Ebay Live fed confusion because it had no policy on quality. On the one hand it was a supplementary sales channel for traditional auction houses having goods consigned in brick-and-mortar sales rooms (among those some very respectable ones); and as such it was an altogether interesting alternative to the telephone bidding facility; on the other hand eBay Live featured auctions by auctioneers who were not only but engaged in virtual trading but who moreover didn’t have any of the goods auctioned in consignment or under control, but who simply let unscreened paying members propose their ware through their channel at their own responsibility. There were examples where just anyone worldwide paying their fee could act as a seller. Evidently this didn’t create the climate necessary for serene transactions.

Ebay Live also had an exasperating interface that couldn’t bring up any real auction life excitement (see previous post). However, at this moment, with the notable exception of Christie’s Live, no other actor on the market seems capable of bringing an alternative or improved live-auction platform forward. There’s lots of talk but very little substance emerging.

As for traditional sales room support it seems that Artfact Live is taking up the challenge of providing a supplementary Internet sales channel to reputable auction houses. And for pure Internet auctions with fixed end time, Artnet Online Auctions recently launched their platform. As for eBay, by pulling out of the live activity and by introducing more severe rules, there is evident improvement in regard to their core activity.

The general trend is set for more security. We may be confident that Internet will find ways to affirm and develop its ever growing market presence.

ShareThis

It is true that this new medium threatens the classical (and often costly) intermediaries, who are not always as professional or useful as they make us believe. Nonetheless, the brochure, albeit already a bit dated, is interesting. But as with everything in regard to Internet we need to accustom to virtual reality and not try to bend the world to our own will. You either accept the evolution or you are surpassed. It is clear that in the niche of Affordable Art, direct trading on the Internet between knowledgeable actors is already gaining market share and prices up to 5000 USD are readily paid. The on-line experience just asks for normal due diligence. If you are careless you will be ripped off whatever the channel.

Here are some excerpts from the AADA’s online brochure:

The Internet is a remarkably user-friendly way to navigate the art world. The World Wide Web can be used to do background research on an artist or type of art that interests you, to locate dealers specializing in that work, to scout available inventory and to check prices. The Web offers access to art and galleries all over the world. Email makes it easy to initiate a relationship with a gallery that you might not readily be able to visit.

However, no one polices the Web for accuracy, and the Internet must be approached with intelligence and a degree of caution. Art-historical information is only as good as the source from which it comes. Internet sellers may post images of works they do not actually have access to, or that are incorrectly described or not authentic. Prices need to be understood within the larger context of the art market.

While the Internet can be helpful in researching an acquisition, the actual process of buying art should not differ substantially from any other kind of art purchase. Unlike books or appliances, most art works are unique, and unless you are buying a low-cost multiple, you will not want to simply pop the item into your online “shopping cart” and proceed to “checkout.” After you have located a work or artist that interests you, call or email the dealer. Ask questions about provenance. Does the dealer perhaps have other works by the same artist that might interest you more? Get a description of the condition and a good photograph, and be sure that the dealer is reliable and reputable.

So far, attempts to sell higher-priced unique art through online auctions have not proved very successful. The risks attendant to buying on unvetted websites such as eBay are simply too great. EBay and similar sites essentially act as neutral conduits between buyers and sellers, who are solely responsible for delivering on their promises. Services such as Paypal, which withhold payment from the seller until the item has been satisfactorily received by the buyer, cannot wholly guard against disappointment or fraud.

Recently, some of the larger art auction houses have initiated online bidding services, which enable bidders to participate in real-time auctions from their laptops. Essentially, the process is no different from bidding on the phone, as the actual sale is still conducted in the auction house’s salesroom.

Since Internet sellers are liable for the authenticity of the works sold and for conveying good title, buyers must ultimately rely on the honesty and knowledge of the individual seller.

ShareThis

The present dynamism of artnet is further shown in their interesting cooperation with Art Basel – Miami Beach.

As for artnet’s online auctions, that seem to have great difficulty to take off, we’ll be back with an in-depth analysis.

ShareThis

Art grows on us. A painting might well be an instantaneous love affair; still it’s with time that you’ll know if the communion is worthwhile. I sometimes buy paintings impulsively, just to discover after a couple of weeks that there are false vibrations, no shared wavelength and that first impressions were false. Some pieces in my collection still stir me as they did 20 years ago. These works are as close as kins and unsupportable is the thought of separation. The paintings that become dumb I sell as quickly as I can; there is perhaps another more fit to take up the broken intercourse.

The pieces that remain, those that stay with me and settle with me, are my daily joy. They come ever closer, their meaning elucidates and their power grows. Art is life, a roaring thunder in the lame duck’s pool of actual life.

ShareThis

This is no small advance seen that the present financial crisis teaches us that no investment is safe and that investing in art at least benefits from a non-pecuniary gratifying dimension quite absent in stock.

A market is essentially about exchange. This suits the art collector because exchange is essential to his occupation. Work is acquired and work is passed on all along his learning path. The collector’s choice oscillates between affective and financial value and the collector’s character and purse will decide on the itinerary to be followed.

A recession has two mutually annulling effects on the market. 1. The offer becomes abundant because no one wants to buy. 2. The offer becomes scarce because no one wants to sell. Booming economic times have just the opposite effects. The result is, believe it or not, a pretty constant equilibrium in offer and demand, only pricing changes according to conjuncture!

It’s on the brink of recession that money is made. When notwithstanding an abundant offer everyone still wants to buy. Hirst timed it all so well, what can you do except admiring a natural business genius?

A recession is buying-time. And buying is by far the most pleasurable activity!

Lindström 1925-2008, ‘Groteskt ansikte’ Bukowskis, Stockholm 15-16 Dec 2009, starting USD 2,500

ShareThis

Who cares, you may say, only a complete idiot would try to cash in on this deal. Hmmmm, I would retort, Damien Hirst November sale ‘Beautiful inside my head forever’ still fresh in mind. Bad taste and discernment IS the trademark of upstart well-offs, we may like it or not. But anyway, the market is always correcting itself, look at what’s happening right now. The Hirst and Koons collectors can best start to panic.

So while having no other choice than to bear with hilarious offers such as the one below, eBay still gives us incomparable possibilities to sell art directly and circumvent costly middlemen as galleries and auction houses. The fees are in comparison quite reasonable.

As for the prevalence of fraud and junk art, it suffices for a trained eye to be selective and to accommodate to the flittering if not flattering images of the eBay offering. Ebay offers excellent communication facilities with the seller and a couple of emails will quickly give clear indications.

When talking risk, do know as well that eBay’s obsession with PayPal isn’t altogether negative. The fact that PayPal, in questionable cases, will hold payments until buyer satisfaction is recorded, will no doubt dissuade the smarter crooks from posting their most outrageous incongruities.

ShareThis

As to services there is very little formal difference in functionality between the two mentioned platforms. The difference lies foremost in the aspect and in the contents. Artprice clearly lists a greater number of lesser known artists - with few or insignificant auction records - and is therefore maybe a more comprehensive tool than artnet. As does artnet, artprice brings breaking and in-depth news about the international art market while offering online subscription services to past and present auction prices in venues across the world. The website provides summary international gallery listings with sales opportunities under the formula ‘artprice stores’, artists’ biographies and their various market indices, auction-house news and special reports on art market events and tendencies. It distinguishes itself from its rival in proposing a general art market index and an art pricing valuation service, but lacks in turn artnet’s new on-line auction feature, auction house listings, artists monographs and the latter’s magazine feature.

It’s above all in the interface that the difference is marked. The French design is full of clutter and complication whereas the German/American site is sleek and sober. Of course this is a matter of personal taste. The juxtaposition of artprice’s essentially artistic management team versus the clear no-nonsense business management model of artnet will probably account for this difference.

Home page

Artprice’s choice of contrasting black and whites gives the site an unnecessarily hard edge and is not pleasing for the eye. Brash and complicated design completes the non-inspiring picture of an aggressively commercial site. Beyond the first impression the site is functional and contains an impressive amount of useful data.

Top bar position from left to right ‘home’, ‘My Artprice’, ‘Artprice images’, ‘My store’, ’Ads’, ‘Products’, ‘Contact, ‘Language choice’. Drop-down menus direct you to a humdrum choice of other services presented rather pell-mell.

The price database

The price database is of course not unique to artprice but represents its core feature. As said, the great advantage with artprice is the sheer number of artists listed. Artprice’s reactivity to the art market is excellent and the featuring of illustrated catalogues a very useful feature.

The stores

Artprice offers art professionals and collectors alike to feature an unlimited number of items under this unique annual subscription service. The modest fee allows for second and third tier professionals to get their art to the collectors in a simple and highly cost-effective fashion.

The editorial services

Artprice newsletters
Artprice offers a subscription service to a free periodic e-newsletter.

Conclusion:

Complimentary to artnet for top tier collectors, artprice becomes indispensable for those collecting affordable art and less pricy items. Artprice has an excellent presence on the art market but suffers from lack of style, what becomes evident in the rather crude web design.

ShareThis

Now that art definitely is becoming tart, what with that old museum inventory? Well, even if not yet treated as tart, the old art is efficiently monetized by our tart-loving market forces. In this respect it is very instructive to read eminent art critic Souren Melikian’s article on ‘the divergent fates of works that benefit from celebrity and masterpieces that have only their quality in their favor.’ The art market has become very much like the real estate market, the commodities market or the stock exchange; pure pecuniary speculation detached from any artistic merit. And it works to an astonishing degree.

But who are all these people buying those massive amounts of tart? Well, people interested in making money on the short term. As the whole interest of buying tart is in the subsequent selling, stimulating the fable that tart is art is necessary for healthy resale profits. At the moment there are buyers everywhere thanks to the buoyant economies of emerging nations with cheap labour cashing in on the ongoing globalisation. It is perfectly clear to everyone that this golden period will come to an end and that the herds of ‘newly rich’ one day will discover that their so called art is…simple tart. But who cares? It’s only the very last in the chain of suckers that will be ripped off… The crash is inevitable, but not yet in sight and this explains the frenetic activity these days at Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

Is tart-collecting worth our contempt? Not really, today everything is equal and money-making is the corner-stone of our society. But please, give us a break with the word ‘art’, name a tart a tart and art art.

ShareThis

Although artnet may appear as a universal forum dedicated to art, its emphasis is clearly on providing an art exchange platform. Thanks to intelligent and up to date cross-referencing between past and upcoming auctions and current gallery offers, the collector is given a formidable tool to be kept up to date with his collection’s market position and to be alerted to works coming up for sale. The vendors, for their part, are served with permanent and global visibility for their merchandise. Recently artnet added an in-house on-line auction facility to its already impressive gamut of broker services. Auxiliary to the world of fine art, artnet’s occupations touch as well design, antiques and the decorative arts. For a brief history of artnet, see Wikipedia’s article.

On a market with global reach, the duple transatlantic quarters of artnet’s working structure gives the company its competitive edge. It’s noticeable that the site is offered in English (most visited) and German (original) versions only, leaving, in particular, the world’s traditionally third (now fourth after the UK, the US and China) ‘art market power’, France, in the cold.

Quality in website design, graphics and functionality is artnet’s key solution for handling the wealth of information proposed. Artnet’s rational and artful solutions contribute greatly to the platform’s upscale image.

Home page

Artnet’s choice of subdued reds and greys gives the site its choice appearance and the lay-out couldn’t be more classical. Far from the brash and complicated design of some competitors, clarity reigns on this model-book home page, boasting an impressive Google page rank 7. The top bar divisions, announcing the crucial databases as well as the more peripheral editorial services, are reiterated on the home page as separate headings with brief and often illustrated introductions. Decorative arts and design do not have top bar positions but are introduced on the page itself.

If top bar position can be judged important, the present ordinal sequence reads: ‘artists/artworks past auction prices database’ – ‘galleries’/dealer’s works for sale database’ – ‘auction houses upcoming auctions database’; after which are placed the informative section: ‘subscription conditions for the price database’ and finally the editorial services ‘market trends’ – ‘market events’ – ‘ artnet magazine’. Remarkable is that the recent ‘artnet online auction’ facility has gotten the primary position at the left on the top bar, what might be an indication of artnet’s own idea of the potential of this feature.

The price database

At the origin of the artnet concept, the price database is not unique to artnet and features roughly the same set of options that is found in all similar sites today. Our impression of artnet’s artist database is that lesser known (less traded) artists are unlikely to be listed; what seems normal for a site dedicated to the top-tier market. The cross-indexing of the price database with works currently selling in galleries and auction houses is the prime feature.

The gallery and auction house listings

Artnet offers select art professionals the choice between a free basic listing or a paying member presentation, the latter with mentioned specialization, company detail and hyperlinks. The rather pricy periodical fee for member status is another sifting mechanism that helps attracting only high-end user profiles.

The editorial services

Commissioned:
Artnet offers paying tailor-made analyses of high-profile artists under the denomination ‘market trends’. Under ‘events’, member galleries and auction houses have the opportunity to market their upcoming exhibitions or sales events.

Artnet magazine and newsletter
Artnet publishes its own online magazine with traditional magazine-style content and offers a subscription service to a free periodic e-newsletter.

Conclusion:

Judged premier site among those reviewed with similar content (artnet, artprice, findartinfo, artfact, akoun), artnet is remarkable for its aesthetics, ease of use and quality content. In our opinion it’s an indispensable portal for art professionals and collectors acting in the upper regions of the art market.

ShareThis

The support in easel painting has a long history. In the days of the natural wood panel, the traditionally square surface destined to receive the artwork was either hewn out of a single plank or - in order to gain more width - manufactured by assembling roughly identical planks. Wood was the natural choice, being the most readily available universal material in pre-industrial times. However, natural wood has important inconveniences.

Cut wood, i.e. wood that is no longer part of a living tree, has inevitable internal tensions. Wood fibres and cellular mass grow slowly under constant stress. The cellular structure of the growing tree must counter and stabilize strains coming from unequal growth consequent to structural bends, twist and turns necessary to keep disproportionate weight above ground and in equilibrium. When a tree is cut into planks, the inside tension, not anymore meeting any balancing exterior force, will make planks warp and bend. Furthermore, wood continually absorbs and dissolves humidity resulting in considerable structural modifications. Keeping the manufactured panel in too humid or too dry conditions, or alternating its presence in between humid and dry areas, will inevitably lead the wood to “work” and will detach, in the process, any applied layers of paint. This is a difficulty with the singular plank painting and an outright nightmare with the assembly. An assembled panel can be seen as a gathering of unruly elements.

Then stretched linen canvas came along as substitution for the natural wood panel, being easier to manufacture and lighter to handle; the linen being tightly stretched onto a thin wooden frame. The design of the latter - the stretcher - continuously developed over the years to better maintain the tension but also to counter the deteriorating effects on the stretched material (breaking edges). As with natural wood, linen is subject to tensions and reactions that are spread unequally over the total surface and that result in, for linen, bulging, slackening or tear.

After the First World War the modern board took over the scene, made out of wooden ply, fibres or particles. The great advantage with board was the physical inertia that the synthetically assembled mass brought with. No more of that extreme sensitivity, neither to humidity (not always though) nor to structural tension.

The use of linen canvas as support for easel painting has lingered on into our days, mainly for traditional reasons. What is true is that the aspect of a painted surface varies depending on the calibrated combination of the painting technique and the stiffness of the supporting structure. Canvasses that for some reason or other are laid on board tend to lose much of their initial surface characteristics and the result is often disappointing.

There is a natural evolution in the oil painting technique that accompanies the described evolution of the support, but this is a topic that we will return to in another post.

ShareThis