auction market musings

 Chopperbie's

Now taking consignments.  
 

So I'm back at uni (last semester hooray) and one of the first week assignments was to respond to the article by Louise Bellamy, published in the SMH in May 

Normally despondent to week one activities, I surprised myself with my enthusiasm for the set topic. The question was to "Comment on one issue raised in the article", which as all about auction houses blah blah blah.

I actually found it raised several issues. As usual I couldn't decide what I liked best so I just said them all. As I'm working with, not for auction hoses I have a  degree of distance that allows me to look at them objectively. They are the cornerstone of the art market, yet tend to receive bad wrap in Australia where the focus (and glory) remains firmly in the primary market. 

Like anything, it comes down to a combination of education and marketing. Buyers need to educated themselves on the secondary market and what auctions houses do what. And auction houses need to market themselves in a more aggressive manor in order to reach a wider buying public, not just the regular clientele. 

Bellamy's article raised a few issues. Mainly that the secondary art market is run by middle-aged men with monosyllabic names. Asides from that, it stated the obvious that has been brewing for years within the top tier auction house. Here are my musings:

Sotheby’s brand is suffering and their clients are literally going underground. Six feet underground. They can’t find the new market to shift the Nolan’s and the McCubbin's because they are going out of flavor with active collectors who are looking for the next thing with a bit more cool factor. Plus the whole Smith/Gould case has left things slightly uneasy around the place. But they have the market share in jewellery and antiques so ease the burden in order to keep the art side ticking. The have also stopped their stand alone Aboriginal art sales. They either need to re-brand the outfit or align themselves more closely with the international franchise.

Bonhams. Probably the most exciting auction house at the top end. Mark Fraser has been spunking the place up since he came back from a stint at MONA. The Grundy sale was a money spinner, well executed and marketed within an inch of its life. It paid off with numerous sales records achieved, an international ‘tour’ and lots of media attention. Plus the fact the AGNSW purchased four works, which are now hanging in the foyer. All the major auction houses pitched for this sale, giving a good indication of pecking order at the moment. Look out for theirContemporary auctions: a Basel art fair in 50 lots.

Menzies Art Brands. They will keep things ticking over thanks to Menzies Other Brands.* But the catalogues are getting leaner. I predict more works will be funneled onto Lawson~Menzies, a much more active market that gets the collectors and punters alike. With a recent staff shift and a jam-packed August sale, expect to see good things come through here at bargain prices. Good place to sell, even better place to buy. As an aside, Lawson's in now in the care of Martin Farrah so expect to see a higher turnover in art and antiques.

deutscher + hackett . A class act. They have the Melbourne set to keep them ticking, plus are diversifying into gallery spaces and primary market. Buyers and sellers love them so they will always get good, reliable and interesting works.

I predict the next few years will see the action shift to the second tier auction houses, with Mossgreen, Leonard Joel and Lawson~Menzies taking up the majority market share. As Bellamy states, all the movement is in the $1,000-5,000 bracket. Other ones to watch are Theodore Bruce who are taking up where Bay East (formally part of Sotheby’s Australian holdings) left off after closing suddenly last year.

What is clear is the need for auction houses to start courting younger collectors. Galleries are doing it. Action houses need to make themselves more open, accessible and informative. Huge potential lies in this zone of GenX/GenY. 

Auctions need to get sexier and louder. And that doesn't mean starting a creepy facebook page. And if obtainable is the new aspirational, then it really is the era of the auction.   

*namely cleaning services, a wonderful company that ensure Menzies Art Brands has the cleanest showrooms in the business.

Artists | Art works | Art’s work | Arts workers

they have the right idea

Artists

Art works

Art’s work

Arts workers

These are the main operators of a sprawling, complex and fragile web that is know as the visual arts. And while it may appear to the onlooker that as an industry we are united by the gossamer of passion and creative spirit, the reality is that we are all eking out a strained and increasing leaner livelihood trying to do the things that justify our existence (read funding).

Some of you may of read Saturday’s SMH article on the ‘Tit-Farm’, featuring a bohemian rundown house filled with artistic demi-goddesses in sheer vintage skirts, nursing kittens and babes under a warm, dream catcher diffused light (in art, even a bad news story is aesthetically pleasing…). Tit-Farm was used to highlight the how difficult it has become to be an artist in Sydney with the spiraling costs of living matched with uncertain and irregular income streams.

A proposed solution is to provide sibsidised housing and work spaces for artists by classifying them as ‘key workers’ who are entitled to affordable, inner-city rents and other benefits or concessions would make their existence much more secure. The plan proposed by Saint Clover (aka Lord Mayor) aims to have some positive affect on the thousands of artists that are struggling to survive and maintain artistic output in this brutally expensive city. And it’s not just the cliché of the emerging artist starving in the garret, I know prize winning, gallery represented artists that are only just hanging on.

And I also know a huge amount of highly educated, over qualified and extremely experienced arts workers have to live and work in the city, just scraping by and making very consequential sacrifices in order to remain working in this field. There aren’t articles written about them or policies dedicated to assisting their profession. There is no gallery assistant grant or subsidized housing for arts administrators. And the other alarming, but not surprising fact is that they are mostly women, quietly persevering and taking on more and more work without any extra remuneration or time in lieu to compensate.

What the wider community must also realize is that the arts, outside of publicly funded institutions, is largely unregulated and unchecked. If it were held to other industry standards such as paid overtime, defined roles and monitored work loads the fact is that this country would not have a visual arts sector. The visual arts could not afford to exist. Arts workers are just as ‘key’ as the artists they work tirelessly to support and promote.

This is not an argument of us-and-them, artists and arts workers are utterly codependent. What is required is a broadening of the assistance and support networks that are in place for artists in order for arts workers to gain some benefits as well. We’re all part of the same equation working for the same outcomes, therefore if is crucial that artists and art workers are given the same support and opportunities to thrive.

How to create a hipster art collection

 

I came across this piece of satirical gold the other day and while it could be retail’s version of Portlandia, it got me thinking about the ideas behind it. I have always maintained that art needs to look at the retail sector in much more detail and realize that what is happening in retail now will be happening in art galleries in three to five years time. For example, we all know that physical shops are a species in decline and retail is going through a Darwinian style evolution which will result in online ‘experiences’ that will mimic the bricks and mortar encounter.

We also know that galleries are closing in waves due to a combination of consecutive years of economic downturn, reduced investment in art and a more restrained collecting mentality. Whereas retail has shifted and adapted to the market, commercial art still seems to be stuck in a Queen Street fantasy, thinking that the market will hop in their German made cars and come to them. While this is still mostly true, what commercial art isn’t addressing and Freedom Furniture is, is that in five to ten years the collector will be a different species that has been raised on a diet of accessibility, availability and visibility.

So scorn as much as you like (or laugh, because it is brilliant), but Freedom Furniture knows that their future market will be the ‘hipsters’ and they must speak their language, understand their psychology and most importantly come to them. Commercial galleries need to study their future buyers, start to foster a collecting culture amongst them and take the gallery experience to them; be it physical, online, pop-up, pop-down or pop-corn, whatever it takes to engage with the next generation of collectors.

The Value of Art By Michael Findlay

 

The Value of Art 

By Michael Findlay , Prestel, 2012

Art-lit appears to be an increasingly popular genre, from Sarah Thornton’s libel- causing Seven Days in the Art World to tales of ambitious gallerists in Steve Martin’s An Object of Beauty and Tom Wolf’s latest novel Back to Blood, set in the feeding frenzy that is the Miami Art Fair. And not to mention the plethora of ‘how to buy and sell art’ titles that date faster than a Women’s Weekly cookbook.

Sitting somewhere in between all these is Michael Findlay’s The Value of Art. It’s part market report, part memoir peppered with thoughts ranging from lack of sincerity of current collectors to the rapid rise and future predictions for the Asian art market.

As far as dealer pedigree goes, Findlay is at the top of the ladder. He is a director at Acquavella Galleries, New York and was previously Head of Impressionist and Modern Paintings then International Director of Fine Art at Christies, New York. While he can speak with great authority, it does seems odd considering where Findlay is situated to be criticising the behaviour and mentality of a market that he and his associates have undoubtedly profited from.  

Findlay divides the book into four sections, symbolically naming the first three for Zeus's daughters, the Three Graces, in order to analyse complexities of modern art.

Thalia is the Goddess of Fruitfulness thus representing the commercial marketplace and financial lures of art, candidly explaining exactly how money makes the art world go round, up and of late, down.

Part two is Euphrosyne, the Goddess of Joy, metaphor for the social aspect of art. This is both the positive, communal act that art stimulates as well as the social power that is derived from being part of the “Big Numbers” set.

The third section is Aglaea, for the Goddess of Beauty, which for Findlay is where the real, intrinsic value of art lies. The final section is ‘Marley's Ghost: Past, Present, Future’ where he bemoans the cult of the collector that now micro-manages the art world; the dangers of instant gratification in art and the superficial ‘glancing’ culture in which we live.

Given the top shelf art that Findlay has handled through his career, readers must steel themselves as even most quotidian examples he gives involve names that read like a room sheet at The Met.

Consequently he is much more compelling when he loses the ‘art speak’ and talks frankly about the industry he knows so well such as gallery and auction house PR being disguised as ‘news’ and industry gush replacing fair and learned criticism.

Findlay reinforces the mantra of all successful collectors: buy what you like not what you think the market will like and that the best investment you can make is in developing your eye and understanding. He advises collectors to look at all types of art and to get to know the dealers and artists but remain aware of the dynamic of these relationships.

Another tip is to be adventitious, dedicate a percentage of your buying budget for works by emerging artists because every established artist was once an ‘unknown’. And most importantly, if you love the art you live with its value will only ever increase.