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It’s simple and easy – not all artists are in it for the same reasons, and it may not be the ambition of an artist from an underdeveloped country to sell his/her stuff to citizens of advanced countries.

But, I suppose, art is subjective, and the result is never the same (thankfully.)

“Yet paradoxically the art for which people are willing to pay the most money seems to come from advanced economies such as Germany, England, Japan, and the U.S.”

Sure. That’s where the the dealers with the highest mark-up live.

The best artist comes with a history of adversity. Johnny the investment banker doesn’t have much to provide inspiration, except perhaps pot, beer and some poor young girl’s pants.

I don’t think more than three people who have posted here are artists or understand enough of the “process” of making art to discuss it from an artist’s viewpoint. Alex’s comment “Let’s call a spade a spade…” pretty much sums it up, so far as the West is concerned.

You need time to make art, yes. It need not be in large, uninterrupted chunks, though some artists do need that. And great art need not be produced in your culture to be appreciated at a deep level. But then, “great art” is a Western (commidifying!)concept, so beware of that trap. LuhrenLoup makes some excellent points above about this.

I do disagree that the pop culture disqualifies as “great” art or art at all: Pagannini and Listz were both victims of the same frenzies of fame that the Beatles enjoyed…Time Wounds All Heels, or so it would seem.

Much of what passes for art is bullshit.  Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?  See, for example:

"Is the artistic value of Mondrian’s art testable"

1) Art is a conversation. it speaks most profoundly to those within the artist’s community. But to be great art, it must have universal impact and affect.

2) Art has nothing to do with economics and a piece of art cannot be judged by the dollar value placed on it. As a matter of fact, an artist’s work tends to deteriorate the more he is lionized and given outrageous sums of money, e. g., Schnabel, Hirst.

3) The Beatles were good musicians, but not artists. Tipper Gore and Lynn Cheney are castigating pop culture, not art.

4) There is a strange practice in the western world of using art as a form of investment banking which is similar to shitting on it.

5) Art speaks to the soul of humanity, whether it comes from the Australian aboriginals running around half naked or western people in jeans and sweatshirts.

6) Hierarchy of needs plays no role whatsoever. Were the cavemen of Lascaux getting their basic needs fulfilled? What about Van Gogh, Gauguin?

Art is the spirit of those who don’t fit into the system and put their life into something symbolic. Because this transformation process is so incredible inefficient (e.g. what is a painted piece of paper compared to the love it consumed) the art becomes valuable, because of its promise it just can’t fulfill (it’s art, not the “real” thing!). It creates a longing by showing a shadow of the real thing.

The more sophisticated the society the higher the requirements on the person are as well as the scope of possibility. This also scales with the individual level of the person in society. But because of this, the higher the loss is, when the person doesn’t fit into the mechanism. Such a big loss on the personal/family side creates by its outflow into the object something of far less value. But if the loss is big enough, the price of the object scales linear to a level high enough, making it expensive.

In less developed societies the loss in case of failure per individual is not so high, making the art not as expensive.