Does It Take a Shark?

In a reversal of the frequent number of articles in the Arts section of The New York Times that discuss the current art market, I was pleased this morning to see an article in the Business section that discusses how "many business travelers are finding ways to turn their travel for work with time for cultural and historical sightseeing." Pleased, that is, until I read it:

As work is increasingly making inroads into leisure time, many business travelers are finding ways to turn that equation around — combining their travel for work with time for cultural and historical sightseeing.

“Cultural tourism can be an extension of business, it’s not just fluff,” said Patricia Martin, a marketing consultant and author of “Ren Gen: Renaissance Generation” (Platinum Press, 2007).

It was daring of the reporter to include that quote on "fluff," as the entire following article can be summarized as "One person I talked to stopped to visit a cultural institution on a business trip, then another one did the same, then a different one did the same, then another one did same...." By the end of the article I was wondering whether the paper's readers wouldn't have benefited more from a blank space in which to take notes or mindlessly doodle. There were no trends cited or insights offered other than the fact that so many people have to bring Blackberry's on their vacations (because their work day never ends) that it's no wonder they squeeze in some cultural activities between convention halls and airports. Only whereas I conveyed that idea in 30 words, the Times article did so in about 950.

Mind you, I'm a bit jet lagged (got in late from London last night) and the fair was hard work (more on that later), so I'm sure I'm being harsher on the reporter than she deserves, but I was truly looking forward to the article, based on the teaser on the Business section front page, and by the end of it was annoyed I had read the whole thing. I'm not sure what I expected really (insights into the broadening of art's appeal to the middle classes, I guess), but it did dawn on me by the end of it that the depth of "art" discussed in that article is actually about par with the depth of "business" discussed in most articles in the arts section. It's understandable that most business people are perhaps perplexed by art, but it's actually quite surprising how many art people are so perplexed, if not totally laissez-faire, about the factors that affect their business.

Which brings me back to London. Among the topics that dominated after-fair drinking sessions were (surprise, surprise) anxieties about the market, the sky-rocketing costs of doing art fairs, the desire to sell more work in the actual galleries (rather than at fairs), how the business is evolving/responding to such matters, etc., etc., etc. With very few exceptions, though, most of us hashing out these issues don't have much pure business expertise. None of us had MBAs or were schooled in the subtleties of market influences. Most of us come from art history backgrounds or were artists before we opened galleries. We may well have good instincts with regards to the the ins and outs of the quirky, secretive, unregulated art market, but that's almost exclusively reactionary in nature. I can count on one hand the number of galleries, for example, I know who changed the business through innovation or instincts. What other thriving business can you say that about? This despite the fact that the market has grown so large now that it will almost assuredly have to evolve to where it begins to behave more like other markets (more on that later this month).

There's another article in the Times today about the Damien Hirst piece that's on exhibition at the Met for the next three years. This one's in the Arts section and only tangentially discusses financial issues, but it served as a fitting metaphor for what I feel is the key to the changes we're all about to witness in the art market. Here's the piece in question: Damien Hirst, “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living”

Clearly there are business geniuses in the contemporary art market. Larry Gagosian turned a poster shop into an international conglomerate. There are others I admire for their savvy as well. But most gallerists (at least at our level) run their spaces like Mom and Pop shops, and as much as I love both the feel and overall aesthetic of such spaces (and as much as I feel that "Art" is better served by such an approach), there's no mistaking that scent in the air...that electrical smell that foretells of an approaching storm. Nice people with nice galleries are possibly going to be swept away in the resulting torrent. Auction houses are already buying galleries, and rumors of other models for corporate-like takeovers are swirling. Bigger fish, with killer instincts, will be fine, of course, but something somewhere simply has got to give. There will be something like 23 art fairs in Miami this year. The only people seeing all of them will be endurance-based performance artists. Many of the participating galleries will not recoup the costs of their booths. It's almost a statistical certainty. Will the smell of blood in water with so much money involved bring 'em circling?

Mind you, the best advice the experts can give for escaping unscathed should a shark advance upon you is to punch it as hard as you can in the nose. I'm not sure that will provide as much business satisfaction as it might personal satisfaction in the coming art market evolution, though, so I'm more inclined to think the more nimble a smaller fish can be, the better are their odds of swimming circles around any predators. du dun du dun, du dun du dun