Cultural commons and local art markets: Zero-miles contemporary art in Naples

•Three main characteristics of a Common: a) The existence of a common pooled resource; b) The existence of a socially cohesive community which shares the resource; c) The existence of a system of governance based on “social norms”which does not involve the existence of property rights legally enforceable.•A possible representation of the dynamics of Cultural Commons can be given by using a basic evolutionary approach applied to networks.•Evolutionary network theory predicts that Commons can be generated by a cohesive network with high social capital. Local art markets, for emergent artists, seem to display these characteristics.

In this paper we tried to offer a coherent definition of Cultural Commons combined with a plausible description on how they are formed, grow and eventually disappear. We concentrated on local artistic movements and examined whether and under which conditions they present the characteristic of Cultural Commons. The evolutionary process which generates Commons should be facilitated by the existence of local art markets. We test this hypothesis by examining the local art market in Naples in the years 2009-2013 and in particular the story of the exasperatism art movement.