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The Storm Hits the Art Market

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Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market

#91

Post by QuantumFunnel »

cortesoft wrote: post #83
monero-xmr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was going to buy art as an investment I would only buy the absolute best - old master, Picasso, ancient artifacts with absolutely no question to their authenticity or provenance that would restrict its resale. Collectibles are very tricky. You want to buy something that isn't a fad. Like a movie prop, you'd want to buy the 100% most legendary movie that is timeless, like something from Casablanca, that has been…

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…

Labubu

Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market

#92

Post by echelon »

jfengel wrote: post #68
CydeWeys wrote: post #58

I'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…

The US stock market and cryptocurrencies are both going gangbusters. You don't need ZIRP to be awash in cash. Money can print itself when rich people are optimistic. I don't know what causes bubbles to pop, but I don't think it's directly related to US monetary policy. I suspect that the bubble just moved elsewhere.

It might be that anyone can generate "art" now.

While canvas, sculpture, and other media are far removed from jpegs, the scarcity of adjacent digital forms going away may have reduced the interest in the market for "shaped aesthetic things".

The attention, and thus money, has moved elsewhere.

Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market

#93

Post by fluoridation »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #81
gonzobonzo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember IBM making huge claims about using the blockchain for supply chain management. For instance[1]: > A recent pilot by KPMG, Merck, Walmart and IBM using blockchain injects new trust into the system by reducing the time it takes to trace prescription drugs from 16 weeks to just two seconds. It was impressive how many people uncritically took these claims as facts. [1] https://www.ibm.com/solutions/blockchain-…

A blockchain is the world's slowest database. The idea that a blockchain could speed up anything is laughable.

Theoretically, if there could be a 1:1 relationship between events in the real world and events on the blockchain, the idea makes sense. If you had two pieces of a machine represented by objects on the blockchain, and when you combined them into a new component that automatically, cryptographically, created a new object on the blockchain, you could track provenance precisely just by having the final assembled product.

The problem is that that relationship doesn't exist and is impossible. If someone wants to tamper with a supply chain, all they need to do is tamper with the real world without letting that reflect on the ledger. And that destroys the entire point of the concept.

Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market

#94

Post by anonymars »

CydeWeys wrote: post #58

I'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…

Yes and no - 2022 also drastically changed taxation of software development

https://www.resourcefulfinancepro.com/news/irs-section-174-c...

Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market

#95

Post by cortesoft »

monero-xmr wrote: post #86
cortesoft wrote: post #83

Earlier 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…

Collectibles have a lot of friction, and being physical they have a lot of middlemen and questions. If I want to speculate on an investment, even property would be far more liquid, let alone something disambiguated like company stock. I think investing in physical collectibles for a quick flip is pretty dumb. Why not buy domains related to the same subject? Far easier

Ok, then I guess I don't understand your point in your first comment. You seemed to be explaining what approach you would take to invest in collectible in your first comment, by saying you would only buy something that has established value.

I agree that trying to make money from collectibles is not the best way to make money. But then if you aren't buying collectibles for money, your first comment doesn't follow; you should collect things you want to collect yourself, which means it shouldn't matter their ability to hold value.

Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market

#96

Post by Javantea_ »

tart-lemonade wrote: post #18
yieldcrv wrote: post #5

> The question is how to “get people to understand that art isn’t an asset class,” Schwartzmann added. “That’s not how you should be collecting,” > Valentine said ... "Asking $20,000 for a work in an artist’s first show is unsustainable" none of the separate participants in this article are willing to acknowledge that these are related problems. there is no price discovery in the art world, and it was only just begin…

I have a painting of a commuter train I used to ride to work every day. It's not a conversation starter (or rather, I'm always the one who starts talking about it) but I love it because it reminds me of when I discovered that I didn't need to be a slave to my car and how freeing that was. It cost me $50 and I've taken it with me every time I've moved. I really don't get dropping thousands on a single piece, I've neve…

Yeah art has objective value and subjective value. Every once in a while you'll find something with a lot of subjective value. Finding something with both is also a thing but it's not easy to find them for a low price.

The reason that expensive art exists is because there's a market. The fact that the market is weird and in decline doesn't change the fact that wealthy people find art to be a worthwhile thing to buy.

Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market

#97

Post by EGreg »

CydeWeys wrote: post #58

I'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 buy artworks after their one-time UBI checks and PPP funds ran out. And other countries didn’t send those out at all.

Oh yeah, and AI has now sent a supply shock to the whole art industry. But we can’t say that on HN, there will always be someone popping out of the woodwork claiming AI is a non-factor and saying things were always like that.

Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market

#98

Post by monero-xmr »

cortesoft wrote: post #95
monero-xmr wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collectibles have a lot of friction, and being physical they have a lot of middlemen and questions. If I want to speculate on an investment, even property would be far more liquid, let alone something disambiguated like company stock. I think investing in physical collectibles for a quick flip is pretty dumb. Why not buy domains related to the same subject? Far easier

Ok, then I guess I don't understand your point in your first comment. You seemed to be explaining what approach you would take to invest in collectible in your first comment, by saying you would only buy something that has established value. I agree that trying to make money from collectibles is not the best way to make money. But then if you aren't buying collectibles for money, your first comment doesn't follow; yo…

I'm saying as an investor, collectibles are very difficult and highly speculative, and the friction makes them even less attractive. I disagree that buying old, consistent collectibles cannot themselves be speculative - if you wait for the right moment they can make significant returns. But the downside is significantly reduced if you restrict your investments to something that has been consistently valuable across the longterm.

If you are into something, buy all means buy it. I just mean if you are a dispassionate investor looking for a return it is a pretty poor area to invest in. But if you like something - art, pokemon, whatever - just do what you love

Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market

#99

Post by chamomeal »

earlyriser wrote: post #78
msegal wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any good account suggestions?

I have been following: https://www.instagram.com/piperbangs/ https://www.instagram.com/lauren.krasnoff/ https://www.instagram.com/artcarolinegaudreault/ https://www.instagram.com/gretchen_scherer/ https://www.instagram.com/jakeclarkjakeclark/ https://www.instagram.com/hilary_pecis/ And curating: https://www.instagram.com/carriescottcurates/ https://www.instagram.com/mary_lynn_buchanan/

Damn it sucks that instagram is the defacto second internet. My gf finds so much cool stuff on IG. Local bands post their show dates, a brewery in my neighborhood posts their hours (it’s just a husband and wife, and their hours are whenever-I-feel-like-it). I don’t have instagram, so I’m just totally in the dark on all that stuff.

And I get it. Not everybody is going to make a website or blog or whatever. But it totally sucks that everybody and their dog is on instagram and it’s like this walled garden club that you just can’t access if you don’t want to support Facebook. The internet is cool! Why did we make it suck!!

I wonder if the instagram API lets you download enough data to make a public mirror of a user’s posts. It’d be cool to make a service that does something like that. Help people break their instagram dependency. Not that any meaningful amount of people would care to use it lol

Re: The Storm Hits the Art Market

#100

Post by dfxm12 »

cortesoft wrote: post #83
monero-xmr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was going to buy art as an investment I would only buy the absolute best - old master, Picasso, ancient artifacts with absolutely no question to their authenticity or provenance that would restrict its resale. Collectibles are very tricky. You want to buy something that isn't a fad. Like a movie prop, you'd want to buy the 100% most legendary movie that is timeless, like something from Casablanca, that has been…

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 of print magic the gathering card or a painting.

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