Recently one of my clients balked at purchasing a painting buy a famous living American artist whose work is in many museums for $30K, yet spent over $1M for box seats at the new Yankee Stadium.
This is the beginning of commentary about How to Buy Art, What questions to ask, How NOT to buy art and Why dont more people in the USA buy art... Excerpts from : http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-dont-people-buy-art.html
"On the Cusp, the premier contemporary art blog in Indianapolis, conducted an art survey to collect some facts about the local arts community and market. They recently covered the announcement of the results. The big topic of debate was around people buying art.
Two questions sparked the most discussion. The amount of money people had spent buying art and the top figure most would consider for an art purchase hit a ceiling of about $500. Scott pointed out that there are many who easily spend $300 for a few hours of entertainment at a Colts game, but where is the mindset that an investment in original artwork lasts a lifetime? Well, for one thing, the vast majority of US cities do not have a culture of art buying. Tyler Green brought this up during a lecture once when someone asked him why New York and Los Angeles are arts hubs. One reason is that people there buy art. In New York, collecting art is something one does as you acquire the means to do so, since art & artists are everywhere in NY. That's not true in most other places.
Americans Fear that since they don't know enough about art, they fear that are could be a sucker, overpaying for something, and will look like an idiot one day because of it. Fear that they are being ripped off or taking advantage of by people much more knowledgeable than themselves. Fear that they can never get any resale value out of the work. Think about walking into a gallery like walking into a car dealership times twenty and you get the picture. Lots of angst.
The average person is not an art expert, doesn't know what art "should" cost, has no confidence in their own taste, and therefore is very uncertain. The fact that buying art is positioned as an act of monumental significance, and that you are being entrusted with some object that needs to be preserved for the ages, only heightens the angst. Note the quote above, "lasts a lifetime". Who wants to sign up for that kind of responsibility?
The cultural of art buying will take care of itself if you can get the pump primed. One way to do that is to create a mental analogy, reinforced through the marketing of art, to a type of purchase people can already envision themselves making (see below).
The other points are:
How do you establish transparency in the market?
Perhaps a local registry of prices paid, maintained by an independent party with solid documentation, and a ban on non-arms length or related party transactions would help. Put this on the web openly for anyone to consult.
This could potentially also handle the secondary market to show the value over time (most art is likely to depreciate in my opinion - which is ok, if we know about it in advance). It might also help with tracking provenance.
How do you establish a viable secondary market that doesn't totally destroy value?
Perhaps some type of a "certified pre-owned" program, run through the same registry would help. Lots of thinking needs to be done here.
Art needs to be repositioned as a temporary purchase.
People shouldn't feel like they are buying a Patek Philippe when they buy a piece of art ("You never actually own it, you just take care of it for the next generation"). Instead, let's make art buying more like any other consumer purchase where the item in question has a limited life span in your possession.
I suggested fashion, but Jeffrey Cufaude had an even better idea in looking at it like home furnishings or decor. People are willing to pay a lot for a sofa. They know it will be there for a while, but they will eventually replace it. Similarly, it should be psychologically Ok to get rid of art you bought, even by throwing it out if necessary.
That might seem anathema, but if your goal is to sell art, then people shouldn't be made to feel like they are participating in some momentous civilizational event and that they are saddled with something they might change their mind about later for the rest of their lives.
Could this program be embraced? Who knows. The art world establishment in major markets seems to view transparency with horror.
They like inefficiency. But do we need to pattern local art purchases in most cities after the same business practices used for high end art? I'm not so sure. Perhaps we could use a more clean disconnect between the two. Thoughts?"- Aaron M. Renn is The Urbanophile, a leading independent urban affairs thinker and strategist based in the Midwest.
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