The sheer volume of data generated on the Internet has reached unprecedented numerical heights and has enabled new data-driven methodologies to study art and its markets. Yet, this type of data-driven research has also generated several unexpected methodological constraints for art markets researchers, particularly due to informational asymmetry. This observation is related to how various players on the Internet make data available, as well as summarize, transmit, gather, and access those data globally. It is not our ambition to present another historiography of art markets research, past and present. Rather, and in keeping with the theme of this special issue, we would like to focus on a few key constraints related to data-driven, contemporary art markets research, the Internet, and the structural recurrence of imperfect data. This contribution focuses on four areas of Internet research and its methods that are particularly problematic for researchers today, namely (1) auctions and online auctions; (2) dealers and galleries; (3) art indices; and (4) art fairs.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.