll be facing a group of experienced investors.” While the pressure can be high, he adds that his Bocconi students always enjoy the classes. type of project.
But does the art world really need another art market-centric learning platform? When we asked that question, Art Market Minds principal Hamlin had an answer ready. “We built this program to provide a quick, practical insight into today’s art world,” she said, positioning the program as a crash course for the particularly ambitious. “We think it’s good value for money – 10 hours of on-site instruction from an experienced professor who has held senior positions around the world for 15 years.”
She added that she hopes the course will give bright minds from around the world a solid foundation in the inner workings of the art market, enabling them to bring fresh ideas to any industry role.
Art business projects boom
The increasing professionalization and financialization of the art market has driven a boom in BA, MA, MSc and Business School courses as well as short courses, all tailored to the management, financial and marketing aspects of the industry. Art school and university modules that were once dominated by art history courses, visual arts courses and the occasional curatorial studies course now feature vast courses that include arts administration, cultural heritage management and the intricacies of the market itself.
Often referred to as “arts administration” or “arts management” programs, many programs focus on the workings of arts organizations, from nonprofits (such as theaters, museums, and opera houses) to for-profit businesses (such as galleries and auction houses). According to a 2017 study by the Association of Arts Management Educators, there are 88 arts management graduate programs in the United States alone, with an additional 77 international programs, including 30 in the United Kingdom. Continuing surge in South America and Africa. For example, the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, now offers an arts management course, proving that this trend is global.
See also: An observer’s guide to the must-see biennales and triennials in 2025
Heavyweight auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s are also involved in education. Sotheby’s Institute was founded in 1969 as a training ground for auction house staff; Christie’s Education was founded in 1978 and has grown to work with universities in London, New York and, most recently, Hong Kong Major player offering short courses and master’s degrees. Although Christie’s closed its master’s program in 2019, Sotheby’s Institute continues to produce graduates eager to enter the international art market. Their courses remain focused on industry-specific skills, although both attempt art history-focused options to bolster their academic credibility.
These projects are not cheap. Tuition fees for a postgraduate degree in the UK hover between £30,000 and £40,000, while in the US they climb to at least $60,000. While students can build an impressive international network and secure entry into the field, the high financial outlay does not always guarantee a quick return on investment. Salaries early in a career in the art world are notoriously low, and advancement can be a slow process.
As the art market continues to expand rapidly, creating platforms that standardize knowledge and business practices seems crucial. But the question remains: Can such a niche industry, fraught with barriers to entry, absorb the influx of graduates from these programs? Perhaps more crucially, will the local arts scene be able to integrate this growing talent pool, or will the most ambitious graduates inevitably cluster in established global hubs, leaving regional markets underserved?
Arts Business Studies initially arose as a pragmatic solution to the industry’s need for experts with the skills to address unique challenges. Yet what began as a necessary response has now faltered into a self-serving enterprise. Critics argue that as programs proliferate at an alarming rate, many prioritize applicant numbers over graduates’ ultimate success in the field, transforming education into another profit-driven industry.
This debate is fueled by a growing literature examining art as a financial asset class. This approach often obsesses over prices, economic data and attempts to shoehorn art into traditional asset models, but has drawn sharp criticism for ignoring the inherent cultural and historical dimensions of artistic value. The art market operates under different rules than other industries, driven by symbolic, social and cultural significance. Stripping away these nuances for a purely financial perspective not only oversimplifies the market, but also risks creating professionals who are ill-equipped to effectively engage in complex transactions.
