Artworldsalon started almost exactly a year ago. More than a hundred posts and myriad accompanying comments later, we’re ready to move to the next phase.

When we founded artworldsalon, our goal was not just to create an outlet for our own writing and thinking. It was to bring to life a broader venue for informed debate on artworld matters.

As regular readers will have noticed, we have enlisted more commenters to the site. By this fall, you will see some fifty invited panelists—all of them professionally active in the artworld, whether as artists, collectors, dealers, curators or writers—popping up in artwordsalon on a regular basis. They will report on developments and offer perspectives from around the globe, starting new discussion threads and adding more depth and range to the salon.

As we broaden our circle, the guiding spirit and principles of artworldsalon will be unchanged. We will strike a balance between news and opinion, rigor and humor, expert insight and open conversation. We will value depth over speed and keep the pace of posting moderate to allow for ample discussion on each topic.

Join us,

The Founders

One of the most disquieting anecdotes I remember hearing about Sept. 11 — and I sincerely hope it was a myth, born in a moment of despair and chaos — concerned some phone calls that the Manhattan Hermes store allegedly received that very morning from fashionable hopefuls wondering if they might have advanced a few tiers on the waiting list for a certain coveted handbag. The accessory in question was the iconic Kelly bag, and it just made history again — exactly one day after the sixth anniversary of the tragedy.

Last week, Christie’s London auctioned off the most expensive handbag ever sold, for 31,200 pounds sterling, or almost $65,000, roughly three times its original estimate. The bag has been described, intriguingly, as “Louise McBain’s handbag,” and in more technical parlance, as a “Rouge ‘H’ Crocodile Kelly Bag with Gilt Hardware.” Unlike Mr. Hirst’s diamond skull, this is a documented sale (98% of the lots found buyers at the sale, entitled From City Chic to Alpine Retreat, Holland Park and St.Moritz), and it will certainly be interpreted as a sign — but a sign of what?

August jitters yield to back-to-school confidence—at least for now. After a rash of premature obituaries, the art market is humming briskly again and news of epic sales fills the air. Even Damien Hirst’s diamond skull has found buyers (including, so it is rumored, the artist). Its fate as the shimmering emblem of early 21st-century excess is now sealed.The question now is whether the art market is headed even deeper into record-breaking territory as the last refuge of investors and speculators, á la 1989, or whether it is already on a sliding path toward a landing—soft, hard, or otherwise? It is a delicious moment, pregnant with wildly opposing possibilities.

Reading the posts of the last few weeks, one longs for clearer metrics. Are there more reliable early indicators of yet another exuberant season of sales? Or conversely, are some “canary-in-the-mineshaft” indices registering advance tremors of a downturn?

Our debate on guarantees offered few clues. Reluctance to offer guarantees would parallel the lending caution that engulfed the financial markets in late summer, but our panel found no proof of such reluctance (auction guarantees this season are, in fact, expected to run into the billions). Daily reports of new gallery openings and museum ventures similarly belie prognostications of impending doom.

The problem is that some indicators of change can be interpreted as harbingers of squarely opposing trends. What exact conclusion would be drawn from evidence that dealers are getting more calls about placing works quietly, or taking pictures back on consignment? If a spate of exceptionally high-quality pictures were to come to market, would that be seen as a sign that sellers are trying to slip through a closing window of opportunity? Or would it be seen as evidence of the health of a market that is coaxing even the most beloved masterpieces off people’s walls? What is the exact interpretation of trimmed museum acquisition budgets? What can we read into shorter or longer waiting lists? Are dipping or spiking art school applications advance indicators of growth or decline?

As we begin a season of many likely surprises, can this panel suggest clear signs of what’s ahead?