HOW DOES ART AUCTIONING REALLY WORK, SHOULD IT BE DONE ONLINE?
16.NOV.2017
Auctioning and buying art online have been a great advantage for wealthy collectors who want to have everything at their fingertips in the recent years. Not only they now have the chance to have world renowned paintings hanging on their walls; but they are lucky enough (or rich enough?) to own something that most of us can only view in a museum just by having their private art dealers click their computers.
To give an idea of the price range of some of the most famous paintings sold at real and live auctions, let’s look at 3 paintings sold by the bidding of world class billionaires , or even nations:
$250 MILLION
This post-impressionist masterpiece was bought by the royal family of the oil-rich nation Qatar. The painting was sold in 2011, supposedly through a secret deal. The royal family is known to be interested in bidding in other art that could easily be hung in the walls of world’s most famous museums such as the Metropolitan Museum, The Louvre Museum etc. as well.
$300 MILLION
This painting was bought by a billionaire named Ken Griffin alongside one other abstract painting by Jackson Pollock for $200 Million. Making it a record art deal of a total of $500 Million made by a single person for abstract paintings at one time.
$186 MILLION
This controversial modern art piece has been sold to a Russian billionaire, Dmitry Rybolovlev. According to sources, it is said that the private art dealer of the Russian tycoon named Yves Bouvier has been in a legal dispute with Rybolovlev since 2015 because of a possible misleading of the actual price.
WHAT ABOUT THE ONLINE PART OF THE SITUATION?
In our changing and developing society it would be a mistake not to expect art being sold online, just like casual internet shopping for clothing or house-ware. There are three types of online art shopping you could do.
The first one is just browsing pictures of the artwork from various galleries via images gathered by websites such as but not limited to artsy.net. In this type of purchase it is unavailable to view the price of the painting directly. However, the gallery marks the price of the artwork as “only by demand or available only by contact”. In this case, if you’re willing to buy it, either you take a quick visit to the gallery or call them, or have your private art dealer do it for you…
The second one is direct online purchasing. The experts say that the buyers should be really careful about the verification of the originality of the work. It is almost impossible to make a purchase of really high priced works directly, but it surely is a great way to promote new artists offering reasonable prices.
The third option is a long lasting online auction. In these auctions you create a detailed membership to the site and start bidding. The time designated for the auction is set and you are allowed make as many bids as you want in the time frame. In some auctions the names and the identities of the bidders are revealed to others but in most cases they are not.
After all is said, in my opinion it makes art seem less valuable than it is. Even though it is a great opportunity, it decreases the sacredness and the untouchableness of a real artwork.
However, just like the music industry not requiring giant recording companies to be inside the market anymore, art is certainly inclining towards the same way right inside the digitalised age.
