Technological innovation and the art market ? AMA

Paris, 18 September 2012. Art Media Agency (AMA).

In occasion of the International Art Industry Forum (IAIF) taking place on 19 and 20 September 2012 in Vienna, in partnership with the ViennaFair, we might question the importance of technological innovation in the art market, which is constantly evolving and booming. This market seems indeed to be one of the lasts to be trusted in these times of crisis for most Western powers. The IAIF was designed to give an account of this market and its current state, linked with the ever-growing importance of technological innovation. It will gather professionals of various fields, art investment, art insurance, art lending, art consulting, multimedia services, online commercial platforms, as well as gallery and auctions experts. This event is expected to be a combination of art and business, and will discuss the advantages technological innovation can bring to the art market.

For some years now the art market has been blossoming on the Internet, thus following the path previously traced by cinema and music. With MP3 and streaming the artistic offer is being changed. From now on, less and less people buy albums and go to cinema. These two forms of artistic expression are trying to hold on and adapt. Some are totally opposed to this radical change and urge the governments to get stricter (as for the Hadopi law). Others try and respond to it, as for instance French artist PV Nova whose last album is on free download, the website visitors paying whatever price they wish to.

A most important question then arises: will the art market follow the same path as music an cinema did?? Will the difficulties be the same, or new ones, will it succeed in adapting to technological innovation and make profit from it, whether it is the Internet or other technologies? Won?t the Internet eventually harm the art market?

Every day, this prolific art market is being conquered by the Internet. The way we look ?to artworks may change, and for some they become nothing but a link and picture on a screen. The rapport between the professional and the individual, collector or amateur, is fading away, or at least is weakening. Purchasing artworks goes now more and more through the Internet. But two categories must be defined. The first is that of pre-existing institutions willing to take advantage of the Internet boom, while the second category is that of online companies created only when technological trend became so universal.

This first category includes great auction houses like Sotheby?s and Christie?s willing to have their own life on the Web, with some difficulties at the beginning. In 2011, visits to Christie?s website increased by 77%, and the online auctions by 25%. The Internet hosts now 29% of the auctions? total turnover. Auction houses also use the Internet to present and publish their catalogue. The H?tel Drouot for instance offers a direct broadcast of the auctions on its website and allows the users to bid. Auctions are then open to a wider public, which is a benefit for auction houses. Since the use of the Internet has proved profitable, these rates will certainly increase in the future. The second category composed of online auctions websites seems to reach its zenith. Websites such as Antiquities-Saleroom.com and Artprice.com, and even to a lesser extend eBay, are the rising stars of this virtual scene. The most famous example is by no doubt Artnet, which unfortunately goes through some internal difficulties nowadays. Indeed Artnet is willing to be a database, an auction house and a magazine, an opening door to the art world, but exclusively online. The website allows artworks estimation and analysis, purchasing and selling, and even access to basic information. Actually the Internet allows the art market to reach beyond experts and professionals that speak a jargon impenetrable for most people. The phrase ?Art for all? has now come to some meaning. The Internet allows everyone interested in art to enter it. The Art.sy project, supported by some major art market actors from all over the world is a perfect example of this will to make art accessible and comprehensible for all. Since the Internet cannot offer a face-to-face meeting between galleries and clients (or aficionados), the website, thanks to ?The Art Genome Project?, advises visitors on works they may be interested in. As many websites, Art.sy presents a selection of artworks depending on the visitor?s previous data. Artkhade, a new database on Asian, Oceanian, African and American art is also a perfect example of this phenomenon, of this intention ?of opening the art market, previously? destined to the elite. Artkhade lists the auction results, thanks to a ?tag? system which allows a very simple access to the desired data and works. However, the Internet is not the one and only proof of the importance of technological innovation for the art market. Galleries, museums and other institutions have discovered a new wayof capturing the attention and attract potential purchasers. For instance, more and more iPhone, iPad and Android apps are being created. The Cisneros Foundation will launch in 2013 a collection of eBooks, a digital version of the acclaimed Conservaciones series. As many others, the foundation gets into much trouble to invest in the digital world. Canadian museums, or the Palais de Tokyo cannot escape it either. Indeed the Civilization and War Museums have adapted their websites to smartphones, which are being more and more used. They are highly functional and even include a GPS guiding safely the visitor into the museums. The Palais de Tokyo as well, in partnership with Orange, launched a mobile app in order to allow an easier visit, better information for the public and to encourage its coming back. Another example, Nuage Editions will release on 17 October a book application allowing to rediscover Da Vinci?s Mona Lisa on our tablets. The use of new technologies is truly allowing art and its market to be rediscovered. Moreover, the Louvre?s virtual visits and the usual audioguides have been replaced by 5000 Nintendo 3DS since April 2012. Their very simple use and ability to show 3D images without glasses have seduced the museum. It is true that, Nintendo being familiar to many visitors under 30 and families, it shows the museum as a pleasant place, explains Agn?s Alfrandri, in charge of the Louvre?s multimedia services. This propensity to technological innovation is not reserved only to museums, on the contrary. Galleries let themselves be tempted, proposing more functional and attractive websites interfaces. DigitisedArt for instance allows galleries, artistic fairs and collectors to virtually manage and share their collections. Available on computer, iPhone and iPad, DigitisedArt is intended as a top-quality technological, functional tool. Depending on financial possibilities, technological innovation may even be significant in the very organisation of a gallery or a fair. It is indeed highly probable certain internationally known galleries should propose iPads to their visitors, in order to inform them about the exhibited works, their prices and the artists. We have clearly entered a 2.0 era for the art market.

However as for the cinema and music market, for the art market as well the Internet seems to cause some problems: illegal downloading for cinema and music, fakes and imitations for the art market. The Internet is a real bazar, where one cannot know true from false. This art market movement to the Internet certainly allows a greater accessibility, but also constitutes a dreadful trap for the profane, and even for professionals. One can find Picasso paintings for 450 $ only (cheaper than branded shoes, says the New York Times). These are indeed only reproductions, since Sotheby?s estimates 100 M $ a single painting of the artist. To establish a work?s authenticity is getting harder and harder, especially with no possibility to actually see it. Some fields of the art market are thus completely obstructed. Being the online art market so prolific, it has become very easy to present fakes among the works put to sale. Besides, the experts explain the ?certified and authenticated? mention is worthless. A parallel can therefore be made between other Internet phenomenons, whose authenticity is being questioned, as for instance Twitter accounts. Online auctions are the first victims of these fakes; what was already difficult to state in a ?real? auction house is even more difficult online. A Chinese businessman forged a false jade suit, authenticated by experts and estimated 375 M $: we may think counterfeiting has now no limits. Some Matisse works will continue being sold for nothing, and those who sell them will continue getting rich thanks to credulous buyers. Moreover, even when a work proves to be a fake or reproduction, it is difficult to bring suit. Sellers might not be found, or the website, like eBay, might not consider these cases, leaving the deceived purchaser to deal with it by himself. Websites like Antique-Saleroom.com do take some measures to prevent such things. The sale is thus finalized only when the purchaser is completely satisfied. However one cannot be certain of the authenticity. Fake affairs reached a new level when gallery owner David Crespo was accused of having sold Picasso fakes. He purchased them years before for 50.000 $, believing them to be authentic. When he realised the fraud, he contacted unsuspicious clients and sold them for over 100.000 $ each, providing each time authenticity certificates. We can therefore see that the Internet, in some way, alters the art market. Moreover, purists declare technology might harm art. Why should you go to a museum, if you can see all the works on the Internet? Wouldn?t virtual visits and apps commercially damage museums, for people would stop visiting? Visual criteria tend to disappear, but this doesn?t mean? overnight museums, galleries and fairs will be deserted, only because everything can be found and seen online. On the contrary, to see real artworks remains for most people a true achievement. Tourists go to the Louvre to see Mona Lisa?? in flesh and bone?, while they have almost surely already seen a reproduction of ?it in a book or on the Internet.

In these times of globalisation, the art market is developing and modernising. As for cinema and music, the raptures of the Internet induce as many miracles as disappointments. It certainly allows the art market to reach a new public, but as well favours the selling of fakes and imitations. Lawsuit being impossible, deceived purchasers cannot have their money back. This explains the development of organisations for the protection of the artists? rights and against the Internet fakes. Galleries, museums and fairs are being attracted by these new technologies, and create websites and apps in order to reach a ?geek? public, for whom technology has no secret. Since even great auction houses make profit of the Internet and new services are being offered to collectors and gallery managers, it is highly probable technological innovation in the art market will continue to develop: to serve the art market through technology then seems not a negligible idea.

Source: http://www.artmediaagency.com/en/52431/technological-innovation-and-the-art-market/

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