Bandwagons or breeding grounds for innovation: what economic elites’ private museums contribute to the arts

In recent decades, hundreds of private art collectors have opened museum spaces, which they largely finance and control themselves. While such initiatives have been criticized as conspicuous consumption or vanity projects, one public benefit claimed is the display of new artistic perspectives: Due to their strong personal vision and independence, private museums have been argued (including by private museum founders themselves) to showcase underexposed artists and provide artistic innovation. We test this proposition with large-scale exhibition and auction data. We find that contrary to claims of artistic novelty, private museums disproportionately exhibit established artists, as their exhibition choices tend to favor artists who have already had longer careers, more prior exhibitions and higher auction turnover. Thus, the potential of private museums to serve as incubators of novel perspectives is limited.