駐紐約藝術家Jeremy Couillard原本是一名高中西班牙文教師，但在課堂之外，他投入大量時間創作複雜精細的漫畫和墨水畫。後來，他進入哥倫比亞大學攻讀藝術碩士，專心學習繪畫。但他很快感到厭倦：「我發現自己花在螢幕前的時間比在現實中的時間還多，因此科技話題越來越吸引我。甚至在畫畫時，我也大多是盯著電腦螢幕。」

因此，Couillard自學了程式設計，並開始嘗試動畫和3D遊戲創作工具虛幻引擎（Unreal Engine）。如今，他以創作敘事荒誕且帶有超現實主義風格的遊戲而聞名，比如《Escape from Lavender Island》（2023）。這款遊戲也在他目前於麻省理工學院李斯特視覺藝術中心（MIT List Visual Arts Center）舉辦的個展中佔據核心位置。觀眾可以坐在豆袋沙發上，化身遊戲主角Zede Aksis。這個綠色的雙足生物在監獄牢房中醒來，發現自己的反烏托邦城市夢境變成了現實。玩家的任務是逃離這個霓虹閃爍的恐怖都市。在逃亡中，他們追隨愛慕的物件，為舞蹈駐足，甚至可以戴上向路人噴射藥物的面具。Couillard談到這款帶有達達主義色彩的遊戲時說：「它關乎在城市中作為人類的生存體驗。遊戲很荒謬，但也的確非常悲涼。我想通過這款遊戲捕捉生存在當今社會的狀態。」

此次展覽還展示了一部隱隱透著詭秘氣息的視頻裝置，鏡頭掃過「Lavender Island」（薰衣草島）上奇異社區，伴隨著城市居民的旁白。不遠處，數碼繪製的木質花朵沿著地面綻放，牆上是幾幅色彩斑斕的畫作，猶如從遊戲中直接擷取的畫面。牆上還掛著一件滑稽的超大號螢光黃衛衣，上面印著「Depression」（抑鬱）。

展覽詼諧地批判了科技在社會中造成的疏離與隔閡。Couillard表示：「這種現象令人沮喪，但也讓人啼笑皆非，因為我們正在構建一個幾乎無人嚮往的科技世界，卻仍然義無反顧地向前推進。這個遊戲叫做《Escape from Lavender Island》（逃離薰衣草島），但在某種意義上，我們無法逃離現代生活。無論是福是禍，我們註定相伴。但我相信這終究是件好事，只要我們學會和彼此相處。」

Looking ahead to the effects of the Trump presidency, Newton believes speculative energy could reenter the market as deregulation augments the value of collectors’ other assets, including stocks, private equities, and real estate. In that case, ‘those buyers are going to feel wealthier and more confident in making art purchases,’ he says. ‘I think there’s a chance that we’ll see that type of environment going ahead in the next year or two.’ Hoffman says she is looking forward to the next 6 months and ‘hopefully having a little bit more clarity.’

When it comes to American institutions, ‘It is not a secret to say that art museums are facing shrinking sources of external funding; we have seen a retraction in giving from governments, foundations, corporations, and individuals – for general operating support, exhibition sponsorship, and purchases of art,’ says Asma Naeem, the director of the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA). Across the country, museums have come up with innovative ways to fill this gap in funding, from the BMA’s sale of deaccessioned works to the pooling of resources, as in the case of the Hammer Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles forming a joint collection of contemporary local artists. In an unusual move, the Toledo Museum of Art is acquiring works by providing auction houses with guarantees.

Although US museums possess a vast range in areas of focus, a common institutional priority for the past decade has been diversifying collections, in both a globalized sense and in ways that better represent their local communities. For the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), this includes a particular focus on underrepresented artists of Latin and African diasporas throughout the Americas, says PAMM director Franklin Sirmans. ‘I don’t think anybody should ever be able to present Cuban art better than us,’ he says.

At the BMA, Naeem cites progress in the addition of works by women and artists of color, as well as the recent acquisition of the collection’s first piece of performance art, Jefferson Pinder’s Ben-Hur (2012). The purchase, she says, is ‘part of a strategy to prioritize performance and collective artistic practices, to expand our time-based media holdings, and to center the work of artists with deep ties in our region.’

For individual collectors, however, priorities differ. In contrast to 2023, when both gender and racial disparities were listed among the top ten concerns within the art market, neither reappeared the following year. Instead, collectors surveyed by Art Basel and UBS in 2024 expressed sentiments of ‘an overfocus on gender and racial diversity in the market discussions in recent years that had taken away from the focus on merit, innovativeness, and other issues.’

Hoffman attributes these sentiments in part to an ongoing shift from representation toward abstraction, where ‘ideas of identity become more opaque.’ Newton also surmises that ‘a lot of galleries worked on their artist representation by quickly adding artists to their roster, perhaps without taking the time to research and strategise the types of artists that fit best into their program or the right infrastructure to support those artists.’ However, he adds optimistically: ‘We’ve witnessed a permanent shift where a lot of people who may have not felt empowered to participate as artists, as curators, as gallery owners now have the confidence to do that. I don’t think we will ever go back to a world where it’s okay to tell the story of art without a diversity of voices.’

Presented with these statistics, Naeem remains undaunted: ‘Commercial market trends certainly have an impact on the recognition, availability, and value of artists’ work, as well as an influence on collectors, but the BMA’s collecting strategy is independent and guided by the vision of a more trans-local and global dialogue about art as well as the goals of each curatorial department.’

Sirmans agrees. ‘Chances are, if you want to be a collecting member of this museum, it probably means that interests align with the way that we go about collecting,’ he says. ‘We’re collecting for a future that we don’t quite know, but it will be more a representation for us than of a market trend.’