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Control over the marketplace is so essential to galleries that they will not sell to collectors who will turn the art in the secondary market. Art on the secondary market is typically sold at an auction house. Once an artist's work goes to auction the rates are observable to the general public, and anyone (often uttered with disdain) can buy it.


Goldwasser concedes sometimes you can get a similarly attractive work on the street, for a portion of the cost, however you miss out on the financial investment value and social prestige of building a collection. A couple of years ago a young art collector from New york city I understand bought a painting from a New York gallery.


He offered to purchase it for more than 50 times what she spent for it. She refused and he raised his offer to an amount that would indicate she 'd never have to work again. She described that she would not negotiate with himany resale of the painting must go through the gallery, so they'll get a commission and pick the pricenot her.

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She may have owned the painting, but reselling it at a revenue without the gallery's approval would blackball her from the art market. Art collectors are different than customers or investors in any other market.


He believes rates are frequently bogus; bad art typically sells for far excessive and he questions the integrity of many dealerships. Numerous collectors I talked with echoed this belief, yet each of them are passionate collectors due to the fact that they believe they are well informed, hardly ever overpay and enjoy what they've acquired.


Big museums and prominent collectors frequently pay less and have unique access to specific work. Joan Young, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Guggenheim, says that the museum may get up to a 30% discount rate or greater. You 'd believe being in the irreversible collection of a museum as prestigious as the Guggenheim would be so important to the artists' brand name that the museum would get an even larger discount rate.

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Cost adjustment occurs at the elite end of the main market. There exists a lower tier art market, full of little unidentified, regional galleries outside of large metropolitan areas where costs are noted, deals happen at that price, and the work is sold to whomever wishes to purchase it off the street.


Would the market function better, and perhaps consist of more working artists, if galleries didn't control rates? An alternative to the gallery system in America and Europe exists in the Chinese art market. Unlike the primary art market in the West, 50% of main sales in China are at auctions. This would seem to be more effective, since prices are observable and embeded in the market, not picked by the gallery.


Another alternative is going back to the patron model which was popular before the gallery system. The gallery system is most likely a better alternative since the artist has more stability than with a patron- design. With the customer design artists depend on the goodwill of a handful of people site for their entire livelihood.

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Galleries facilitate the relationships between collectors and artists and help groom the artists. Without that intermediary, fewer artists might grow. Another option would be requiring galleries to be more transparent. The list price of a masterpiece might be publically noted, the very same method that's provided for homes in the realty market.


Imposing this rule might be step in the right instructions. If rates were transparent, it would probably be lower and art more readily available to a broader range of collectors. This would be an undesirable move for dealerships and elite artists but it might also demystify the market and lower tier artists might make more because the market would be less segmented.






Sites are emerging that sell primary art and make it more available to the masses. Even has set its sights on the art market. It prepares to partner with specific galleries to offer a few of their stock online however it's not clear whether it will become a "market for lemons," check out here where the finest pieces from the most promising artists are still booked for specific collectors and prices of promising emerging artists still unknown.

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The dealers and collectors I spoke to all think they serve an important role by visit setting high culture for our society. Monetary interest aside, they are well matched for this task due to the fact that lots of art experts invest years in the market and studied art history: They put modern art in its historic context - art galleries johannesburg.




Stability is important due to the fact that most artists take decades to develop and produce their finest work. If they didn't have years to dedicate themselves to their craft we 'd be bereft of some fantastic art which enriches us and will resonate with future generations. Even if the marketplace were more open there would always be an elite market for high-end modern art.


But it could be the control demands more adjustment, which eventually benefits the galleries, and leads to less working artists.

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There are a handful of so-called "mega-dealers" whose names may be familiar even to those on the fringes of the art world, Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Speed, and David Zwirner among them. Galleries are still the beating heart of the art world, the mechanism through which numerous artists find their way to institutions, the world's fantastic collections, or simply the homes of individuals who enjoy their work.