Thoughts on 2017 for the Art Business, pt. 5

Part 5 in my increasingly misnamed trio of articles on the art business in 2017

“The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases.

For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat? and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch?”

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

In Part 1 and Part 2, I took an initial look at the challenges that face the art business; in Part 3, I began to consider positive directions for museums, galleries, and the online and tech space; in something of a Part 4, in an Art Newspaper comment piece I specifically pondered the future of art fairs — a sector I will look a bit more in depth at here, followed by alternative models and artists’ roles.

Art Fairs: Thinking Outside the Tent

Art fairs are — literally and metaphorically — where the art world comes together. Concurrently, they have moved from being art world trade shows to cultural juggernauts with global, cross-category influence. With the internet driving interest and need, galleries exhibiting their artists to woo collectors, curators and critics taking the pulse, and corporate underwriting supporting it all, art fairs are the most critical space in the art market today.

Contrary to the common complaint, fairs don’t close because there are too many art fairs. Art fairs close because of competition from entirely other verticals for their clients’ and visitors’ time and money. Galleries based in New York that don’t make it into the premier shows (ADAA, Armory, Frieze NY), have a hard time justifying spending an additional minimum of $10,000 to set up shop for one week, a few blocks from where they are already spending an ever-increasing amount on their monthly rent. Yet if a fair in New York doesn’t attract enough local galleries they will struggle to have the reach into the local collector base to attract enough attendees — this can become a vicious cycle to a struggling fair.

Across the spectrum, fairs must adapt to survive. PULSE’s decision to shutter its New York iteration and launch PULSE360 was clearly a difficult one, yet a smart evolution both in service to its galleries and visitors, highlighting galleries and artists in a less commercial, more comprehensive fashion, in order to maintain its relevance; as well as to its own survival, as it works towards developing a year-round potential revenue stream.

At the highest end of the spectrum, while obvious, it bears paying careful attention to the many new initiatives of larger players, in particular, at the intersections of online and IRL, high and mass culture, fine art and commerce. With its multiple fairs, a magazine, and now Academy, all backed by WME-IMG, Frieze is now a content powerhouse, with potential to expand into other luxury and event verticals. Art Basel Cities is removing the art fair from its cultural juggernaut in hopes of bottling the Art Basel magic.

Leaf Group also holds great potential with The Other Art Fair and Saatchi Art, for its strategic combination of virtual and IRL ventures, and for providing a more direct conduit between artists and buyers. It may or may not be the best place to find the next Jeff Koons, but that just may be a positive thing [full stop] for the market. I’m encouraged by the way The Other Art Fair is less an art fair than a well-curated artist collaborative, channelled from one of the largest online primary market sales platforms. Similarly, it is interesting to note the Affordable Art Fair’s recent foray into selling art directly through its website. As near as I can tell, this is the first fully integrated art fair and internet selling platform out there. Kudos to them for taking on this deceptively complicated, but critically important development. As I’ve mentioned before, any initiative that leverages multiple channels to bring more buyers into the market must be viewed as a net-positive in a market that desperately needs broadening.

Alternative Models: Aren’t We Supposed to be the Creative Ones?

If someone told me five years ago that some of the best art shows I’d see in 2016 would be at a space sponsored by and named after Red Bull, I’d have said that’s crazy. In retrospect, it’s always been clear that whatever Red Bull sets its mind to, it is successful. But the interesting part is not even that Red Bull is underwriting a fantastic art space — the interesting part is that no one has batted an eye at supporting it. It is my sense that this bodes well for new directions in corporate underwriting and support for the arts. Loney Abrams’ great interview with Red Bull Arts’ Max Wolf is well worth a careful read and consideration.

Miles of bytes have been spilled tracking the grassroots rise of Detroit’s art scene, where the locals and newcomers have worked tirelessly and creatively to support their community. This is a prime example of the internet’s impact on the art market having a reverse, diffusing effect. Thanks to the interconnectedness that the internet provides, it is easier than ever for an artistic community outside of art centers like New York or London not just to survive, but to thrive, creatively and perhaps even commercially, in no small part because the stakes and the costs are far lower.

Further innovation can also be seen at the mass market end of the spectrum, as Uniqlo expands its SPRZ NY project of bringing high art to mass fashion with a new collaboration with Jeffrey Deitch. I am also particularly keen to watch what VICE — the masters of content marketing to the demographic the art world most needs to attract — does with its acquisition of Garage magazine. On the more sophisticated, luxury end of the spectrum, BMW, Rolex, Davidoff, Audemars Piguet and others have shown a remarkable dedication to a less brand-washing, and more creative involvement in their support of artists and fine art. I’d love to hear more candid, in-depth explanations — fiscally and culturally — as to how and why these projects are being embraced by these companies, so that this type of approach to support of the arts can be seeded through more of corporate America.

When it comes to creative corporate funding and support models for the arts, the new reality is that the people who spend hundreds of millions buying art, and the corporations that enable them, not only have the opportunity to accrue benefits (financial and otherwise) through initiatives and investments that impact growth in the broader (that is, lower to middle range) art market; but they also have an obligation to give serious thought to how they can make up for the impact of the shrinkage and potential loss of the NEA and other government funding models.

Artists: Leading the Charge

I’d like to wrap things up with just a few words about artists in the market here. I’m not a critic or a curator, much less any type of artist, so I don’t deign to tell artists what to do. And I’ll save my thoughts on what I have noticed over the decades of my career and much of the 20th century art world for another series (with fresh numbering!) regarding the relationship of artists to the market. But the bottom line for me is that artists can and must lead. Isn’t it part of the artist’s job description to f/buck the system? I’ve heard (and probably read, but I can’t find a link right now) the great Jerry Saltz comment on more than one occasion that artists must create the art world that they want. Recently, I’ve been tremendously inspired by the exhibition at NYU’s Grey Gallery, Inventing Downtown about artist-led spaces. Sure, there continues to be a great tradition of artist-led galleries, ranging across a wide spectrum of quality and inspiration, but still for the most part working within the context of the current gallery system. But Inventing Downtown shows so much more than that — it shows artists who embraced their inner Simchowitz at a time as critical to American history and the art market as the one we exist in today. Art feeds us, and it causes us to ponder the complexities of ourselves and our world. Now it is time to decide where we want to have lunch: What is the art world that we want to create?

In Conclusion

In this series, I’ve tried to distill some of the enormous challenges and complexities of a $60B+ industry into very core, simple terms, and then provide the most simple, high-level strategic view of opportunities for addressing these problems, growing, and evolving the market from here. In few markets is it more true than in art that sex sells, but with such fundamental challenges facing the art market, as the Dude’s fatuous comment reveals, it’s time to look past the sex, and fix the cable.