Village Savant™

We visited MOMA first to see the Between Art & Life exhibit which includes a Barry McGee installation comprised of hundreds of sketches, photos and ephemera. It was a revisit to the "classic" Barry (1996) that we've always admired. Around the corner from Barry's work is a great panoramic of Kara Walker's...lifesize silhouettes akin to Victorian storytelling but tales of the social battles we still see today. We moved on down to the Liechtenstein exhibit...no surprises there...except for Anthony of the Red Hot Chili Peppers roaming around with a girlfriend in a matching peacoat. No one took advantage of the photo opp of them reenacting one of Liechtenstein "kissing" series...much to their disappointment. (Maybe in town promoting his new book?)

We headed over to the mission and did our usual check in with Creativity Explored. We love what they do and the artwork that comes out of there is amazing (CE is a nonprofit visual arts center where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell art.) We purchased two John McKenzie pieces....one of my favorites by him is the t-shirt they sell that says: "most tailless animals don't like war".

Onto the Adobe Books (16th & Guerrero) benefit art auction. Except for the backroom, the art is placed so high above the bookshelves I couldn't really see the art. From the sounds of it, most of the audience were participating artists waiting to see what their work went for...which was very cheap. Having gone thru that same experience at the recent Artists for Kerry Auction, I'll pass on some observations from that experience, as well as from conversations we keep having with both artists and some of the buyers. (Keep in mind we are not talking about Sotherby / Christie auctions or high end genres with Basquiat and Warhol. We are talking in the context of our genre of art and grass roots or small organizations.)

1. Curators & Collectors
Many times the lure for an artist to participate is the promise of curators and collectors attending. While there may be a chance one of these coveted persons may glance at your work, fall in love and bid the bank account on it, the chance is very minimal. Most collectors & curators tend to look at bodies of work, and become familiar with the artist's story. At best, I would say that It may raise awareness for someone to look into you later in their leisure time.

2. Quality of Art
Because of the aforementioned point, if you do decide to participate in an auction....send in your BEST work. Not a piece you've had at the bottom of a pile that you could care less about. We have often overheard potential buyers say "I can't believe that's hers, she usually does these amazing such and such..." It should be your signature work...not some new experiment you want to try out. It should also be presented well (an inexpensive frame helps tons), signed, and ready to hang. (If it's not, you're leaving it up to some auction committee member to figure out what to do with it....not a wise thing to do.)

3. Be Selective
Artists are, for the most part, some of the most passionate, caring people out there....they're "givers." One artist recently told me he was committed to no less than SEVEN local art auctions. All I could say to him was, "why on earth would anyone pay retail for your art ever again?!" In hindsight, with all of the art auctions, why should anyone buy anyone's art work for retail again? Choose art auctions that are well run, feel organized and is for a cause you really believe in.

4. Pricing
The same scenario plays over and over again....especially in the "local artists" market. Artists get a little recognition in their immediate area and start adding zeros to their work. The retail price is not real market price (remember simple economics: suppy and demand.), so it's a bit inflated.

Truth is, people buy what they want, when they want. Don't take it personally. And don't put yourself through the drama of thinking that the auction is a direct reflection to your value. One has very little to do with the other. We sold a work recently at the Artists for Kerry auction that to be honest, I was a bit troubled to even have it in the show....I didn't feel the quality was there, either conceptually nor technically. Sure enough, someone's starting bid was the retail value of $1000....the point is that the artwork spoke to that particular buyer, on that particular day, in that moment and for a cause they felt strongly about. For this buyer and artist, all the planets were aligned. So it can go either way, don't put too much stock in it.

5. Promotion
We sit in on alot of different meetings regarding promotion and marketing. When it comes to these art auctions though, I think much of the thinking (starting with the auction committee) is that each artist "will let all of their collectors know they are participating and they'll come in droves!" Meanwhile, the artists are thinking that they've done their portion of the work by donating and the job of marketing is up to the auction committee to bring in all those "money people."

Both are right.

It takes a concerted effort of both parties to effectively market the event. Personal invitation is always the best...we receive lots of invites to shows and events, and the ones that wrote us a little note are usually the ones we make a concerted effort to go see. Mass marketing is a bust. If you send out 10,000 invites, and by mere laws of percentage averages, if even 1% shows up that's 100 people. But most of us actually KNOW 150 - 200 people we can actually personally invite and have a much better and meaningful time. Much of the problem with these auctions is that the majority of the people in the audience IS the artist and / or their spouse or guest.

It is the auction committee's job to keep up the momentum of press releases and calendar listings. There's a lot of competition for our attention and if you don't remind them again and again that this is coming up, they may forget and go see a movie.

6. Sell the artist, before bidding begins
If you do participate in an auction, give the auctioneer something to tell the audience about you....recent exhibits, awards, etc. We've seen instances of desperation break out mid bid hawking like "folks, keep in mind what a great cause this is" and "folks this artist is a really nice guy that deserves your support"...too little, too late, too whiny. Give the auctioneer some useful info about you to add to the value of your art BEFORE bidding begins.

7. Are auctions bad for the business of art?
So all of this has got us wondering what impact, if any, these auctions will have on the business of art. Are we conditioning potential buyers into a K-Mart mentality in regards to art? Or is it really good promotion for the artists? Is it a grooming grounds for emerging collectors? And finally, if it does raise enough money for the art space's rent this month, what's going to happen next month? It may not solve long term problems, and a few people get some nice art in the meantime. It'll be interesting to see, in the next few years as these auctions get more rampant, if these art auctions truely benefit the artists, the organizations and the buyers.