Business&Tradition

In crescendo International Art Market

Briefly, let’s define the Art Market as a multidisciplinary economic concept,

its objective is to monetize, regularize and rank the art commercial value in order to
let buyers and sellers to trade in commodities, services, and works of art.

Starting with a little bit of history, the transactions between artists and clients
have evolved throughout time and context, in the beginning, painters and sculptors
used to work for hire and became famous by recommendation, the commercial
goal was to work for a prominent or high society family and climb up into a higher
status, the best artists were recruited by the royal courts and their works served as
ornaments for palaces, castles, churches and the mansions of government
personalities or powerful noble lineages, most of their works were personal or
religious portraits, busts or even life-sized statues.

The first art galleries appeared around mid-15 th century in the form of any
long covered passage and in its walls, art sellers displayed the works of different
kind of artists. As the economic exploitation of art was diminishing artists’ dignity in
many European societies, later with the establishment of art academies, these
spaces promoted the status of the artist from simple artisans to the one of the
classical arts like poetry and music to fulfill intellectual purposes.

Nowadays there are many ways to commercialize art and the efforts of
artists, gallerists, collectors and auction houses have spread the marketplace
worldwide and into all kinds of taste and different kinds of clients, from the
traditional private collections and museums, to institutions, governments,
architecture and design studios and many others. International exhibitions in the
largest cities are important part of the diffusion and promotion of pieces from
antiques to modern works of insurgent artists and this kind of support and
sponsorship is the way dealers have to feed the market with fresh concepts and
innovative ideas which are always welcome in a marketplace that is constantly
looking for genuineness and originality.

Down to numbers, international art market is an activity that dealt with sales
of art and antiques of approximately $50.1 billion in 2020 despite that the COVID-
19 outbreak had a significant negative effect to the regular trading. This is a
mixture between tradition; with auctions that reach amounts of $17.6 billion publicly
and $3.2 billion privately, and galleries that sell an estimated $29.3 billion, these
places are where many works of art can get the highest possible value; and also
technology, with online sales that manage great amounts of volume and money,
having today the 25% of the total sales and reached a record high of $12.4 billion
according to The Art Market 2021 an annual report authored by Dr. Clare
McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics.

Even though the pandemic has led us to the toughest year in many aspects,
Art Market keeps steadily marching forward and giving chances to all kind of
artists, dealers and investors to have a broad business that has the quality of being
constantly in crescendo and reaching more people further and further every day,
evidencing that it’s an economic space that despite of being labeled as elitist, it has
shown that has room for everyone that seeks for the excellence.

If you want to know more about the actual Art Market you can go and
download for free The Art Market 2021 report here:
(https://www.artbasel.com/about/initiatives/theartmarket2021pdf)
Restless, Timeless, Strongest…
Galleries and their everlasting work

Throughout time, the way artists advertise their work have changed, let's
say that there have been many adaptations and evolutionary facets that have been
leading the art market into a steady position of benefit, reputation and luxury.
Despite of this, the commercial concept of the art gallery hasn't come too far
different from how it was conceived... Exhibition and sales.

Art galleries are the oldest way to sell all kinds of works, started in the mid-
15 century as long narrow halls where art works were displayed. In our previous
blog we discuss a little more about how galleries have come along their way to
represent what they are nowadays.

Not in vain it is the oldest and most unaltered way to sell art, it's because of
its effectiveness indeed. One of the most important aspects is
geography/demography, a populated location may have a great impact in the
artist's name but of course there are some strict requirements in quality, materials,
formats, and many others for the best locations such as New York, Paris and
London; this doesn't mean that glory is out of reach, it is a long way from local to
international, a stepladder that every renowned artist has achieved to climb up.

Galleries are the primary connection between artists and collectors, these
serve as a tier 2 or retail vendor, however gallerists don't just sell art acting as
mere brokers for sales, many of them are also involved in the discovery and
promotion of new artists in exchange of being the agent exclusively representing
the artists with their new pieces of work. This leads us to the way galleries and
artists make the sales and split the profit, many galleries, after a selection process,
get an agreement of exhibition and consignment, this means that the artwork will
remain displayed in the gallery until it is sold and the price has a commission for
the establishment or after a specific time, returned to the artist, some other
gallerists directly invest in art and add assets to their private collection in order to
display and sell them later in their own space, and other way, is the vanity galleries
that charge the artist a fee to display their artworks in their locations. Some art
institutions also offer to their students the opportunity to show their works in
displaying public spaces with split proceeds of the sales. These physical locations
have also adapted to the globalization and technological world and went virtual; art
websites also represent a great part of the market total incomes, mostly after the
pandemic outbreak.
 Talking about money physical and online galleries represent the 45% of the
total sales in the art market in 2020, collecting after a decline, an estimated of
$29.3 billion in locations and online sales reached a record high of $12.4 billion,
this has affected the market behavior, according to Art Market 2021: “Dealers’ top
priorities shifted markedly over 2020 to focus on existing clients, online sales, and
finding ways to cut costs. Client relationships, online sales, and art fairs were their
top priorities looking ahead to 2021…The share accounted for by online sales also
expanded from 9% of total sales by value in 2019 to 25% in 2020, the first time the
share of e-commerce in the art market has exceeded that of general retail.”

This situation is consistently seen throughout the whole market and it is

consequent with the current crisis for the COVID-19, showing the predictable
movement to online spaces in order to reduce costs of rent, utilities, advertisement
and other physical assets needed in order to display and promote artworks in
actual locations.

Despite of how unsolved this view might seem, galleries are steadily
resisting, this has been, is and will be the most resilient sector of the art market, it
is always a good choice in order to show new talent to the world and to learn about
trends, people’s cravings, styles, and many other aspects that can lead you to
fame and perfection. Galleries are the lighthouse that always brings back the
market to safe shore from the impetuous waves of human desire.