Boom by Michael Shnayerson

7 out of 10

After WWII, American economic growth coincided with a boundary-pushing creative explosion.  At first, New York galleries and dealers were not heavily focused on money.  Famous artists, young hippies, and new drugs flooded into SoHo and Chelsea.  Soon, museums in England, France, and West Germany were excited to display and expand upon contemporary American art.  By the 1990s, wealthy private collectors in Asia and the Middle East were spending outlandish money on private collections.  Auction houses let bidders pay skyrocketing sums for individual pieces of art.  Art seeped into popular culture.  Pop art was integrated into universities and a growing number of art schools.  Art fairs in places like Los Angeles and Miami represented the global demand for nonconventional paintings and sculptures.

Occurring throughout all this were feverish price spikes, high expectations, lavish yacht parties, symbolism, crises, epidemics, premature deaths, mental health disorders, marketers, sleazy salesmen, copyright infringements, legal battles, tax evasion, along with many other ups and downs.   Not everything is a movement.  People have been making art forever.  Art will continue far into the future.  Art is freedom.