At first glance, the global art trade—currently valued around $60 billion—is a miniscule piece of global economic production. But due to the unregulated nature of the art market, it serves a key function within the larger network of the accumulation and distribution of capital worldwide. This deregulated market intersects with the offshore domain in freeports, an archipelago of tax-free storage facilities that stretch from Singapore to Geneva to Delaware. The burgeoning of freeports globally suggests that speculation has become a more prominent pattern of art investment, but it also demonstrates that tax avoidance is a goal of such speculators and the result is that more art works are being taken out of circulation and deposited in vaults beyond the view of regulatory authorities. Despite its size, the art trade can demonstrate broader trends in international finance and, by examining offshore art storage that occurs in freeports, it will be possible to locate some of the hidden mechanisms that allow the global art market to flourish on the margins of the economy as well as to perceive a shift in which the economic value of art works predominates over their cultural value.

中文翻译：

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自由港与艺术的隐藏价值

乍一看，全球艺术品贸易（目前价值约600亿美元）是全球经济生产的很小一部分。但是由于艺术品市场的不受管制的性质，它在更大范围的全球资本积累和分配网络中起着关键作用。放松管制的市场与自由港的离岸区域相交，自由港是免税仓储设施的群岛，从新加坡到日内瓦再到特拉华州。全球自由港的蓬勃发展表明，投机已成为艺术品投资的一种更为突出的模式，但同时也表明，避税是此类投机者的目标，其结果是，越来越多的艺术品被从流通中撤出并存放在金库之外。监管机构的观点。尽管大小