Emerging artists in Iran's art market: Evaluating the alignment and conflict of economic value and aesthetic value in the art market

Galleries are the meeting point of the values of the artistic and the market community; galleries accord the aesthetic values with the values of the market by determining the price of art works. This accordance is more important for emerging artists, as it can enable them to continue their activities. In this article, for studying the alignment and conflict between the values of the artistic community and the market community, the function of galleries and art fairs with consideration on their role in introducing emerging artists have been studied. Therefore, the concept of emerging artists has been addressed first; then the field study of the annual exhibition of ‘Haft Negah’ has been considered, and the role of this event in introducing the emerging artists into the Iranian art community has been critically evaluated. The methodology is based on a field study (in four periods 2012 to 2015) of ‘Haft Negah’ in which artists whose works have been sold at least in three periods were evaluated, and some of them were identified as emerging artists. The works of these emerging artists were evaluated by a group of referees (consisted of nine critics, gallery owners and artists). The research results showed that there is a great difference of opinion between the values of the art community activists and the beneficiaries of the Iran’s art market; In this market, some criteria such as innovation and novelty of the artist have the least importance (the lowest coefficient of influence in the regression model);