Chelsea’s art gallery district on Manhattan’s Far West Side is now probably the most important location worldwide for sales of new works of Contemporary Art, so understanding Chelsea is crucial for the goal of mapping key cultural enterprises worldwide. We first view Chelsea in the context of the international Contemporary Art market, looking especially at art fairs and auctions. We then discuss detailed material from Chelsea. Our central finding is the major (though not total) irreducibility between two central spheres, on the one hand the economic markets in which the art is traded, and on the other hand the content of the art and its meaning for the audience as they view it displayed in the galleries Although the market is crucial in all kinds of ways, the content of the art that is traded and its meaning for the audience cannot typically be reduced to economics, or usefully be analyzed primarily in economic terms. This is not to argue for the ‘autonomy of aesthetics’ but it is to argue that the aesthetic domain here is in many ways shaped by, and responds to, a different set of dynamics than the market domain. Both spheres are important for understanding the world of Contemporary Art and modern society and to study one but not the other gives a misleadingly one-sided view.

Chelsea?s art gallery district on Manhattan?s Far West Side is now probably the most important location worldwide for sales of new works of Contemporary Art, so understanding Chelsea is crucial for the goal of mapping key cultural enterprises worldwide. We first view Chelsea in the context of the international Contemporary Art market, looking especially at art fairs and auctions. We then discuss detailed material from Chelsea. Our central finding is the major (though not total) irreducibility between two central spheres, on the one hand the economic markets in which the art is traded, and on the other hand the content of the art and its meaning for the audience as they view it displayed in the galleries Although the market is crucial in all kinds of ways, the content of the art that is traded and its meaning for the audience cannot typically be reduced to economics, or usefully be analyzed primarily in economic terms. This is not to argue for the ?autonomy of aesthetics? but it is to argue that the aesthetic domain here is in many ways shaped by, and responds to, a different set of dynamics than the market domain. Both spheres are important for understanding the world of Contemporary Art and modern society and to study one but not the other gives a misleadingly one-sided view.

Much attention has recently been paid to the shifting meanings and forms of "community" given the increasingly global world. As the geographic basis for community has arguably begun to weaken, while other possibilities for defining community have blossomed, the nature of local communities has shifted. Despite some claims that local communities are no longer especially important in people's lives, arguably this is not always the case. Local community may be particularly important for art worlds, where rapid exchange of ideas and nuanced styles may be best facilitated through face-to-face interaction. How and to what extent is local community established and made meaningful in an increasingly global world? Drawing on data from an ethnographic study of Bushwick, Brooklyn, an emerging bohemian art world that has built its community around a local, geography-based identity, I examine these issues. Bushwick artists have attempted to create a cohesive local art community; yet in many ways Bushwick is also a global neighborhood, as well as one that shares its location with a much more longstanding community of primarily Latino residents, and serves as a satellite to Chelsea, the center of the world for contemporary art. Drawing on data culled from interviews, participant observation, and media and art analysis, I examine the nature of Bushwick's local art community, its relation to the pre-existing Latino community, and its relation to and meaning in the context of the broader NYC/Chelsea art world and society at large.