A brand new report says many gallerists are pissed off on the rising prices and excessive dangers of taking part within the massive quantity of art fairs, with “middling” returns.
First Thursday, a London-based gross sales intelligence firm, spoke with 56 industrial galleries throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America for its inaugural Art Fair Report. A number of the interviews came about instantly on the flooring of Frieze, Artwork Basel, Unbiased, TEFAF, and Artwork SG.
The report discovered that just about half of the galleries (46 p.c) surveyed spent over £30,000 ($40,000) to attend a single honest, and almost one in 5 galleries (24 p.c) spent between £50,000 and £100,000. This correlates with the 83 per cent of respondents who cited excessive participation prices as the largest problem to exhibiting at gala’s, adopted by 77 per cent of respondents who mentioned the uncertainty of gross sales was the following greatest problem.
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“The mannequin feels unsustainable at current,” one gallerist mentioned.
Different feedback from respondents included within the report mentioned the excessive participation charges “drive galleries to play it protected” however “youthful galleries solely make it in in the event that they suggest extra daring displays and subsequently bear all of the [financial] threat,” and the way rising galleries have to promote quite a lot of works to cowl their bills.
Because of these excessive prices and uncertainty about gross sales, the report mentioned galleries are rethinking their participation methods, with 31 p.c of respondents saying they’d attend fewer gala’s.
“Fairly than increasing, many galleries are selecting to slim down their schedules and concentrate on a smaller variety of key gala’s the place they imagine the return will probably be greatest,” the report acknowledged, noting some galleries talked about shifting funding to digital platforms, social media, and digital advertising and marketing.
Greater than half of the galleries surveyed (57 p.c) had been in operation for greater than 10 years, and nearly all of galleries centered on rising (77 p.c) and mid-career artists (72 p.c) somewhat than late-career or property artists (25 p.c). The galleries surveyed attended a median of 4.4 artwork gala’s per 12 months, with solely 9 p.c attending 10 or extra.
Galleries surveyed by First Thursday mentioned they wished gala’s to “decrease participation and manufacturing prices, extra versatile codecs similar to cut up cubicles or commission-based fashions, and improved VIP and collector engagement,” together with curated introductions and instruments that may assist convert curiosity into gross sales after the honest.
Even with excessive prices and gross sales uncertainty, the overwhelming majority of respondents (71 p.c) mentioned publicity to new audiences was essentially the most beneficial a part of taking part in artwork gala’s, in comparison with gross sales and income era (57 p.c) and networking with collectors (57 p.c).
Notably, regardless of the recognition of on-line artwork gross sales, most galleries surveyed by First Thursday are nonetheless utilizing analog strategies of pen and paper to document inquiries at their cubicles (83 p.c) and counting on enterprise playing cards (60 p.c). Solely 31 p.c of galleries surveyed by First Thursday entered leads right into a buyer relationship administration (CRM) system instantly.
