Surviving the Art Market

Alexandra Peers of the Wall Street Journal just published an article entitled The Fine Art of Surviving the Crash in Auction Prices. Peer's asks the million dollar question, "So where does it go from here". Peers discusses the market impact on auctioneers, dealers, artists, and collectors.

Peers states in her WSJ article The art market's crash -- for that is what it is -- threatens to remake the art world. In the past few weeks, auctioneers, dealers, artists and collectors have changed strategies and policies, and it's likely that future changes will be even more sweeping. With Sotheby's stock hovering at about $9, down from $50 a year ago, it's now cheaper to buy the 164-year old brand than all the art it sold in the past three months.

It's all been a reality check for art collectors. Noted one West Coast art dealer: "Their houses are worth less, their stocks are worth less, but they thought their Rudolph Stingel was still priced the same? No."

In the wake of the auctions, says Tobias Meyer, a vice chairman of Sotheby's: "The price disparity between good and great has widened to humongous." The problem for the trillion-dollar global art industry is that most of the art it has for sale is, by definition, just average.

Peers believes that many auctions houses will have to cut costs and retrench, focusing more on quality product and volume control, while dealers/galleries are representing fewer artists and displaying at fewer fairs while cutting payroll. In this environment big name artists should easily survive, but it will be more difficult for emerging artists to become connected with quality and and name galleries. Collectors have seen the value of their collections decrease, yet there are good opportunities to add to collections at very fair and reasonable prices.

Overall and interesting piece by Peers, and one that certainly makes you think about how to survive over the short term.

To read the WSJ article, click HERE.