Post by Cynthia Houppert on Feb 26, 2004 15:45:53 GMT -5
Since the introduction of eBay, I've been rather fascinated with the vast selection of goods on its site as well as the availability of bargain basement prices of items that enhance my personal collections. As one who basically despises shopping, malls, and all that with which it's associated, eBay allows me to shop in a virtual department store without all the hassles. One category that has caught my attention is the number of artists using it as a Fine Art gallery. When you visit a department store do you expect find original Fine Art?
In using the venue as a Fine Art gallery, does eBay benefit the artist? It provides space for hanging the work, for a fee, albeit it a small one, but, does it promote the artist, locate collectors or drive collectors to your site? If the artist's objective is to keep more of the profits by eliminating the art dealer's role of marketing then how much is spent in advertising, driving visitors to the art and the numerous other mundane chores which belong in the job description of marketing people.
The difference in marketing on eBay and working with galleries is worthy of examination. Take, for instance, one art dealer and one artist, and how the commissions work. The artists creates permanent works, and the standard split is 60/40. The artist, of course, tells the dealer how much they want for the work, over the costs associated with making the work. I mean the profit that the artist expects to make. If there is no money to be made, there is no point in being in business, and work without pay is tyranny. The dealer then figures out, based on that 60 percent, how much the piece should sell for. As an example, let's say a work sells for ten thousand dollars. That is the low-end for paintings by contemporary artists in the gallery trade.
Since a single full-page ad in ArtNews is $10,000.00 + for one month, the dealer has to sell three paintings at $10,000.00 to make a profit after the advertising costs. That does not include the retail space, employees, shows or the numerous other expenses associated with a retail gallery. How much does the artist profit? $6,000 per painting, and remember that's profit, times three paintings is $18,000.00. Assuming the artist, can produce one a week, that's a very nice income. Nice enough, in fact, to work at it full time.
Let's consider, for a moment pricing on eBay. If I disagreeumption is correct, that you are striving to become a professional artist, you will need an annual income that meets the demands of your current financial obligations. For example's sake, place a painting for $100.00 on eBay. The United States Department of Health and Human Services has determined poverty level for a family of four at $18,400.00. aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/03poverty.htm
SOURCE: Federal Register, Vol. 68, No. 26, February 7, 2003, pp. 6456-6458
How many paintings do you have to sell over the course of a year to even reach poverty level standards? That would be 184 paintings per year, or fifteen and a third pictures per month or three a week. The figures given here do not include the cost of paints, canvas, labor or ongoing continuous costs such as rent, electricity to keep the lights on, water for your brushes, the cost of a live model or the advertising itself.
If your average work is $500.00 then to make poverty level, you only have to sell 1/5 of the number or approximately 37. To reach middle class you need to sell 74 to make $37,000. When marketing on eBay, value to you, as an artist is determined whether or not you can get your price within the allotted time. In talking to other artists, paintings at that price rarely sell.
A picture selling for $1,000.00 means the artist will have to sell 18.4 pictures a year to reach poverty level standards. With many of the art "sweatshops" now selling on eBay, the expectation of making such sales is diminished. The lone artist can hardly be expected to compete against mass manufacturing.
What about the jurying aspects or unveiling a work on eBay? There are none. Collectors often shy away from venues where anyone can hang regardless of the merit of the work as long as there is an ability to pay. In that sense, isn't eBay equal to a cooperative? Will eBay instill a jurying process? Probably not; that's not what they do. They give people space to sell their wares, period.
How do the auction aspects of eBay compare in regards to Fine Art? Surely, the artist benefits by auction at such houses as Christies, Sotheby's, and Bonham & Butterfield, when a collector has decided to "flip" a work that is already in the marketplace. In that instance, the auction serves to benefit he artist by driving up the overall intrinsic value of the artist's work if the work remains comparable in quality. Plus, they also guarantee the authenticity of the work and the work was juried at one point or another.
Unveil the work on eBay? It doesn't have that capability. By defying the traditions of the art market, in failing to understand human nature and the reasoning behind the "unveiling" of the work, then the Internet or any other technological venue will not change human nature or the high-end collector's abhorrence of previously viewed works.
For thousands of years, human nature has remained the same. The Internet, although it is as we know it, in its infancy, lacks the ability to affect human nature; it is only a machine and as the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Cynthia Houppert is a Faculty Member at the Atlanta College of Art, Community Education and the author of Art Gallery Safari: Bagging the Big One Copyright 2003.
www.cowboyenterprises.com/id34.htm
In using the venue as a Fine Art gallery, does eBay benefit the artist? It provides space for hanging the work, for a fee, albeit it a small one, but, does it promote the artist, locate collectors or drive collectors to your site? If the artist's objective is to keep more of the profits by eliminating the art dealer's role of marketing then how much is spent in advertising, driving visitors to the art and the numerous other mundane chores which belong in the job description of marketing people.
The difference in marketing on eBay and working with galleries is worthy of examination. Take, for instance, one art dealer and one artist, and how the commissions work. The artists creates permanent works, and the standard split is 60/40. The artist, of course, tells the dealer how much they want for the work, over the costs associated with making the work. I mean the profit that the artist expects to make. If there is no money to be made, there is no point in being in business, and work without pay is tyranny. The dealer then figures out, based on that 60 percent, how much the piece should sell for. As an example, let's say a work sells for ten thousand dollars. That is the low-end for paintings by contemporary artists in the gallery trade.
Since a single full-page ad in ArtNews is $10,000.00 + for one month, the dealer has to sell three paintings at $10,000.00 to make a profit after the advertising costs. That does not include the retail space, employees, shows or the numerous other expenses associated with a retail gallery. How much does the artist profit? $6,000 per painting, and remember that's profit, times three paintings is $18,000.00. Assuming the artist, can produce one a week, that's a very nice income. Nice enough, in fact, to work at it full time.
Let's consider, for a moment pricing on eBay. If I disagreeumption is correct, that you are striving to become a professional artist, you will need an annual income that meets the demands of your current financial obligations. For example's sake, place a painting for $100.00 on eBay. The United States Department of Health and Human Services has determined poverty level for a family of four at $18,400.00. aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/03poverty.htm
SOURCE: Federal Register, Vol. 68, No. 26, February 7, 2003, pp. 6456-6458
How many paintings do you have to sell over the course of a year to even reach poverty level standards? That would be 184 paintings per year, or fifteen and a third pictures per month or three a week. The figures given here do not include the cost of paints, canvas, labor or ongoing continuous costs such as rent, electricity to keep the lights on, water for your brushes, the cost of a live model or the advertising itself.
If your average work is $500.00 then to make poverty level, you only have to sell 1/5 of the number or approximately 37. To reach middle class you need to sell 74 to make $37,000. When marketing on eBay, value to you, as an artist is determined whether or not you can get your price within the allotted time. In talking to other artists, paintings at that price rarely sell.
A picture selling for $1,000.00 means the artist will have to sell 18.4 pictures a year to reach poverty level standards. With many of the art "sweatshops" now selling on eBay, the expectation of making such sales is diminished. The lone artist can hardly be expected to compete against mass manufacturing.
What about the jurying aspects or unveiling a work on eBay? There are none. Collectors often shy away from venues where anyone can hang regardless of the merit of the work as long as there is an ability to pay. In that sense, isn't eBay equal to a cooperative? Will eBay instill a jurying process? Probably not; that's not what they do. They give people space to sell their wares, period.
How do the auction aspects of eBay compare in regards to Fine Art? Surely, the artist benefits by auction at such houses as Christies, Sotheby's, and Bonham & Butterfield, when a collector has decided to "flip" a work that is already in the marketplace. In that instance, the auction serves to benefit he artist by driving up the overall intrinsic value of the artist's work if the work remains comparable in quality. Plus, they also guarantee the authenticity of the work and the work was juried at one point or another.
Unveil the work on eBay? It doesn't have that capability. By defying the traditions of the art market, in failing to understand human nature and the reasoning behind the "unveiling" of the work, then the Internet or any other technological venue will not change human nature or the high-end collector's abhorrence of previously viewed works.
For thousands of years, human nature has remained the same. The Internet, although it is as we know it, in its infancy, lacks the ability to affect human nature; it is only a machine and as the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Cynthia Houppert is a Faculty Member at the Atlanta College of Art, Community Education and the author of Art Gallery Safari: Bagging the Big One Copyright 2003.
www.cowboyenterprises.com/id34.htm