Ben Davis

ON A MAY NIGHT IN 2012, Sotheby’s sold a version of Edvard Munch’s *The Scream* for 119.9 million dollars, setting a new record for the price paid for a single work of art. Meanwhile, union art handlers, locked out in a months-long dispute over a new contract, picketed the auction house along with Occupy Museums activists. While this sad little snapshot of art world disparity is not exactly new, the past few years have seen this type of excess thrown into sharp relief – against the background of the 2008 financial crisis and, to a lesser extent, the Occupy movement. [Read More]