Why chasing Gen Z now is a really bad idea for the art market.

Melanie Gerlis’s article about Gen Z being where the art market should focus its attention is getting a lot of giddy airplay in industry press and social media channels. But according to KAREN ZADRA, it’s a load of rubbish.

Gerlis prefaces her argument with a claim that “People under the age of 22 account for 40% of consumers“. That statistic, while certainly impressive and lucrative-sounding, is irrelevant to the art market, and here’s why.

Firstly, any marketer will tell you that age matters. Every age has its product and every product has its age. Gen Z is currently between 4-24 years old. The majority of the oldest of them won’t seriously consider buying art for at least another 10 years. Their priorities will be paying down student debt, mortgages (if they can afford one) and young families. That doesn’t leave much spare thought or cash for buying art.

The youngest are a good 25+ years away. Who knows what the world will look like then, let alone what art will appeal to a grown up Gen Z.

As an art dealer who sells contemporary fine art, I can count on two hands – with fingers to spare – the number of under 40s who have bought from my gallery over the past decade. This demographic has never been a big market for art, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

Secondly, Gerlis shows an appalling lack of business knowledge if she thinks that any gallery (even the megas) can a) plan this far ahead for a market that does not yet exist; and b) commit financial and staff resources now to cultivating a demographic with an ROI lead time of at least 10 years. A responsible business with short to medium term sales cycles (e.g. a gallery) does not spend marketing money where there is little to zero chance of generating revenue. Further, most businesses work on quarterly cycles. Forty cycles is a hell of long time to wait for conversions on a marketing campaign!

Finally, by her own admission, Gerlis says

“by the time the seven-year-olds, or even the 22-year-olds, become meaningful buyers of art, a new set of likes, dislikes and technological advances will be in vogue.”

So what, then, is the point of writing an article urging galleries to start looking at this demographic when nobody knows what they’ll want to spend their money on in 10+ years? It’s beyond ludicrous.

Don’t be fooled by Gerlis’s seemingly innocuous use of “to look at”; to look at (i.e. research) a market requires expenditure. Even getting the trainee to run a few searches through Google costs time, and therefore money.

It is a great shame that so much writing on the art market is this vacuous. It’s a fascinating industry which is facing some serious challenges. Art market professionals are looking for workable answers to real problems; we need articles that are useful and relevant.

Pieces of fluff like Gerlis’s are an insult to the intelligence of committed art industry professionals and only serve to make us all look like a bunch of tittering halfwits. And if you’re foolish enough to follow the hype, your business will soon be bankrupt. Remember: cash is King.

Melanie Gerlis, Forget millennials —the art market should be looking at Gen Z in The Art Newspaper.

Provenance & Authenticity in Australian Aboriginal Art – Part 2: Cultural restitution

In Part 1, I wrote about the two main reasons why impeccable provenance should be at the top of any Australian Aboriginal Art collector’s due diligence list. However, there is a third and final reason – as yet unidentified by the market: cultural restitution. I base this prediction on major historic precedents.

When I moved to Alice Springs in 1980, Aboriginal land rights were just coming to the fore. A decade earlier, the idea that Aboriginal people could lay claim to pastoral property was unthinkable; now, hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of land have been returned to Aboriginal communities. In 2002, I was researching the repatriation of Australian Aboriginal human remains from UK and Australian public institutions. Museums in Australia were already actively repatriating remains and had been for years, whereas the UK was claiming scientific privilege and invoked the British Museums Act 1963 to prevent deaccession of material. Two years later, the UK introduced the Human Tissue Act 2004 to allow the return of certain remains to their country of origin. Currently in Australia, there is a groundswell of support for the Constitution to be amended to recognise Aboriginal people as the original inhabitants; the debate now is about how such an inclusion should be worded.

These events have come about due to rebalances in the distribution of power that is giving Aboriginal people a more equal footing. Over the past 35 years of witnessing these developments, I am convinced that in the near future there will be concerted moves to have past and present injustices of the art market corrected. This will be partly fuelled by the desire to protect their culture and the integrity of the deceased, as well as to benefit from the rising value of their art. An element of that will be removing from circulation artwork that is fraudulent or culturally inappropriate.

Already we are seeing artists distance themselves from works that are being produced for and marketed by private dealers. As the younger generation of iPhone-wielding desert kids arm themselves with university degrees and more enter public life, we’ll see a re-writing of what is and is not authentic Aboriginal art. I suspect that much of the art created under duress, or by non-family members, or purely for quick cash, will become contested objects. There may even be demands for financial compensation for artists who were exploited or kept in bonded labour. Some claims may be framed as theft if there is no evidence of the artist being paid.

The late art critic Robert Hughes said that Australian Aboriginal art is the greatest art movement of the late 20^th century. Many would extend that relevance to the present day. No other art movement offers us a direct connection to the beginnings of living human memory. It’s a movement informed by over 40,000 years of continuous culture and the stories at the centre of genuine works are complex, profound and mysterious.

If you are new to buying Aboriginal art, take some time to research the primary and secondary markets, check the affiliations of galleries and dealers, do not take membership of an industry association on face value (some dealers use this for marketing leverage), and look carefully at what works are being acquired by Australian art museums and from which sources. Impeccable provenance is always king.

A longer version of this blog was originally published by Karen Zadra on Vastari.com.

Image: Pungkai in the studio. Photo Galerie Zadra.

Provenance & Authenticity in Australian Aboriginal Art – Part 1: Why collectors should be rigorous

The provenance of an art object has a significant impact on its value, and even its saleability. It necessarily encompasses two aspects:

• the authenticity of authorship; and
• the proof of ownership.

Within Australian Aboriginal (or Indigenous) art, determining authorship and ownership come with cultural and market implications that may not be evident to the non-expert or international collector. As Aboriginal art gains in international importance, collectors need to understand the particularities of this market if they are to make acquisitions that will meet museum standards. There are many rewards to be gained from collecting Aboriginal art, but it is also an area where ethics and the path to market play significant roles in the validity and value of the provenance.

While we talk about “the Aboriginal art market” as a convenient short-hand in Australia, it would be more accurate to describe three market segments, each of which determines how likely a work is to be of museum quality. These are

1. community owned and operated art centres;
2. established private dealer-community partnerships; and
3. opportunistic private dealers.

For contemporary art, the museum sector values the community owned and operated art centres most highly, and acquisitions are sourced almost exclusively from this segment. Each art centre operates like an artists’ collective and is governed by a board of local Aboriginal elders, whose role it is to ensure that each member artist observes cultural protocol. Each artwork is uniquely documented, catalogued and issued with its own Certificate of Authenticity on art centre stationery, and no work can be sold without the approval of the board. Therefore the cultural integrity and authorship is guaranteed by the art centre. Further, these centres receive government funding and are externally audited. Pricing is set by the individual art centre, with the exhibition quality works being consigned to city-based galleries; the majority of the sale price is returned to the artist and art centre.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the private “dealers” who have loose arrangements with individual artists, some of whom are members of community based art centres. At best, these arrangements are opportunistic, with the dealer providing materials to the artists and a cash or in-kind payment. These works may then be sold through their own galleries or wholesaled to galleries elsewhere, usually at significantly higher prices; or cleared through minor auctions houses. At worst, these dealers are exploitative, abusive, and/or fraudulent. This segment preys on the financial vulnerability of Aboriginal people and it relies on the naivety of the uninformed buyer in order to make money. While they’ll profess a love of the art and culture, their motivation is profit, not curatorship. They issue their own certificates of authenticity accompanied by photos or videos of the supposed artist completing said work.

In the middle are the private dealer arrangements with communities, some of which span many years. The art studios are run and maintained as private businesses owned by a non-Aboriginal person. The best examples remunerate and treat the artists fairly and observe cultural protocol; these are respected and accepted by the industry, including museums, but they are few in number. Others operate on the fringes of transparency, making it difficult to ascertain the credibility of their claims and they have as many advocates as detractors.

The Art centre movement and good provenance

There are also temporal considerations when establishing provenance, as the date of creation may affect the trustworthiness of the stated authorship. The founding and gradual rise of the community owned art centre Papunya Tula Artists in the early 1970s, set the scene for the Aboriginal art market that was to explode about 20 years later. The late 1980s to early 2000s saw a mushrooming of community based art centres opening throughout the deserts and remote coastal regions, many of which are still in operation. These centres quickly established themselves as reliable and trustworthy sources of high quality art that was being produced to high ethical standards. The assurance of a community based certificate of authenticity removed the risk of buying misattributed or fraudulent work. The museums and collectors began amassing collections like never before, the market attracted a large number of speculators, and prices began to rise rapidly. With the boom came the fraudsters.

For works created prior to the art centre movement, a complete provenance can be more difficult to establish, particularly as artists rarely sign work. Aboriginal art was often not documented and catalogued, many sales transactions were private (direct from artist to buyer), and sales receipts – if they existed – may have been lost. Some of these works can be very valuable if good provenance can be established.

There is a final reason – as yet unidentified by the market – why I believe impeccable provenance should be at the top of any collector’s due diligence list. I’ll write about it in the second part next week.

Image: Pungkai, Tali Tjuta, 2015, acrylic on canvas. Courtesy the Artist and Galerie Zadra.

The Art of future-proofing Art Sales

Two questions:

• Do you believe that modern-day consumers have power over your business?
• Do you believe in numbers?

If you do, and you’re in the business of selling art, you should definitely

1. get ready for buyers who use mobile devices rather than desktops when looking at art and buying art online
2. get a mobile App
3. cater for buyers who want greater digital interaction with their gallery and expect a seamless, digitally integrated buying experience
4. be open to new technology such as Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality to enhance the digital visual experience for your clients when buying.

Here’s what brought me to make those four claims in more detail.

Claim 1: Firstly, figures show that in 2014, the global number of mobile device users overtook the number of desktop users. Secondly, all major art industry reports predict that online art purchases will grow globally, by 19% over the next three years. This means that the future of online art sales will be on mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, or even smart watches).

Claim 2: Let’s have a closer look at those mobile device users. A survey shows that 89% of mobile users spent their time online through Apps, 11% through the mobile web. This means that instead of typing a website’s URL into their browsers, they download and click on their target’s App. Hence, for your gallery to remain visible and successful, having a responsive website alone is not sufficient any longer. Mobile users won’t find you. You will need an App!

The following figures further underline this statement: 62% of smartphone users in the US use Apps on their devices, 56% in the UK, 81% in South Korea, and 71% in China.

And how many use Apps for mobile shopping? 30% in the US, 26% UK, 43% South Korea, and 43% China.

Who are these mobile shoppers using an App? The figures state: They’re equally male and female. In the US and UK, the majority is aged between 25 and 44 years, in South Korea and China 16 and 34 years.

Claim 3: A report succinctly summarises why buyers go mobile and use digital, even when buying in a store. They want convenience; improved access to information; wider choices; share their experiences; and want to decide themselves when, where and how to engage with products, services, and brands.

Expecting buyers to come to your gallery, or to make a purchase decision solely on what they see in your gallery or art fair booth alone, is no longer realistic. Buyers may get in touch with your gallery online through an App, website or online marketplace. They may then visit your gallery or art fair booth but delay decisions about an artwork purchase until they have revisited your gallery on your App again. Figures show that ¾ of consumers have used a digital device during their most recent shopping journey. Another example: in the UK the prediction is that by the end of 2015, 50% of all in-store retail sales will have been influenced by digital technology. Seen statistically, selling art is retail and a gallery is a store – so these numbers also apply to your gallery.

Claim 4: Art is a visual experience. The challenge therefore for selling/presenting art on a mobile device using Apps is how to bring the digital image to life to give the viewer a real art experience. Augmented Reality (AR) can be the answer. It allows buyers to visualise an artwork in their own environment, in real-time, and to scale. Buyers can not only see all the details of the artwork but also have a sense of its presence. They can experience how the artwork will look from different angles when walking around the room. If the AR art app is well done, it will have all the information about the artwork just a click away and also allow for social sharing.

To summarise, galleries that wish to remain or become successful will listen to their clients’ changing behaviour and needs. They will provide a digital mobile experience through interactive Apps that enhances, complements (and for a growing number even replaces) the in-gallery experience. The traditional bricks-and-mortar gallery with fixed opening hours is a definitely a thing of the past. Is your gallery ready?

Image: Karen Zadra.

How to become a “best practice” art collector – Part 2

This second part of how to collect like a museum curator looks at the collections management side of building and caring for your collection. Don’t leave acting on these points until after you’ve bought the work, otherwise it might be too late!

Check the provenance & condition report

Provenance is where even seasoned collectors and public museums can get caught out. As a general rule of thumb, the more hands a work has passed through, the harder it becomes to determine whether the provenance is authentic. This is where your research on the seller is important: if they are highly regarded, the risk of forged or misleading provenance is reduced significantly. But as the Knoedler case highlights, there are rogue “good” galleries, too. For contemporary and modern work, it’s especially important to check how often it’s been traded. Works that are flipped (resold frequently) tend to lose value because collectors rightly or wrongly believe that the flipped work is inferior to the rest of an artist’s oeuvre.

Always check the condition of the work carefully – even new work! Are there signs of damage, wear, or repairs? If the work has been repaired, who did it and to what standards? Is there any documentation to support that? This has implications on the conservation of the work into the future. What might look like minor issues now could turn into expensive conservation headaches later as the work ages.

Consider present and future conservation needs

All work at some stage will need preservation or conservation. The materials the work is made from and the condition it’s in when you buy it, will determine what needs to be done and when. For some works, it will be decades before any major work needs to be undertaken; for others it will be an immediate need. Naturally, there are costs associated with that process, so check before you buy. Also keep in mind that each material has its own environmental vulnerabilities, e.g. paper hates bright light, UV and humidity. Be prepared for non-archival materials to degrade faster than proven archival materials, and certain materials when mixed or brought into contact, have adverse reactions that may only show up as the years pass. Time-based and digital media will eventually need to be migrated to new platforms as current technology is superseded; a failure to stay abreast of these IT changes could mean you can no longer display the work.

Transport and storage requirements

If you have run out of space to exhibit the work you’re considering acquiring, ask yourself what are its storage requirements and what costs that will impose on you. Storage should always be dry (check the relative humidity), dark and secure. Shelving and packing materials should always be acid-free and cleaned regularly. Transport for fragile works can be very expensive if a work requires specialist crating or handling such as temperature controlled shipping. Do you also have space to store those expensive custom-made travel crates? Public galleries may pay for these costs if they’re loaning your work for an exhibition, but don’t assume they will.

Insurance

Like all precious things in life, your collection should be properly insured. Don’t neglect to notify your insurers each time you add a new piece to your collection, unless it’s covered under your household insurance. If you move your collection around regularly, you might also want to investigate taking out your own transit insurance that covers the work from door to door. Most carriers that offer insurance only cover the work while it is in the vehicle, which puts your work at risk while it’s being loaded and unloaded. In my experience, most damage occurs during manual handling, not during transport (providing it’s been properly packed and loaded). Check that your work is fully covered during exhibitions, loans to museums, or at any other place – including your framer – either under your own policy or the other venue’s! Finally, take high quality photos that can be used to identify your work in case of theft.

Documentation

In this information hungry world, it pays to keep good records of your collection. As your collection grows, consider giving each piece a unique acquisitions number so it’s readily identifiable (“untitled” by Sam Citizen, cat. no. 156.2012 as opposed to “untitled” by Sam Citizen, cat. no. 138.2010). This is standard museum practice. Keep copies of 300 dpi print quality images, certificates of authenticity, bill of sale, associated paperwork, condition reports, loan agreements, artist CVs, exhibition records and catalogues, articles, etc that relate to each piece. There are some excellent collections management programs around that can help you digitise and manage your database. Having this information at your fingertips means that you can quickly identify where every piece is displayed or stored, what work you have on loan and when it’s due back, when conservation checks are due, insurance reminders, etc. And if you then decide to sell a work, a complete history of the piece may help increase its value.

One final pro tip

Never do anything to a work unless it’s totally, completely reversible – including framing! Anything you add to a work should be able to be removed without leaving a trace (serious conservation work excepted; consult a qualified and experienced conservator). You risk damaging and devaluing the work, and if the artist is particularly sensitive, having the work disowned by them.

Collecting art has immeasurable personal and cultural rewards when done with equal doses of consideration and passion. And there’s no economic formula to describe it. Good luck!

Image: Theodoor van Thulden (1606-1669), Discord expels Art and Science (detail). Source: wikiart.org.

How to become a “best practice” art collector – Part 1

As you look around your home, you realise that you’ve started to amass a number of artworks. You also spend hours each week reading about exhibitions, artists, fairs and searching for work on various online platforms. It’s time to admit you’ve been bitten by the art bug. The good news is that you’ll be infected for life, despite the best efforts of economists, accountants and their armies of tenacious number crunchers to find a cure.

Being a collector is not always an easy path to follow. Family and friends will look at you strangely, other collectors will challenge your rationale (or lack thereof), your wealth adviser will try to steer you towards investment vehicles which offer him a better kickback, and “Hi, I’m an art collector!” rarely works as a captivating conversation starter outside of galleries and fairs. But there are things you can do to win friends and admirers along the way by ensuring you collect like a museum curator, no matter what your budget or collection size. The first half of this blog looks at the acquisitions side of collecting; it continues with part two next week.

Understand your collecting motivations and aims

Ask yourself honestly why you collect art. In all probability the full answer won’t come to you in a split second. Beyond “because I love it”, are you interested in a particular artform, culture, movement, artist, etc? Or do you see art as a tangible asset class for building wealth (if yes, read the section below on research at least ten times)? Knowing why you collect and what you hope to achieve helps you stay focussed and to not waste money on art that is irrelevant to your collection. Sure, your aims may change over time, but a serious collector’s motivations and aims don’t change just because they’ve discovered the Next Big Thing on Instagram.

Define your collection policy

All good museums have a collection policy which the curators follow. Typically a written document, it defines the parameters of what is allowed to be collected to ensure it’s relevant to the stated charter of the institution. Use the intelligence you’ve gained from the exercise above to define your own personal collections policy (it doesn’t need to be in writing, but it might be a handy reference if you’re easily distracted by exciting – but irrelevant – art that’s constantly coming on to the market). Obviously as a private collector, you have more latitude to adapt and change your policy as your collecting horizons expand, whereas the National Portrait Gallery will never acquire anything that’s not a portrait. Plus you can modify your policy without being subjected to lengthy curatorial committee and Board approval processes, unless you count an involved and/or opinionated life partner as your committee and Board.

Do your research on the artist and dealer

While this might sound blindingly obvious, surprisingly few private collectors research their artists and art sellers in much depth and breadth. You need to have a clear idea of where your chosen collecting area fits within historical and contemporary contexts. Here are just some of the questions you need to consider:

About the artist and artwork: What type of exhibition and auction records do the artists have? Are they of local, national or international relevance? Are they in public or significant private collections? What has been written about them, and where do these articles appear? How well respected is the writer? Have they been the subject of fraud or forgery; what was the outcome? Have they ever disowned work, and under what circumstances?

About the seller: Who are their representative galleries and/or secondary dealers? What type of reputation do these art sellers have? What has been written about them? Are the names of the owners of the gallery/dealership/auction house publicly available? Do you know anyone who can recommend these sellers to you as trustworthy? If they belong to industry associations, how credible are these associations? Beware of taking the seller’s credentials on face value. Not all associations are equal!

Build good relationships with galleries and auction houses

Everything you’ve read about getting preferential access to work is true: relationships really matter! Be patient, because the various sellers and industry professionals want to know that you’re not wasting their time and that you’re committed to the artist and to them (believe me, galleries work out pretty quickly which relationships are worth cultivating). And don’t expect to get generous discounts from the outset; you won’t, unless they’re a minor gallery desperate for a quick sale. The higher up the ladder you go, the longer this process will take. Money may talk, but privileged information is gold.

Stay tuned for part two next week, which covers provenance and condition reports, conservation, storage, transport, insurance and documentation.

Image: Cornelis de Baellieur, the Elder (attributed) (1607-1671), A Picture Gallery [detail], oil on panel (ca.1635-1640). Source: Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.

Who really benefits from gallery commissions?

60-40, 50-50, framing extra or included, advertising costs split or not – these are just a few examples of decisions many artists have to make on a regular basis in their dealings with galleries. Although the artist-gallery relationship is meant to be a partnership, it often doesn’t feel like one because of two opposing views.

• One view is the “artist-centred view”: without an artist’s work there’d be no successful gallery.
• The other view is the “gallery-centred view”: without galleries there’d be no successful artists.

With each view come expectations that, if unfulfilled, will cloud a balanced partnership between artists and galleries; and the commission structure is perhaps the most prominent one as it’s not about art but about money. Let’s therefore take a closer look.

When artists choose to be represented by a gallery, they decide to give up some of their income in return for the promise of access to a wider audience with the view of increased sales and reputation. For galleries to deliver on such promise, they need to build and maintain a wide network of contacts and connections with buyers, private collectors, public institutions, and curators. Galleries need to move actively in the art market to understand the forces at play, identify trends and new technologies in order to position their artists appropriately.

For example, good galleries spend a lot of their time and resources with current and prospective buyers. It’s not enough to think an exhibition opening will sell the works. Art buyers are busy professional people and the gallery needs to go to them rather expect the buyers to come to the gallery. Paintings don’t sell themselves; they need to be sold. Hence the need for gallery staff who is able to

• communicate with clients by phone, email, or face-to-face every day;
• evaluate and participate in art fairs;
• use the latest technology (such as Augmented Reality and digital catalogues) to offer clients new and innovative ways to view and access works outside the four gallery walls;
• maintain and feed the gallery’s website and social media channels;
• contact and build relationships with public institutions;
• liaise with and feed back to the artists.

Once a work is sold, shipping needs to be organised, the work needs to be insured, sometimes perhaps also installed. If a gallery still maintains a bricks-and-mortar space, the more prestigious the location, the higher the monthly rent. This cost centre (apart from staffing costs) is often the highest fixed costs of a gallery.

By the way, more and more galleries cannot afford those high rents in inner cities or popular shopping areas any longer. In order to avoid having to close down, galleries move from ground floor level to first, second or higher floors. Some relocate their business to a less expensive area on the fringes, team up with other galleries to share the rental costs, or turn their gallery into a project space.

So to summarise, an artist paying a commission is employing the gallery to work for this artist. Only very successful independent artists can afford to have their own assistant, marketing and business managers who exclusively work for them. The majority of artists get access to such staff through their galleries. One way to look at it: the group of artists represented by a gallery split the costs for marketing and management support between themselves through their respective commission payments to that gallery.

With this in mind, artists should not be afraid to ask the right questions when discussing representation: how will a gallery build my profile, how do you contact clients, which sales channels other than an opening do you use, what’s your approach to using new technologies for sales, etc. From a gallery’s answers to these questions, an artist can judge whether the gallery commission in question is appropriate or not. In simple terms, 40% or 50% just for gallery openings with nothing else is perhaps not such a good deal.

Image: Karen Zadra.

Digitalisation and the art industry – the future is now

In the past three weeks in my capacity as co-Founder and Director of itondo, I participated in two invite-only events on re-thinking culture. The first event was a symposium in Maastricht on how the city could better leverage its local creative industries. The second event took place in Luxembourg as part of the EU Council Presidency. We reflected on digital cultural heritage in Smart Cities. A Smart City uses the possibilities of ICT and digital to improve its sustainability and liveability.

The outcomes of those two events for and by policy makers can be summarised in two points:

1. Creative industries are considered a driver for growth in modern cities;
2. Creative industries must digitalise.

The rationale behind it: Digitalisation will enable culture professionals to keep reaching their audiences today and tomorrow (with Augmented Reality as a prominent technology). The audiences of today are no longer those of yesterday who passively consume culture at a time defined by others; be it in a theatre, library, or museum. They now demand access outside of opening hours/show times – whenever it suits them.

Audiences of today are digitally savvy, embracing the independence this medium gives them (not to mention the digital natives of tomorrow who’ll simply take it for granted). Why watch a theatre performance at 8pm in a designated space? Why not online on my way to work? Why not enjoy art on my device if and when I feel like it, sharing the image with friends? Who says that nothing beats the “real experience” of the “real work in the flesh” in a “real” museum or art gallery? This might be true for some. It will not be for others. The argument here is: democratisation of the cultural experience. It can also be called: wider participation in art, or: giving art more relevance and impact.

Some real-life examples: The City of Hamburg has combined forces with London and Florence to implement an eCulture Cloud where art and culture institutions can store and make available to everyone their collections, performances, archives anytime, anywhere. The three cities see the digital offerings of the British Museum, the British Library and the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam as their benchmarks. The Frankfurt Städel Museum has also launched interesting new digitalisation initiatives around their collections; the City of Luxembourg is working on similar offerings.

Through digitalisation of their archives and collections – and making them available to the public through interactive mobile technology such as apps and Augmented Reality – these cities and institutions provide what the British Library calls “Living Knowledge”. Or as the City of Hamburg puts it: “All citizens are to have digital access to our city’s cultural heritage.”

My take-away from these two conferences and the real-life examples: Digitalisation is here and it’s definitely here to stay because policy and decision makers are implementing what users are already requesting (one participant defined user requirements with: inform – experience – share – connect – keep); hence no longer a ‘Push’ but a ‘Pull’ phenomenon.

If embraced by art professionals, it will give them new and better opportunities to present their art and get their voices heard. Digitalisation will create the actively engaged culture user rather than cement the passive consumer. In other words, it’s about getting art to the people on their terms rather than getting people to the art on the exhibitors’ terms. So the faster art professionals implement a new approach to the digital, the more successful they will be.

Next post: Gallery commissions.

Image: itondo.

Why you should pay more attention to provenance

Provenance is about to make a dramatic re-emergence on our screens again now that Manhattan’s Federal Court has ruled that the Knoedler Gallery and its former director Ann Freedman are to stand trial for knowingly selling around $80 million of forged art over the course of a decade that has stung several high profile collectors and experts. Knoedler and Freedman maintain their innocence.

Such sensational cases are not new. Some cases involve forged works by famous artists supported by forged documentation, where others involve authentic works accompanied by forged supporting documentation. What each case shares is the extraordinary lengths criminals will go to ensure the provenance of the work is unquestioned. This devious effort at laundering the present to fabricate a credible past history, demonstrates a strong correlation between provenance and saleability: the better the provenance, the more easily an eager buyer will be found and the less likely the buyer is to conduct forensic due diligence.

So what is provenance? It’s the trail of proof that links the art object to the artist. Good provenance (also referred to as impeccable provenance) proves the authenticity of authorship (who created the work) as well as ownership (clear title).

Contemporary art business practices have evolved to readily provide this proof, from consignment notes, bills of sale, payment records, press releases, artist websites, social media documentation, public auction records and databases, and so forth. There is the added advantage that the time between leaving the artist’s studio to where the object is now, is relatively short.

Establishing a trail of proof can become more complex the older an art object is, and if its history has been interrupted by war, changes in political regimes, mass migrations, shipment to another country or continent, sold through minor dealers or minor auction houses, or where the work has languished in storage for decades or separated from its ownership history – providing it was ever recorded.

It is the improbability of all works having complete provenance records that forgers exploit. Authenticating a work by chemical and imaging analysis is costly and time-consuming, as is verifying documentation. The curators, conservators and experts at public museums and foundations – often the go-to experts whose opinions are rarely challenged – are not infallible. Only recently, the National Gallery of Australia found itself embroiled in a tangled web of falsified provenance for a looted Indian Dancing Shiva statue it bought for AU$5 million from a supposedly reputable dealer Subhash Kapoor, who had also sold looted works to major institutions around the world. The NGA maintained it conducted extensive due diligence prior to the acquisition; it has since returned the sculpture to India. It appears the weak link in the NGA’s due diligence was a reliance on the Art Loss Register certificates, which themselves were based on information provided by Kapoor.

In a recent article, The Art Newspaper raises concerns about “data gaps” in the ALR’s research practices. This highlights the need for dealers and collectors to become familiar with the various processes used in establishing provenance, if only to be able to question the assumptions put forward in provenance claims.

Finally, there is an interesting twist to the provenance story: when an artist disowns a work. There have been several cases over the years of high profile artists like Gerhard Richter, Cady Nolan, Anthony Caro, Richard Prince – to name a few, renouncing their early or works that have been altered without their permission. The consequence of this on the works’ value and collectors’ ability to sell could be dire.

The link between provenance and saleability (which translates to value) is crucial. This is why galleries, dealers, and auctions houses are at pains to say their works have impeccable provenance, and the criminals are at pains to manufacture it where it doesn’t exist. It pays to treat provenance seriously, as there may be no recourse to a refund or compensation if the work or its documents are found to be fraudulent.

Next week: Art and the creative industries.

Image: Honoré Daumier (1808-1879), Les amateurs d’estampes [detail], oil on panel. Source : daumier-register.org