The art world is no fun at all!! We all have passions, hobbies, things we do that enrich our lives. These pastimes are part reward that we give ourselves, part things that expand our ever hungry desire for new experiences, part socially driven events and part whatever else motivates us to get off of our ass and do something.
When I was younger and in the gallery scene in SOHO of the 1980’s it was a fun vibe. Galleries all had openings on the same night. There was cheap wine, sometimes cheese and crackers, and most importantly lots of people. Those people did not come to a single dedicated exhibition, but would wander around the neighborhood and see many shows, much new art and run into people they saw at any of the other galleries. Out of this discussions would develop. From those discussion grew an engagement with the work, or not. Point is that the situation allowed for it.
All the galleries were sort of in the same boat. All of them were trying to get by. If you look at the Art Forum ads from that time you will see that all the artists showed with all the galleries, and some galleries got lucky. It was the wild west of you will. People were in it for the fun, for the excitement. They could buy 1-2 artworks per month on their salary and really had something to enjoy and to show their friends. Most of those artworks ended up not really rising in value on the market, but that was not so important because the collectors were engaged in a happening.
the collectors were engaged in a happening
In ~1991 that all changed, but it is safe to assume it changed earlier when some players in the market made their experience no longer about the artwork or the support of the artists, but about making money off of selling the work they bought. The simple idea is the same as with compound interest. Since it seemed to work everyone ran with it, until the ground they were running on broke away… crash.
I am writing this because the young generation of collectors that are in the market now did not experience that. Hell, I barely experienced it, and I am not a young man. The young generation, the digital natives, did not experience the culture that was there before. The language of the art world is now so filled with things related to money that it is hard to get away from it. And as our understanding of value is very closely chained to it’s price we cannot get away from it either.
But there is a point where the development becomes self consuming, and it seems we have reached that point. The cost for a gallery (my gallery) to do a fair is always a five digit number. I am a small gallery. The larger galleries have 6-7 digit costs for a single fair. If we do some simple math it becomes clear that this can only be paid for if the artworks are expensive enough to make the income based on the galleries share of the artwork enough to justify the experience.
As a simple example: I spend ~€45,000 to do Paris Photo. This is a very important fair for my gallery, so I don’t really have a choice. From the artwork I sell there I have between a 15-50% share of the raw sales that my gallery gets to keep after paying the artists or owners. For the sake of this example if I take an average and say that my share is ~32.5% then I need to sell €138,462 in Art to make the fair break even. I have wall space for ~30 works of art if I work with smaller prints, etc. So by that measure my average price needs to be €4,615.
my average price needs to be €4,615
The fair has a visitor count that is 5 digits. The real selling time is in the morning during the VIP time when the collectors and museums have more space to actually look at the artworks. That time window is 2 hours per day. Assuming I have to make 80% of my sales in that time I need to sell 24 artworks in 8 hours standing in a room with ~200 other galleries who all need to do the same.
The result of this is that most of the galleries are now showing work that they assume has the best chance to sell. That chance has a lot to do with how often an artist or artwork has been seen. There are other factor of course. The issue of a galleries reputation and the trust built between a gallery and a collector are major factors. But those factors only help the galleries that are established. Everyone else will need to play it safe in the hopes (delusion) that their chances of selling something will be better if it appeals more to the masses. And we can then sit by and watch the level of quality and newness drop to the lowest common denominator. That is just plain shitty.
Making the fairs cheaper won’t work because they need to make money. Making the art more expensive is not working because it becomes prohibitive to buy based on a regular person’s budget. If collectors are not buying regularly then they are not really engaged. It looks like this is broken from all sides, and that a simple magic fix does not exist.
Why can’t we go back to the engagement, the social experience of SOHO in the 1980’s?
Because we are not in SOHO in the 1980’s.
right… We are in the art market of 2018 and it’s a bit broken. It’s time to think hard about how we can bring the fun back. Ideas?
