u003cpu003eu003ciu003eWhy would a smart New York investment banker pay $12 million for the decaying, stuffed carcass of a shark? By what alchemy does Jackson Pollock's drip painting No. 5, 1948 sell for $140 million? u003c/iu003eu003cbru003eu003cbru003eu003cbu003eIntriguing and entertaining, u003ciu003eThe $12 Million Stuffed Sharku003c/iu003e is a u003ciu003eFreakonomicsu003c/iu003e approach to the economics and psychology of the contemporary art world. u003c/bu003eWhy were record prices achieved at auction for works by 131 contemporary artists in 2006 alone, with astonishing new heights reached in 2007? Don Thompson explores the money, lust, and self-aggrandizement of the art world in an attempt to determine what makes a particular work valuable while others are ignored.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eThis book is the first to look at the economics and the marketing strategies that enable the modern art market to generate such astronomical prices. Drawing on interviews with past and present executives of auction houses and art dealerships, artists, and the buyers who move the market, Thompson launches the reader on a journey of discovery through the peculiar world of modern art. Surprising, passionate, gossipy, revelatory, u003ciu003eThe $12 Million Stuffed Sharku003c/iu003e reveals a great deal that even experienced auction purchasers do not know.u003c/pu003e