PhD Scholarship in ‘Authenticity and Trust in the Valuation of Australian Indigenous Art’

Value and duration

$32,000 (plus fee waiver) per year for up to three years.

Number of scholarships available

One

Eligibility

To be eligible for this scholarship you must:

1) have a bachelor degree in economics or marketing or relevant discipline to the project from the social sciences including business.
2) meet RMIT’s entry requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy

Other eligibility criteria:

3) completion of an honours or a postgraduate qualification in a business-related area is desirable but not essential.
4) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander candidates are encouraged to apply.
5) a minimum of 2-3 years of relevant experience in the arts sector is preferred.

Project description:
This project will explore the impact that trust and authenticity have in terms of the valuation of Australian art works by Indigenous artists. The Indigenous art market represents a particularly relevant application for this type of study given copyright violations of Indigenous art and designs and also recent high profile cases concerning the attribution of art works by noted artists including Rover Thomas and Emily Kngwarreye that served to erode trust and which resulted in the development of an Indigenous Australian Art Commercial Code of Conduct.

As a further consideration that informs this project is the appreciation that different systems of value underpin the creation of Indigenous art which may stand at odds with the established art market convention and social norms that influence value. For instance in art markets the reputation of an artist and the perceived authenticity of an art work’s attribution are vital signals in establishing a work’s credibility and its market value, yet in many traditional Indigenous communities a communal system of values informs behaviour including artistic practice and creation which can result in complexity identifying the artist (or artists) associated with a particular work. In order to explore the role that authenticity and level of trust buyers of art perceive in the art market and consider how this impacts the market value for art, the research is designed in three phases. Phase one involves art sales modelling using hedonic and repeat sales techniques. Phase two involves consumer culture theory and anthropological techniques. Phase three involves an economic experiment to investigate what factors influence trust in the Indigenous art context and how trust affects consumers’ valuation of art works.

For further information go to the Scholarship webpage: http://www1.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=sox74s5dhaif1