Will Amazon Art Survive

The Art Newspaper takes an interesting look at the Skates review of Amazon art sales.  Skates posted that it feels Amazon will eventually survive and even thrive, the Art Newspaper's response is not so sure.  The Art Newspapers considers some factors that the Skates report did not, such as Amazon lack of overall profitability (although sales are very strong and growing). Also, Skates looks at the vetting process by the galleries as a positive, while the Art Newpaper does not, as the items are vetted only by the gallery and Amazon is not responsible for the authenticity.  In todays market with so many fakes and frauds, this is like asking the fox to guard the hen house.

The other interesting point is the connection of Skates founder to Amazon and Paddle 8, one of the art suppliers.  All very interesting.

The Art Newspaper reports

One of the four categories used to appraise the sites is vetting. Despite the fact that Amazon has no liability for vetting the quality (or authenticity) of the works on its site, the firm scores seven out of ten. Responsibility lies with the galleries themselves, and Skate’s grading is based on its appraisal of the quality of those galleries. But since there is no way to obtain a comprehensive list of the businesses involved—short of looking at each of the 40,000-plus works by more than 4,500 artists that are being offered by more than 150 galleries on the site—Skate’s had to base its judgement on a sample. “We looked at several works with several galleries and acted as collectors who wanted to purchase something,” Lipskaya says.

“We only have relationships with prestigious and known galleries because customer trust is very important to anyone, especially Amazon,” says Erik Fairleigh, a spokesman for Amazon.com. He could not confirm how Amazon defines “prestigious” and “known”.

Some of Amazon Art’s terminology is similarly loose. Paddle8 is labelled as a “featured gallery”, although it is actually an online auctioneer.

Complicating matters further is the possibility that galleries are operating under pseudonyms. When we broke the story about the launch of Amazon Art, at least one dealer said he had been told that his gallery could offer art under a pseudonym until the website became successful. (Amazon is unable to confirm or deny that, Fairleigh says.)

There are connections between Skate’s, Amazon and Paddle8. Skate’s was founded by Sergey Skaterschikov, who no longer controls the company but says he remains on its board. He is the managing director and a board member of Redline Capital Management, which recently acquired a stake of around 5% in Paddle8. Skaterschikov is also on the board of Paddle8, which is working with Amazon.

Source: The Art Newspaper