Art & Market

Recently, I got drunk on an after party and talking with a Well Known Artist focused with a horrible insistence on market mechanisms which can be used to become such a known artist. I can only hope he didn't get offended. But what is striking me in that is the question why I did it. Why after a certain amount of wine I got back to the art market. Not to the idea of art, a process of creation, or reception, any of those important things I could ask him but to the market. Does it mean that I still can't place an issue of art being on the market on my matrix? I still didn't position it in relation to the other aspects of art - its value moves up and down. How important it is? How important is to be known? Important for all participants of an art world, and important for an artist. Not in simply term of material value, but in term of intellectual and cultural importance. How the position on a market influences an intellectual and cultural value of a vary piece of art? How the position held by an artist changes a meaning and value of his work?
Heh, it seems to me that finally by accident I found a thesis of my Diploma Essay :)