HBO’s ‘Price of Everything’ Doesn’t Pull Any Punches

Resplendent in a maroon headscarf and a lime-green-patterned dress, the Nigerian-born contemporary artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby sighs, looking deflated. Her Drown, a portrait of the artist in bed with her husband, just hammered at Sotheby’s for $900,000. But she won’t see any of that money. The seller is a speculator who bought Drown several years ago and has just flipped it at an immense profit.

It’s one of the emblematic moments in The Price of Everything, Nathaniel Kahn’s documentary about the influence of money on the contemporary art world, in limited release on Oct. 19 and on HBO Nov. 12. Kahn has access to many prominent artists, collectors, and dealers, and the picture he paints is frequently scathing. Wealthy investors treat art as an asset class, much like stocks and bonds. Works that might once have ended up in museums are now more likely to decorate the apartments of the superrich in London, New York, and Singapore—that is, until the owners decide to put their acquisitions back on the block for a quick six-figure gain.