Art Seekers

Every artist struggles with Marketing and Sales at some time. This “Art Seekers” Blog Category is intendend for anyone interested in discussing Art Marketing & Sales, current events, methods, marketing and sales techniques, who’s selling and who isn’t and why.

The news media likes to sensationalize major Art events such as the recent lack of a bid for Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” :

Southeby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Auction results totaled $269.7 million, well under the presale low estimate of $355.6 million and just half the high estimate of $494.2 million.

Christie’s International Impressionist and Modern Art Auction totaled $395 million, in the lower half of its presale estimated range of $349 million to $487 million.

Almost immediately “Art Market Doomsayers” came out tying those 2 “Dissapointing” art auctions to percieved faltering economic conditions, even though Christie’s had just conducted the second largest art auction ever held.

Then came the news of a record sales price for a Faberge Egg, fetching $18.5 million.

As an experienced marketer, its hard to determine anything by looking at market extremes, especially through macroscopic or microscopic lenses. Should we draw conclusions from the upper end of the Art Market? Should we all bow down and concede to the injured housing market, assuming that art sales is “dead on the vine”?

Christie’s resumes contemporary art auctions on Nov. 12, auctioning art from the estate of dealer Allan Stone. It will be interesting, but what will it tell us?

Let’s work together here for a more holistic approach to Art Marketing and Sales. There’s room for all of us to benefit. What’s real and what’s not, in art marketing and sales? Sometimes it’s its hard for even the “pros” to know.

Ken

Tags: Art Marketing & Sales //