On its website the San Francisco Arts Quarterly has a long and important piece by Alain Servais entitled “Art in the Shadow of Art Market Industrialization.” In the piece, Servais (a bond trader and designer) explains how the growing wealth of the super-rich has transformed the art market over the last fifteen years, and he offers concrete suggestions for how galleries and artists can navigate this newly “industrialized” art world.
The art market was, until recently, a small industry with comparatively little money involved, living under the radar of “financialization.” Things have changed dramatically in a short amount of time. To illustrate this, we only need to look at the evolution of the auction of artworks in the European Union, the United States…As recently as 2000 the total was $41 million—an amount you would find in a single evening’s sale at Phillips Auction House today. This figure is now in the region of $850 million, or a factor of almost $21 million in 14 years. There is no reason to doubt that the increase in turnover is of the same proportion in galleries…
We would not care so much if this only concerned those few hundreds of individuals at the top of the market, but this drive for money rather than art—and I am not saying one has to exist without the other—is polluting, if not endangering, the whole ecosystem that supports the creation and distribution of art. As the time for artists to make their place in the sun shortens due to the demands of the market, they are pushed to emphasize what sells, which is often not the most demanding or most interesting art…
Starting with the belief that the art market is now an “industry,” the path to its future is lain through reinforcing its foundation, structure, and infrastructure. The first and essential step at this point is to define at an industry level what best practices are as in any sustainable business. These best practices would be cast into model contracts, which would replace the dangerous handshake way of currently doing business.
Read the full article here.