EVOLUTION OF ART INDUSTRY

MBABANE – As the world entered a new decade three years ago, growth has been seen in the arts sector, with the local scene reaching global markets.

In art there were summaries of the previous years and decades just gone. Lists of artists, curators, exhibitions, price milestones and the like, all of which exerted some seminal influence upon the new era. But what will this year, and future years to come, look like in the art world? Even the term ‘art world’ is considered an obsolete phrase, as many have commented that it can now only be correctly identified as the art industry; such has been the exponential growth of all relevant metrics.

The art world, or industry as we have established, is worth an estimated US$67 billion (over E1.2 trillion) annually. It is also an unregulated field, representing an asset class that has out performed every other investment vehicle over the last 50 years, according to the comprehensive Sotheby’s Mei Moses Price Indices. As such, it has proven susceptible to fraudulent activity, as embodied in the recent high profile case involving secondary market dealer Inigo Philbrick and his alleged misrepresentations and misdemeanours.

For local artists the effort has paid off, as they will now see their artwork being showcased all over the world and they will be paid what they deserve for their work. For years, locals artists have gotten way less for their final art pieces compared to what international artists would get for the same work. This change has come after Yebo Art Gallery paved a way for artists and ultimately being awarded a platform for local artists work to be seen globally.
“Eswatini has massive talent and for years now the growth that is being seen is enormous. Art is now excisable and more than that, the massive talent is the country can speak for itself on a global market,” mentioned Yebo Art Gallery Director Aleta Armstrong.

Overselling

The art industry is filled with stories of dealers and collectors who have come into conflict with each other, most often involving some or all of price transparency; agreed net, gross and margins; legal authority to represent works for sale; remittance of funds; overselling of shares in works, plus many other variations on these themes. In cases such as these, investors can pay for a share of a painting often with little or no knowledge as to who holds title to the work; who the other interested parties might be; who the seller has fiduciary responsibility towards and how many or who other investors might be.

Cases exist of an artwork having being sold by 300 per cent or more. An international arts dealer, Millie McKellen, who has bought over 50 pieces in the kingdom from local artists mentioned how the country needed to showcase its art more to the world as there is a visible niche for authentic, African art pieces. “I love how digitisation has made everyone aware and I say this because I wouldn’t have known how talented people from Eswatini and Africa are as a whole if it wasn’t for Artsy. The world of art is yet to see the best from all over the globe,” mentioned McKellen.
Emerging block chain technology could have the potential to resolve some or all of these issues.

‘Blocks’ on the block chain are made up of digital pieces of information, storing information about transactions like the date, time and Dollar amount. Blocks can also store information about who is participating in transactions, either through names or through the anonymity of digital signatures.

However, even though the technology is well positioned to enable new levels of transparency on an artwork’s history, as well as irrefutable proof of ownership, there are myriad potential providers, all with varying degrees of establishment and trust, and none of which have achieved a kind of accepted industry standard status usage and consensus. It remains to be seen if a de facto force emerges in this intriguing sector.

There was a time when galleries represented artists they discovered, making their premises, mission and all creative and business energies geared towards developing careers of those they each identified as the generational talents of their time and place. This practice is essentially what earned contemporary galleries their ‘contemporary’ moniker - their focus on the ‘new art, now’ of emerging artists and subsequent shepherding of their journeys to established, mid-career and all being well, eventual blue chip status.

Then the art world changed and business opportunities in secondary market trading became recognised as significant income drivers, with galleries advising their collector communities on the asset class potential and investment tactics inherent in the ‘right’ choice of acquisitions.

Recognition

The last decade has seen many well established and mid-tier galleries with impeccable reputations and seemingly bullet proof businesses close their doors for good. While the details of these cases are often pertinent to the personal situations and choices of their proprietors, it is an inescapable reality that many of the contemporary art world’s top artists (measurable by institutional recognition, renown among collectors and consistently high and growing market prices) have left well regarded representation in order to be recruited by the galleries at the top of the food chain.

These stellar rosters are now the almost exclusive preserve of what has become known as the mega-gallery, a small coterie of players commonly understood to include Gagosian, David Zwirner, PACE and Hauser and Wirth, with a handful of others part of, or with the potential to join, this exclusive club.

Characterised by huge lists of represented talent, museum quality exhibitions, production values akin to Hollywood studios, publishing and content empires to add lustre (and scholarship) to brand value, and multiple branch locations often designed by pre-eminent starchitects in the world’s major art capitals, these behemoths account for a high percentage of all art traded globally.

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