PARIS, Feb. 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Somewhat
counter-intuitively, the dematerialization of auctions has
not greatly improved the transparency of the secondary art
market. For sure, it has never been easier to bid for a work of
art, but the information required to appreciate the full quality of
a piece and to accurately gauge its value is no more precise in the
sales catalogs than it was before.
In some cases, it is also no longer possible to have any real
contact with a given lot before it goes under the hammer. Artprice
is therefore redoubling its efforts to offer a complete range of
tools that allow its members to follow all the works put up for
auction and fully understand the evolution of their prices.
"Online sales have not yet completely proven their
credentials" says thierry Ehrmann, President and Founder of
Artmarket.com and its Artprice Department. "There are still some
traces of mistrust regarding the quality of the lots included in
online-only sessions. Notably, there are rumours that estimates are
not exceeded as often as in live sales. In any case, the results
for 2020 show all the market's indicators positive territory. Even
the most sensitive of them, the unsold rate, has remained perfectly
stable".
Still too early to draw conclusions...
The high-end market has been particularly slow over the past
twelve months. For example, Jeff
Koons' annual turnover dropped 97% in 2020. Very few of his
major pieces were consigned for sale during the year, and the two
that were (with the highest estimates) failed to sell during live
("normal") sessions. Clearly, owners of Jeff Koons' works believe it is better to
wait.
As William Baumol discussed in
his 1986 article Unnatural Value, a sort of monopoly exists
for each and every work of art. Owning a single work, or one
produced in very few copies, necessarily introduces a form of
information asymmetry. Fortunately, this asymmetry can be reduced
by having an objective and reliable source of information, such as
the one offered by Artmarket.com via its Artprice subscriptions.
Its databases systematically list (i.e without any bias or
preference) all public auctions of works of art and this enhances
clarity regarding the price construction process.
Two types of essential information
Auctions constitute the sector of the art market that is
considered the most transparent since lot descriptions as well as
the results must be made public. However, not all relevant
information is always presented in a catalog, such as, for example,
the identity of the former owners of a work. Moreover, the websites
of auction operators – even those of the major houses – make it
very difficult to search for information on past sales of similar
works.
The notion of market "transparency" suggests primarily two types
of additional information which must be easily accessible: the
characteristics of all the products, but also, for each
product, the quantities offered and sought after.
The advantage of the services offered by Artprice subscriptions
is that they are based on an exhaustive and structured collection
of all the results of public auctions around the world. Our
standardization of the main characteristics of artworks –
dimensions, year of creation, auction estimates, references to
catalogues raisonnés, etc. – makes it easy to identify those
that match your precise search criteria.
Because the number of results can be very high, Artprice makes
available to its subscribers (Advanced and Professional) a complete
set of interactive statistics for each artist. These provide a
global and essential overview of past sales that includes
chronological price evolution, geographical distribution and
breakdowns by price range and category (medium).
Better fluidity... but not better transparency
The digitization of sales catalogs and the proliferation of
auction platforms have certainly improved the fluidity of the art
market. But transaction costs have not fallen… they have actually
risen. Moreover, the information disclosed by Auction Houses is not
more detailed. Artprice has however noticed one exception: certain
operators have taken to indicating number of bids recorded on each
lot during an online sale, thereby providing an additional measure
of the market's appetite.
In order to remain independent, Artprice has decided not to
allow bidding directly on its platform, preferring to provide
direct links to the websites of partner Auction Houses.
Artmarket.com and Artprice are therefore more than ever putting
everything in place to provide additional services to those offered
by the Auction Houses, by providing all players in the art market
with a reliable and impartial information platform.
Artprice wants to ensure that all its subscribers get
unlimited consultation of all past sales results (including those
catalogued in the Enrique Mayer publications since 1962
and those in Hippolyte Mireur's
famous Dictionary of Art Sales
(1700-1900)) and to all future sales, and to all
available decision-making tools.
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Artmarket is a global player in the Art Market with, among other
structures, its Artprice department, world leader in the
accumulation, management and exploitation of historical and current
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Artmarket with its Artprice department accumulates data on a
permanent basis from 6300 Auction Houses and produces key Art
Market information for the main press and media agencies (7,200
publications). Its 4.5 million 'members log in' users have access
to ads posted by other members, a network that today represents the
leading Global Standardized Marketplace® to buy and sell artworks
at a fixed or bid price (auctions regulated by paragraphs 2 and 3
of Article L 321.3 of France's
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Artmarket with its Artprice department, has been awarded the
State label "Innovative Company" by the Public Investment Bank
(BPI) (for the second time in November
2018 for a new period of 3 years) which is supporting the
company in its project to consolidate its position as a global
player in the market art.
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