Online Art Sales

Back in October I posted about a high end online art fair being developed for January (click HERE to read my original post).  Kelly Crow and Ellen Gamerman have an article in the Wall Street Journal about the upper market, online show, called the VIP Art Fair.  The article states that galleries are looking for new ways to reach collectors over and above the traditional manner.  As art collecting has become more global in nature, new methods of deliver is necessary.

We know that online bidding works at the auction level, and also to a certain extent for dealers and galleries, but clearly the base paradigm appears to be changing.

The WSJ reports

Mr. Dorsey says the site will appeal to a tech-savvy generation that is beginning to invest in art. "Right now, you have an influx of younger folks who are looking to bridge what they're doing with sites like Twitter and Facebook and Foursquare and all these other companies with their other interests, which include art and paintings and drawings and sculpture," he says.

Collectors now seem increasingly prepared to spend big sums for art online. At Christie's, which offers real-time, online bidding at nearly all of its auctions, a Shang Dynasty wine vessel fetched $3.3 million in September, breaking the house record for an item purchased with an online bid. Last month, Saffronart, an online auction house dedicated to Indian art, sold a $2.2 million oil painting in pastel colors by Arpita Singh entitled "Wish Dream."

A new wave of digital art ventures is launching as the art market begins to pick up steam again. Auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's sold more than $9 billion worth of art combined last year, nearly doubling their sales from the year before. Prices are climbing again for contemporary art, which fueled much of the art market's last boom before the recession hit.

Mark Vanmoerkerke, a private equity and real-estate investor in Oostende, Belgium, sees the Internet as the next logical step in an increasingly global art market. "Me, I'm in faraway Belgium and not everyone lives in New York or London, so I'm used to buying online," he says.

For dealers, a virtual art fair can be an appealing way to reach a broad audience at a fraction of the cost of participation in a traditional fair. Amid the economic downturn, some smaller galleries opted to sit out prestigious fairs like Art Basel Miami Beach, where booth rental costs range from $10,500 to $65,000. At the VIP Art Fair, set to run from Jan. 22 to Jan. 30, galleries have paid between $5,000 and $20,000 for virtual booths.

An interesting article for both appraisers and dealers. Click HERE to read.