Thanos Efthymiou

Thanos Efthymiou will be defending his PhD dissertation in 2025. His research focuses on artistic and economic success in the art market by taking a quantitative meta-historical approach. This involves analyzing a novel, multimodal dataset consisting of more than 2 million images from museum-centric collections. Using categorization as the theoretical lens, combined with advanced machine learning techniques, his research is one of the first to study the effects of explicit and implicit art categories on dynamic mechanisms governing art appreciation, canonization, and sales at art auctions. Digitally analyzing transformations in art categories, which have unfolded over time and given provenance to Western cultural heritage, enables us to systematically advance a fine-grained understanding of the art canon and the (current) economic drivers of the art market.