free economic zones

  The Role of Freeports in the Global Art Market Photo by Panoramic images, via Getty Images. In “Art and the Global Economy,” University of San Francisco professor John Zarobell examines “how the art world has blossomed into a global economy in the past generation, and what that means to artists, dealers, curators, cultural administrators, educators, and the public.” Zarobell, an artist and former curator, calls for a deeper questioning into the tendency to measure and justify culture as an economic force, looks at how museums, biennials and fairs are evolving, and asks what the current vogue for “cognitive capitalism” means for the arts and artists themselves. Zarobell also explores less-public aspects of the global art market, what he calls “the art market in the margins.” In the following excerpt, he takes us on a tour of the freeport, and relates it to other frontier elements of the global economy. Art is one of the most unregulated industries on the planet. Auction houses provide

  Home Stories Geneva Free Port: The World’s Most Secretive Art Warehouse Geneva Free Port: The World’s  Most Secretive Art Warehouse With millions of artworks stored in its walls, Switzerland’s Geneva  Free Port is considered as the world's largest art warehouse, and  the most secretive. May 1, 2021  •  By  Marie-Madeleine Renauld , MA & BA Art History and Archaeology Looted Etruscan sarcophagus hidden for decades behind these thick walls; with Seated  Man with a Cane painting by Amedeo Modigliani stolen by Nazis.   Geneva Free Port is one of the oldest free ports still running today,  also one of the largest warehouses. A free port is a kind of Free Economic Zone (FEZ), an area of trade with very little or no taxes at all. There are hundreds of them in the world.  A free port is not a modern creation; instead, its concept dates back to antiquity. At the time, cities, states, and nations authorized the passage of merchandise through their harbors duty-free or with attractive c