How much is crypto currency to blame? Art has traditionally been a means to launder cash and evade taxes. The scarcity is what allows for this. Crypto is manufactured scarcity. Why go through the bother of buying and storing art when you can just buy crypto?
The Storm Hits the Art Market
101–110 of 221 posts
Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market
#102Self inflicted. Both artists and the galleries representing them became too greedy. I have acquaintances who rather starve than accept their work is not worth 10K a piece.
Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market
#103As mentioned by others, I think the art world has reached a major schism where there are two types of artists: those who target rich collectors and those who are more grassroots. I've been to a lot of the larger art shows in the US and it's always amazing to me how expensive so many of the pieces are. I couldn't even justify buying a cheaper piece I want on a software engineer's salary. Instead, I've found that local art fairs have been where so much of the growth is at. Things like Cherry Creek Art festival or the myriad of smaller markets around, you can find amazing artists selling interesting and beautiful works. Between markets and social media, there's a path to being a sustainable, working artist. And personally, I think being a collector of smaller artist's prints and works is more fun than the expensive ones!
Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with your strategy is that the items you listed have very little upside; yes, the prices won't collapse, but they also wont go up a ton. Their prices have reached somewhat of an equilibrium. A lot of collectors are trying to find something they can buy for cheap and then sell when it goes up in price by a lot. If you want that, you have to pick something that hasn't had its price hit an equilibrium yet. Y…
Collectors are different from speculators or investors. Collectors want something for personal reasons, whatever they are. Speculators are just trying to buy low and sell high. Investing has overlap with speculating, but it's generally more long term. I think this is important to understand when considering buying collectables. You have to know the different types of people you're bidding against, whether it's an out…
Here's a rembrandt for sale: https://www.masterworksfineart.com/artists/rembrandt/etching...
No idea the price, but I would much prefer this to a Charizard pokemon card!
Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market
#105I make an unusual kind of art, but I haven't tried selling it, as you need a stable of interested people, and I can only post it in one place at the moment (a Facebook interest group on tiling, Instagram is overrun with AI, you can't start a new profile without lots of existing supporters). I've considered opening a gallery in my local area just to sell my art (5 million people in the metro, and barely a real commerc…
Take this as a additional point of reference: I don't have formal education in art and not an artist, but I find your work interesting enough that I would stop at a store to look at and probably buy something (printed and fabric) if I can afford to (especially the cover art on the home page).
Reading your comment, it sounds like you are actively sabotaging yourself by convincing yourself that you shouldn't just try (perhaps due to a subconscious fear of rejection). How do you get an audience if you don't actively promote your work and/or try to sell them?
There is no guarantee that you will "succeed" (whatever that looks like to you — success could mean having a lot of people appreciate your work and/or selling your art for lots of money) if you try your hardest but if you don't try you will never succeed at all. I'll break down the second last paragraph as an example below.
> I'd love to sell it online, but without an audience, no one will visit.
Audience don't just suddenly appear because you have created something. You need to put in the effort to create an audience to begin with.
> I could sell it at https://www.saatchiart.com, but they don't really market most of what they have. You have to drag people there.
You need an incredible amount of luck for people to just "discover" your work and just suddenly like it (especially with abstract art?), so having need "to drag people there" is just what you should do if you want exposure for your work whether or not you host them on saatchiart.com.
Don't fall into the trap of "if you build it, they will come".
Focus on creating a compelling narrative behind your art and keep iterating to attract a small, loyal audience first (1000 people is already a lot).
> Plus they take 30% or 40% (50% is normal for galleries).
This is irrelevant if nobody knows your work and would buy them to begin with. It's just another excuse to not try. By the time this is a problem you can migrate to something more personal. Many people that support independent artists want the artists they like to get more money from them.
> Locally, in the right location, people see your art, and stop by. It's just the pain of setting it up, and then sitting there while you wait!
I enjoy engaging with artists at markets because the personal connection with them is actually the most valuable thing for me and the most compelling reason for me to make purchases. I also appreciate the artists who show up consistently at related events particular those who remember me well, which also becomes a reason for me to introduce their work to my friends.
Good luck with your work and I hope you will find success with it! ^^
Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market
#106I’ve been trying to break into the art market as a complete outsider for the last year and a half (doing mathy lenticular holograms). What I have seen has stunned me - the level of groupthink and copying whatever the popular trends are and making up pretentious language to sound sophisticated is wild. And often the actual art is just ugly.
I have found that the higher priced galleries seem to sell worse art. The emperor has no clothes. And just like the Impressionists revolted against the Academy, us artist shall revolt at the Art market system that says “your work only matters if you have an MFA from a top school”.
Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market
#107I'm amazed that the article doesn't discuss the end of ZIRP. The bursting of the art market bubble in mid 2022 coincides exactly with when interest rates started rising following the 'transitory' inflation caused by pandemic relief measures. This was also the same time that we started seeing hiring freezes in tech, the bursting of the luxury watch bubble, etc. It's all tied together, and has the same root cause: It s…
2022 is also when the wars in Ukraine and Gaza started in earnest When wars are going on, most people in affected countries are thinking about heavier things than going to an art exhibit and boosting their collections. 2020 and 2021 was when the pandemic happened. Businesses started feeling the crunch all over the world from the lockdowns. Supply chains got bullwhipped. People weren’t exactly interested in going to b…
The public is not conscious of how big of a deal the war in Ukraine is.
Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market
#108The art world is just fine. Pretentious art speculation maybe not so much. In a way, we are actually in a golden age. I lurk on social media accounts of amateur art enthusiasts around the globe with (IMHO) good taste who seek out interesting little known artists and post it on their feeds. I am introduced to so much great art that I probably would have never known about otherwise. If I see something I like, I search…
You can also just commission the art you need, a few hundred dollars is damn good money in much of the world( even in the US, if a small painting takes a few hours to make, 400$ can be a fair price).
That said, I feel this article is really about our active recession. Rich people are cutting back too it seems.
Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market
#109The art world is just fine. Pretentious art speculation maybe not so much. In a way, we are actually in a golden age. I lurk on social media accounts of amateur art enthusiasts around the globe with (IMHO) good taste who seek out interesting little known artists and post it on their feeds. I am introduced to so much great art that I probably would have never known about otherwise. If I see something I like, I search…
Any good account suggestions?
There are myriad accounts. Who you follow is taste specific, you need to do your own work. Mine are exclusively on Twitter and I mostly found them by randomly clicking through art things on Twitter. My tastes in art cover a very broad spectrum. Gotta both explore and curate the feed.
My favorite piece acquired in the last few months is Olivier Neuray’s “L’Empire des Lumières”. Not everyone is going to appreciate it.
Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market
#110The art world is just fine. Pretentious art speculation maybe not so much. In a way, we are actually in a golden age. I lurk on social media accounts of amateur art enthusiasts around the globe with (IMHO) good taste who seek out interesting little known artists and post it on their feeds. I am introduced to so much great art that I probably would have never known about otherwise. If I see something I like, I search…
You can also just commission the art you need, a few hundred dollars is damn good money in much of the world( even in the US, if a small painting takes a few hours to make, 400$ can be a fair price). That said, I feel this article is really about our active recession. Rich people are cutting back too it seems.
I’ve never commissioned art but I am sorely tempted with a couple artists I’ve bought from. This may actually be the future for them.