Blog

PART 1

 

Here's a question worth pondering:  What do art collectors want?

 

Before I founded BoldBrush, I was in the gallery business for more than 16 years.  During that time, I developed an extremely strong implicit sense for what art collectors want.  But what explicitly do they want?

 

 

On True Art Collectors

 

When I say "art collectors", I'm specifically talking about "true" art collectors: an idea similar in concept to Kevin Kelly's idea of "true fans."   True art collectors go to art openings.  True art collectors seek out and meet artists.  True art collectors follow the careers of artists they love.  True art collectors have relationships with gallery people.  And true art collectors purchase works of art by artists they follow.  In fact, they often purchase multiple works of art by the same artists.  In the art industry, true art collectors are often referred to as "art addicts".   These people, of which I am one, can form the backbone of an artist's career.

 

There are, of course, other types of "collectors."  There are people who want a piece to go over the proverbial couch.  There are people who purchase a new home and hire a designer to fill it with art.   There are people who purchase art only when on vacation, in the heat of the moment.  There are even people who look like "true collectors" while they're filling their new home with art, but disappear once all the walls are full.   If you end up with customers like this, you might sell them a lot of art while they are filling their homes, or enjoying their vacations.  But afterward, likely nothing else.  True art collectors, on the other hand, don't let something as trivial as wall space stop them, and they generally keep purchasing art even when all their walls are full.  We proudly rotate pieces in and out of storage in our home (and are now filling the BoldBrush offices as well).

 

Most major art galleries are supported by building relationships with true art collectors. These are the people that great galleries nurture and support when there is no traffic in the gallery.  Add in designer purchases, tourism purchases, and new-home-buyer purchases and galleries can, if they hustle, do quite well. 

 

Put all those types of collectors together, and there are a lot of people out there who buy art.  And a big percentage of those art sales happen through traditional art galleries.  Unlike many industries, the art industry has yet to be fundamentally transformed by the internet, which makes this the big question:  is the internet ever going to disrupt the art industry?

 

 

PART 2

Is the Internet Ever Going to Disrupt the Art Industry?

 

We've all watched the internet completely disrupt many industries.  Record stores are gone.  Video rental stores are gone.  With the advent of the Kindle, while bookstores still exist, the book industry has completely changed.

 

Why has this not happened in art?   

 

Where is the Amazon or Netflix of the art industry?  Or, in the brick-and-mortar world, where is the Apple Store of the art world?  Why is the art world still dominated by many scattered, individual galleries rather than having consolidated into being dominated by a few large players?  Why hasn't the industry been disrupted driving a wave of consolidation, or a wave of closures?

 

While it is true that a lot of art galleries have closed their doors, most of the major ones have survived and even thrived.  In Game of Thrones speak, we've lost a lot of the small houses, but the "great houses", of the art industry are strong as ever.  In fact, the one site people might claim is trying to be a "Netflix of Art", Artsy, has built their entire business model around supporting the big art galleries, rather than disrupting them.   

 

So far, the internet has been far more of a boon to art galleries that a threat.  I would even argue that the internet is not at all a root cause of smaller galleries going under.  It's much more likely that the 2008 crash and the following recession were far larger factors than any "disruption" by internet sites.

 

But what about artists selling directly on the internet?  Isn't that driving galleries out of business?  Let's consider the case of a new artist: one who has never been represented by a gallery.  Certainly, that artist can set up a website and sell directly online.  But how does that artist get noticed?  As I'm fond of saying:  It's never been easier to publish and it's never been harder to get noticed. 

 

In the "old" days, that artist would need to get noticed by a gallery and, if the quality of the art was great, that wasn't too difficult: the artist simply had to enter the right shows, place a "seeking representation" ad in the right magazines, send a portfolio to the most likely galleries, or get a friend to refer them to a gallery.  These were concrete steps that advanced the artist's chances of getting in front of the right people.  And they were much more targeted steps than "set up a website and start posting on Facebook."   The galleries were then able to discover the artist and to advance that artists career in a way that, so far, has been difficult to recreate online.   

 

In fact, there was actually one advantage of the "old way":  It forced artists to stop and think about achieving a level of competence in their craft before approaching the gallery system and before offering their works for sell.  As much as it hurt, being rejected by several galleries was a clear signal to an artist that he needed to go back and improve his mastery further.   

 

Today, because it's almost too easy to set up an online portfolio and store, far too many artists, avoid that painful but necessary process of feedback and move quickly into the marketing and selling phase a long time before they are ready.  And the results are predictable: they don't sell, they are disappointed, and they bounce from online service to online service, frustrated.  They keep looking for that one magic service that would only "do a good job marketing my art."  But in many cases, the fix for lack of sales is to go back and fix the product.  In tech, we get feedback from customers, and we go back and rework our software until we achieve "product/market fit."  In the art world, it means getting feedback from master artists, gallerists, or other professionals, and going back and working on one's mastery of craft and improving the quality of one's paintings.  

 

So, rephrasing what I said above, it's easy to put your art online, but difficult to get true art collectors to pay attention to it.

 

I've been wondering why that is?  Why do art collectors still deal with art galleries?  Why don't more collectors just find new artist websites and start buying directly?  And pondering that question leads me full circle back to the more basic question that we opened with:  What do collectors want?

 

As I said above, while in the gallery business, I implicitly knew what collectors wanted.  But, if we're going to recreate it online and truly disrupt the art industry, we must go further.  We need to know explicitly what collectors want.

 

And, after letting my mind grind on this subject for a while, I think I have the answers.

 

 

 

What Do Art Collectors Want?

 

So what do true art collectors want?

 

I think they want the following elements:  Credibility, Curation, Spillover Effects, and Exclusivity.

 

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PART 3

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Credibility

 

Credibility is created at the intersection trust and context.  In the modern world, this trust and context often leads to what we call "brand loyalty."  Trust without context is irrelevant and is like asking your doctor for accounting advice.  And context without trust is, well, it's simply a lack of trust.  It's like having a dishonest CPA who really knows his stuff.   For accounting advice, you need both pieces: a CPA that you trust.

 

Back to art: in the context of contemporary realism paintings, I trust the judgment of Gallery 1261.  One might say that I'm "brand loyal" to Gallery 1261.  Repeated trust in the right context is a path to brand loyalty.  And that is the inherent downside with showing art in restaurants and coffee shops.  Your buyers might trust the restaurant brand.  But, generally, their trust in the restaurant is in the "dining experience" context, not in the "contemporary realism" (or other art) context.  (Unless of course the owner of the restaurant has specifically cultivated a reputation as an expert curator.)

 

This is part of why, for an unknown artist, simply setting up a website doesn't solve the issue of "replacing galleries".  If a collector doesn't know anything about you and comes across your website, it is difficult for you to establish credibility.  But if you are a young, unknown contemporary realism artist, and accepted by Gallery 1261, you instantly are conferred the credibility of being serious and worthy of attention from collectors.  It is transferred to you via the brand loyalty of those who trust Gallery 1261. 

 

By the way, this idea of credibility works both directions.  If I open a brand new contemporary realism gallery, it's going to be difficult, at first, for my gallery to have much credibility in the space.  But if I'm able to land a well-known, highly followed contemporary realism artist such as David Cheifetz, Aaron Westerberg, or Vincent Xeus in my new gallery, that will establish my credibility.

 

Of course, this is not a hard rule.  There are always exceptions.  There are plenty of collectors who are secure enough in their own evaluation of the artwork that they will purchase from you if the quality of the artwork is great.  And that's always a path to success: to "be so good they can't ignore you" as Steve Martin said.  But, in general, to sell online, to "replace galleries", it would help greatly to be able to somehow recreate the brand loyalty and credibility that galleries provide.  

 

As an artist with a stand-alone site, how you can signal credibility to your site visitors?   Here are some ideas:

 

1. Make sure you list any credible galleries that represent you.  I'm surprised how often artists don't do this.
   
   
2. Prominently display any awards you've won in major shows. 
   
   
3. Make sure you clearly indicate any major signature memberships you've obtained.  
   
   
4. Republish quotes from any master artists, gallerists or other respected art professionals on your homepage.
   
   
5. If a respected artist has mentored you, and earnestly sees promise in you, tactfully ask that artist if she would share her thoughts about you with her followers and subscribers.

 

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PART 4

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Curation

"It's never been easier to publish online, and it's never been harder to get noticed."  That statement captures the essence of a huge problem that exists online:  the huge amount of information and noise.  How is an art collector supposed to even find art to consider?  You can't expect a collector to look through thousands and thousands of websites.  Curation is and has always been the solution.  If you've ever visited one of the big, online galleries you know the problem.   I went to Saatchiart.com  and chose "paintings."  There are 627,460 paintings for me to choose from.   I don't want to look through that many artworks! 

 

How many individual artist websites exist?  FASO alone hosts more than 10,000.  Even if I want to purchase original art, where would I start?  Some people suggest a good search engine.   But what do I search for?  I don't know.  If I knew what I wanted to search for, then I wouldn't have a problem.   

 

But I don't purchase art by color, size, price or medium, which are typical art search engine parameters.  I buy art that I love.  Give me a search engine with a checkbox that says "Only show art that you love." 

 

What we need is a solution for the art collectors who are in "discovery mode."  And when someone is in discovery mode, search is not a great solution.  As Benedict Evans says "all search grows until it requires curation."   And indeed, the answer is curation which, essentially, is the function at which art galleries have traditionally excelled.  In fact, if I use the word "curator", most people will think of someone organizing an exhibit at a museum or gallery.  When an artist decides to forgo the gallery route and sell online, this curation piece is lost or greatly diminished.   

 

If the art industry is going to be disrupted, like other industries have been, then someone is going to have to come up with another way, besides traditional galleries, to solve the curation piece.   Curation is definitely something collectors want.  They want to focus their energies on artists who've passed certain milestones in the mastery of their craft, the quality of their art, and the likely track of their career.  This mostly means "emerging artists" and above.  And collectors rely on curators, mostly, but not only, traditional galleries, to help them judge when a given artist has passed those milestones.

 

Interestingly, even the curators look for curation.  I had an interesting conversation with the director of a major gallery not long ago.  He told me, "I look through the entries [of the BoldBrush Painting Competition] every month and watch closely who wins the awards. I know from my [talks with other gallery directors] that more and more galleries are watching too."

 

Curation is definitely a place where BoldBrush has tried to lead in the online space and it seems our efforts are being noticed.  We can expand those efforts and play a bigger role in improving curation options for artists beyond the traditional gallery system.  And we are working on that.

 

As an individual artist, the curation element is a difficult one to tackle on your own.  After all, every, artist wants attention on their artwork.  But that is the very problem that curation helps solve.  I do think artists could work together to recommend each other to their followers.   The sticky part is, to truly be curation, you'd have to only recommend your friends who were ready and who would truly appeal to your followers.  You can't recommend all your colleagues, or it's not curation.  I could see two benefits to this.  If you recommend a colleague, perhaps you can negotiate a percentage of sales that come from your followers.  That could help be a way to increase your income.  The second benefit would be reciprocal - you would ask your colleague to recommend you to his followers...expanding your reach.  The other thing you can do, if you're not in a gallery, is to work to get your art into places that naturally provide curation, such as the BoldBrush Painting Competition mentioned above.  Collectors and gallerists pay attention to the winners and finalists.  Obviously, such a strategy only works if you're fairly confident in your mastery of craft that you have a reasonable chance of being recognized.

 

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PART 5

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Spillover effects

During the time that Tiger Woods played on the PGA tour, he only played in half of the tournaments.  Here's an astonishing fact:  The difference in TV ratings between Woods and non-Woods tournaments was astounding: nearly 100 percent.   Yes, Tiger was twice as popular as everybody else on the tour...combined.  And Tiger's popularity had a "spillover effect" to the entire industry that helped all of the golfers on the PGA.  From the book The Content Trap:

 

For more than a decade, higher ratings benefited the entire sport.  During Wood's career, they meant higher advertising rates for networks and larger corporate sponsorships for the PGA tour.  Both increases in revenue were funneled back into larger prize money for the events, which benefited every top golfer.  the average award grew by 400 percent during Tiger's career.  Rival Phil Mickelson observed, "There's nobody in the game who has benefited more from Tiger than myself."

 

As I read that, it reminded me an awful lot of art galleries.  If an art gallery carries the work of Richard Schmid, think of the attention from collectors that will bring.  If, in my analogy, Richard Schmid is "Tiger", think of the huge spillover effect that having his work in the gallery brings to all the other artists hanging in the gallery. 

 

You can almost hear people looking at a new artist's work thinking, "well, if she's good enough to hang with Richard Schmid....."   You can see how the spillover effect is so strong that it can establish instant credibility (one of the other effects).  If you ran an unknown tournament and landed Tiger Woods:  Instant credibility.  And if you start an unknown art gallery and land Richard Schmid:  Instant credibility.  And amazing spillover effects to all of your other artists.

 

Of all the four elements, this is one of the most important, and, it seems to me, the most difficult to re-create online without an art gallery involved. 

 

Ideas to recreate spillover effects as an individual artist:  I think it's possible, but I think to do it, as I mentioned above, individual artists must be willing to work together and promote each other's artworks to a much greater degree than I've ever seen.  The main way I could see this working is if you had a well-respected artist who believed in you and was willing to recommend you publicly.  But that isn't exactly a spillover effect.  A real spillover effect would be having a respected artist agree to sell your works on her website (or let you sell her works on your website).  That way, the "famous" artist would be a continual draw, bringing potential collectors who would then notice your artwork.

 

To truly create spillover effects without a traditional gallery, let's do a thought experiment:  Imagine several respected artists get together and set up their own online art gallery.  They wouldn't obviously publicize that they own it, but it would be a sort of mini-brand in itself.   As an example, let's say six good painters set up this online gallery and all agree to provide artworks for sale.  They create a nice, artsy name, a great logo, and all link to it from their websites, email newsletters, and social media.  If done right, they all now benefit from ongoing spillover effects from the other five artists!

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PART 6

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Exclusivity

 

True collectors want exclusivity. 

 

Who doesn't want to feel special and part of an exclusive club? 

 

When I ran my gallery there was a very exclusive short list of top collectors who got first pick of each artist's work.  In fact, 80% or so of my personal sales each year were from less than 20 people...not 20% but 20 people.   Sometimes, if the artist was popular enough, we had to have an exclusive waiting list for buyers.   As an artist's career rises, this need for exclusivity among collectors seems to rise as well.  At the extreme high end, it can even border on absurdity.  I had lunch recently with a very well known western artist.  He told me about one of his colleagues, who is perhaps the best known living western artist in the world.  This particular artist's works now sell upwards of two million dollars...each.   And here's the interesting (and relevant) part:  that famous artist's current, entire collector base consists of only five people.  That is exclusivity with a capital "E."

 

Traditional art galleries understand this desire for exclusivity and they capitalize upon it.  They offer their best collectors first pick of new works, access to exclusive events and other exclusive benefits. 

 

Of all the things that collectors want this is the easiest one for an individual artist to recreate without an art gallery.  Not only can you create exclusive experiences for your collectors, but you can do it in a way that is better than an art gallery.  After all, who's in a better position to offer exclusive access to an artist's work or an artist's time than the artist herself?

 

 

 

What Art Collectors Want

 

So there you have it:  What I think true collectors want when evaluating artists and artworks to collect:

 

1.  Credibility of the artist as established by some third party or brand they trust.

 

2.  Curation of artists and artworks:  meaning someone else, a trusted and knowledgeable party, sorts through the noise and shows collectors relevant artists that are "worthy" of attention, interest and time of the collector.

 

3.  Spillover effects - this is a major way collectors discover new artists.  They follow an artist they know and, in doing so, discover an artist they didn't know of.  You can reach far more collectors through spillover effects than through search.

 

4.  Exclusivity - they want first choice of new promising artists and first choice of artworks by artists they follow.

 

 

Can these four things be recreated online without traditional art galleries?  I think so, but I'm not sure.  It might be that the galleries themselves evolve to disrupt themselves.  Or it might be something completely new.  Whatever happens, I don't think that recreating these elements online has (yet) been successfully done at scale.  In future articles, I'll explore some additional ways I think you might possibly be able, to some degree, recreate these things without an art gallery in your own marketing efforts.

 

In the meantime, I've shared with you what I think collectors want, what do you think?

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Clint Watson

Software Craftsman and Art Fanatic