The contemporary artist refutes the notion that auction houses need government oversight.

Chuck Close: The one area of the art world, which is regulated is the auction market. And it’s the most questionable aspect of the art world as far as I’m concerned.

But what would you do, license art dealers? Do you have to have a license like you’re going to sell hot dogs in Central Park? You don’t want the kind of license you have to give them. But what kind of license are you going to give an art critic?

Or are we going to have officially sanctioned art dealers? There was that in Soviet Russia and Communist China; where you have the artists and the people who are dealing with that work officially government sanctioned, and they’re making work of a propagandistic nature that supports the values and concerns of the nation. Clearly I don’t think we want that.

Recorded on: February 5, 2009