My wife is a fine artist (oil painting). She tells me that a huge thing in the art market right now is galleries specializing in Russian art, usually selling canvases in the $20-50K price range. Not because there's an important movement coming out of Russia, but because the galleries are paying artists 10% of the sales price! Tina was talking to an acquaintence who used to work in such a gallery who said “Well, $2000 is a lot of money in Russia.”

Insanity now reigns over the entire spectrum of the art market, from the highest end to the “hand highlighted” canvasses of Kincade to... well, the bottom end of the art market is actually the most genuine, since it's the place where people honestly strive to express themselves and people buy individual pieces because they want to live with them.