The book’s cover image tells a powerful story. Martin Parr, the photographer, is one of my favorite artists. Over the years, he’s built an incredible body of work documenting the minutia of contemporary consumerism—from the quirky luxuries of an aspiring English middle class, to fashion trends and tourist destinations overseas. His characteristic use of bright colors, unexpected juxtapositions, up-close-and-personal details (think high heels, lipstick-smeared champagne glasses, cigarette butts and plastic surgery) and a deadpan blend of seriousness and irony is unmistakeable.A few years ago he did a series of photographs at art and other high-end trade fairs. I loved these piercing images and encouraged my publisher to see if we might be able to use one for the cover. Parr obliged and the photo we selected, taken at the 2007 DIFC Gulf Art Fair in Dubai, is an amazing snapshot of art and business being conducted in today’s global marketplace: the bejewelled woman in the foreground with her flashy purse and art fair tote bag talking on her cell phone, and the man in traditional Arabic garb in the rear perhaps brokering a deal with a Western-looking woman.Art of the Deal takes a serious look at these issues and Parr’s photograph offers a fun entry-point to them, delivering meaning and substance from the go. The holding power of Parr’s image revealed itself to me shortly after the book was published when, in March earlier this year, I traveled to Dubai to attend this art fair for the first time and found this earnest yet bizarre scene of East meeting West repeating itself ad infinitum.I hope, of course, that people actually delve within the book. And, for a general reader, the preface and introduction provide a wealth of accessible insight into how the art market works. From Damien Hirst’s famous sale at Sotheby’s in 2008, as the financial markets crumbled, to the rise of China and the Middle East as newly important centers of the trade, there’s plenty to be grasped.Bridging the language gap between the artistic and economic is absolutely huge.The art market has expanded wondrously in recent years and there’s more writing on, and interest in, the business of art than ever before. And yet the discourse on it hasn’t quite kept pace.The quality of economic research on the art market is improving but its full valence is still constrained by some of the qualifications mentioned above. Gossipy insider accounts prevail. And many on the critical Left continue to hold the market in contempt.While I can certainly appreciate these tendencies, we also need to move beyond them—to adequately address why investing in art may sound sexy and lucrative in the abstract but is incredibly difficult to pull off in practice, how today’s multidisciplinary artists fund their careers, and what are the many opportunities and challenges these pose to collectors of contemporary art.Black and white polarities, arguably captured most famously in sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s writings on High and Low culture in avant-garde Paris, are increasingly a thing of the past. Art of the Deal will have achieved its goal if it pushes the envelope on this front and enables audiences on all sides to have a better appreciation of their own positions and a clearer perspective on the overall art market debate.To this end, I also hope that my book acts as a toolbox for future scholars, critics, and thinkers. Art of the Deal brings a wide range of ideas to the table, from finance theory to intellectual property law and relational aesthetics—and there is a lot left to do, to position these concepts in within today’s trade.And , a lot has changed since the book’s concluding analysis of the bursting of the art market bubble in 2008-09: 2010 was a record period for the auction houses and a boom mentality is brewing again. These rapidly shifting tides are ripe for further commentary and I hope that some of the ideas that come together at the end of my book (about the role of art market cycles and developing trends in museums, galleries and online) provide a solid sounding board for new reflections to come.